Rick Steves Experiencing Europe

[Music] thank you thank you so much wow all right hey I I'm so excited to be here because I'm going to share the lessons I've learned from a lifetime of traveling in Europe I just love doing this I love going to Europe I I go to Europe every year for 100 days I make all the mistakes I take careful notes now I get ripped off and when I get ripped off I celebrate because they don't know who they just ripped off I'm going to learn that scam and come home and share it with all of you okay so how many of you have been to Europe before can I see a show of hands well-traveled crowd no surprise anybody here because they have a trip actually coming up in the next 10 15 years good well I've been to Europe several times this year and I've got a tradition of getting a selfie on the deck pack and light there you see I'm packing light we're going to talk about packing light later and heading off to Europe I've been doing this 100 days a year ever since I was a kid and uh that was me as a kid doing the same thing and it never gets old that's what's really exciting to me it it never gets old and the cool thing is the more you are prepared the better experience you're going to have right now way back when I was a teenager I had no idea I would be a travel writer or a guide book writer or a tour guide I just I was a piano teacher and I would travel in the Summers cuz kids wouldn't practice and I'll see in the fall but I was fish writing my journal and keeping notes this was when I was 18 years old 1973 and if you can look at this this was the last pages of my journal and uh there's H right here it says 70 nights in Europe average 84 cents a night for my accommodations now half of those accommodations were free as you can see so it was about a dollar and a half a night but it was really cheap back then of course it's much more expensive now but the value of having good information and the value of taking advantage of somebody else's experience is really important and what I've found even now uh you know just uh so many decades later I just love helping people plan their trips um just a couple months ago my neighbors were heading off to Europe they were taking one of our tours and they were going over early and they're going to stay later and I just said come on by I'd love to make sure that you know what you're going to do before your trip and after your trip and it occurred to me this is really important stuff your trip is important we Americans have the shortest vacations in the rich world so we got to use our time carefully we always want to stretch our travel dollar more and if you do it right you'll enjoy maximum travel Thrills for every mile minute and dollar enjoy the planning stage of your trip okay clearly the more you bring with you an understanding the more you'll get out of it so that's what I want to talk about right now bottom line in your itinerary planning is you've got to do your homework so you know how to get the most out of every day are you just going to go to all the famous places with some sort of a typical bucket list or are you going to make it more tailored to your dreams and your interests I like to get off the beaten path I want to see the famous sites but I also want to see what I call back doors this place is called chibita Debo it's two hours north of Rome near the town of Oro now it doesn't really matter because tonight we're not talking about a specific place I'm talking fundamentals you've got this kind of magic all over Europe if you do your homework okay find this place somehow keeping its head above the flood of the 21st Cy it's very rewarding we want to find places that somehow missed the modern boat here's my favorite chunk of the Italian Riviera the UT now the nice thing about these kind of places is they're not geared up they don't have the infrastructure for lots of mass tourism look at this little village here there's no modern buildings now you're going to see the famous places you're going to see rotenberg under talber I mean if you go to Germany you got to see rodenberg if you go to France you got to see mon Michelle if you go to Italy you got to see San Min you know these are very touristy places but they're touristy for good reason what we want to do is think of a way to enjoy these places without the tour crowds it's really important um Venice is a very good example Venice is mobbed with tourists I think one reason Venice is sinking is it just wasn't designed to support all that weight of humanity during the middle of the day it's mobbed all the cruise groups are there all the mass tourism staying on hotels on the mainland comes in for the day trip at night it becomes a small town of 60,000 people so what we want to do is spend the night we are tourists we need to get a picture of us in this big shoe let's be honest there's nothing wrong with that it's fun but I want to remind you that it is Big Business you know the tourism is a major source of employment a a major source of foreign Revenue it's a big deal in these countries and there's a lot of promotional budget is trying to shape your travel dreams as consumers and we are consumers you've got to assess why is this information coming at me and should I let it shape my trip okay you need to be a smart consumer most Travelers or or many Travelers let's put it that way are not very clever when it comes to figuring out what's worth their precious vacation time as I mentioned we Americans have the shortest vacations in the rich world we need to use our time smartly now the typical American traveler that doesn't do any homework before their trip they arrive in Amsterdam they walk down the main drag Dam rack you've all been there if you've been to Amsterdam and you just are attracted to it as a tourist because it's got all the little come on and the advertisements and right there between Hooters and the Hard Rock Cafe you've got what looks like a friendly tourist information office and they're selling tickets to the most important sites in town and they're all on sale look at this you're in Amsterdam for two in your life and you could spend all that time seeing Madam tcads The bodyw Works the Ice Bar the torture dungeon and the Heineken beer experience no these are commercial gimmicks suckering people in that don't have a guide book where's Anne Frank where's Van go where's rembrand where's the Dutch resistance Museum I mean there's so much real culture real art Real History that's not a commercial Venture these are privately owned little business making gimmicks they're fun if you want to do it fine but don't think this is the entire menu because this is what pays to get to your awareness this is what pays to be in the little racks in the hotel lobby you know not an Franks all right so as smart consumers you need to take the reins and know what's going to shape your travel dreams I think it's really important in our travels to see the touristy stuff but I Al also think it's really important to just feel the pulse of today's Europe today's Europe every City's got a wonderful District that has no postcards no tourist at all this is reality in Paris not the arc to Triumph the ark de la defant it's a big business park it's a shopping mall it's where people go to work and eat and entertain and live outside of the center you know in Paris like so many cities you've got a zoning situation within the circular ring road everything has to be lower than the manart roofs and lower than the church spires and they protect it it's great and that's where the tourists gather outside of that ring road you can have all sorts of skyscrapers in modern Commerce I wouldn't focus on this but to go to Paris and not see a little bit of this reality you're missing a big part of it okay you got your dose of reality now we can wallow in that medieval wonder and I love it I just love going to the castles and the half timbered Villages and The Vineyards and all that that's our dream and that's good see but we got to understand that's the the touristy end of it in a lot of cases and we need that balance now when it comes to finding Medieval Europe I think we got to remember that our dreams sometimes are not what they think they are if I said medieval castles in Germany on a river you would probably think what the Rind the rine that's where all the castles are right but I will tell you your image of the r is probably the mosul it's the little sister of the the r that comes into the Ry at the town of coens you got here you got the Meandering River you got the beautiful vineyards blanketing the hills you got half timbered Charming towns and you got ruined castles so you can hike up to Sea it's your R dream come true and it's not the Rind the rine is a muscular River with traffic on both sides and lots of trains and lots of noise lots of big hotels it's great I love the Rind but I bet you will love the Mosel more so it's in your court to do that studying and make your itinerary work for you the more you bring to your sightseeing the more you'll get out of it you don't need to be a historian you don't need to be a scholar you just need to be curious enough to do your reading ahead of time and then when you go to a windmill you can understand it if you go to a windmill and you don't know what an Archimedes screw is you don't understand a windmill you know I mean think about it when you go to a windmill this was centuries ago the ingenious Dutch figured out this clever way to harness wind power and then through different gears turn that power and then it would turn this Archimedes screw and that would go down into the water and by turning it it would pump the water from below over the Dy and out into the sea and then bail out all that land reclaimed from the sea and then they'd turn it into fertile farmland and the Netherlands would become quite powerful and and Wealthy because of windmills so I'll tell you in the tourism industry they make more money when they dumb you down you know and I'll just speak from a tourism point of view but in so many ways in our society there are powerful forces that would find it more profitable and more convenient if we're all just dumbed down and tour guides have very little incentive to smarten you up but for your experience if you can be a little smarter in your sightseeing you'll have a better trip it's really great it's really great when you can do that now art and museums can be quite a challenge and I know a museum can ruin a good vacation just because a big museum is famous doesn't mean all of its art is worth seeing you know it's exhausting the biggest building in a lot of ways uh historically near was the Lou and biggest Palace and today the biggest Museum it's packed with art and this is the longest Gallery in the L it's about a quarter mile long well boy you do not need to see all of that I can promise you that our challenge is to be select in the art and then to understand so what I mean what is it about this art that makes it important and and such such an exciting thing culturally I have long as a tour guide wanted to put together our TV work in to make a series that is just the art of Europe and finally we did it just this last couple of years we've been putting this together it's uh the art of Europe it's aing all over the country on public television it's a six-hour sweep through the story of Europe's art from the from the Paleolithic times to right up to today and it's for me so exciting to have this available you can see it on the PBS app you can see it on my website but it brings the art to life and uh as a tour guide you just you just want to help people get excited about the art another way to get more out of your sightseeing is to tap into the people dimension of Europe when I'm thinking of everybody's travels and who's having great trips and so on common denominator good travel is how many people do you connect with if I'm writing a guide book leading a tour or making a TV show it's all about my desire to connect people with people so important a great way to do that is to be out strolling with the locals when they're doing their P or their Pata when I check into a hotel I always ask how do I get the Wi-Fi and where do people stroll tonight it's really important where do they stroll Circle it on the map because that's where I want to go before I turn in for the day something else that really helps you in New travels is to be a cultural chameleon I just am so interested in becoming a temporary local I mean a lot of people say you go local right well to be a temporary local um examples uh chocolate a lot of people say chocolate's to die for well that's silliness except for in Belgium so I get really into chocolate in Belgium and I make a point to go to the best little Chocolatea and I meet the woman whose's family's been making this for Generations I get to know where I try all the goodies I spend some money buying a sampling of it all and I have the best and when I'm in Belgium I'm a connoisseur of chocolate uh in this hemisphere I don't get tea I don't think I've ever brewed a proper pot of tea here but when I'm in England a spot of tea feels just right you know it's just something I want to have after a long day of sight seeing yes when I'm in Scotland then it's whiskey all right I don't drink whiskey here but in Scotland I have a little flask of whiskey and every night I have a weed Ram it's just the natural thing it's not I'm not calculating it it's just what I feel like doing in Tuscany I have full bodied red wine in Czech Republic I have the best beer in Europe I never uh go home in Seattle after a long day of work and crave a nice cloudy glass of uzo but I don't let a sun go down on the Greek Islands without a nice cloudy glass of uzo uzo doesn't even taste very good on this side of the Atlantic but I love it when I'm in Greece I honestly do and there you know I mean can you imagine here with a half an octopus on your table there and uh the sun going down you are just surrounded by Greece and that is something we can all do find ways to become a temporary local in your travels nature is a huge part of your sightseeing the a huge part of the experience and it's so accessible I mean this is a great spot right here behind a waterfall it's your classic behind the waterfall opportunity and it's just a 2-hour drive from reic you don't need to be a mountain climber for it you don't need to have a lot of money or gear you just park your car and be willing to get your shoes wet and climb up behind that beautiful waterfall these women look pretty rugged here don't they but they're not they rode the lift up okay in fact this little picture is not very smart because it actually has evidence that they did not climb up they rode the lift all you need is 20 bucks in a sunny day and you can get to the top the Alps that's great I love that in fact I love taking the lift up while the weather's still good and you just don't work up a huge sweat and then I like I like hiking on the ridge I like frolicking in the Alps you can hike from France to Slovenia never come out of the mountains enjoying Trails like this I mean imagine walking on a ridge just I mean almost like tight roping on a ridge high above the valley on one side you got Lakes stretching all the way to Germany on the other side you got the most incredible Alpine Panorama anywhere the Iger Monk and Yung fra and ahead of you you hear the long Legato tones of an Alp porn announcing that the helicopter stocked mountain hut is open it's just around the corner and the coffee schnaps is on that's a beautiful experience we can all have that everybody can have that but you got to find that Ridge and you got to get out there and you can do that in fact you could put a bunch of those days together connected by beautiful Mountain lodges high in the mountains I just did it for my vacation last year five days in a row beautiful dayong hikes and every night a 19th century Lodge a historic Lodge two hours hike from the nearest paved Road or lift it was an amazing trip it reminds me of how many different dimensions there are of European travel as I mentioned I've been going to Europe for 100 days ever since I was a kid every year and I always am amazed at how much there is yet for me to experience whatever you're interested in you can delve into that in Europe and it could be a big part of your holiday I want to talk for a minute about packing and I'm glad I've got the help of uh some lessons and so on here so that I can hopefully inspire you to be mobile it's so so fundamental I mean you don't have a pack horse okay if you do you're abusing your spouse now the fact is we need to be mobile to adequately enjoy our trip if you can't carry your bag you you can still do it but it's going to be more complicated more expensive uh if you're able to get around with your luggage it behooves you I mean I find there's two kinds of Travelers those who Pack Light and those who wish they pack light think about it you'll never meet anybody who after five trips brags every year I pack heavier with experience you get serious about this because you know you're going to have to do a lot of walking with your bags okay I mean not necessarily up to a Hilltown like this but just to get through the airports and so on if you're a good coer that's great if you need to get into shape get in better shape and let yourself be more Mobile by packing light this Photograph here really illustrates a new reality in the center of town you cannot get your car or your bus okay this is one of our tour groups and the bus couldn't get downtown and forence because the mayor there wants pedestrians bikes and the sound of birds not traffic congestion and pollution in the Town Center so nobody can drive past the Ring Road our tour bus Park here and we have to walk three blocks to our hotel where a few years ago the bus could park at the hotel that's great because we're mobile carry on the airplane size bag 9x 22x 14 in for a lot of people that's a radical concept what 9 by 22x 14 in that was my Cosmetics kit nope that's everything all right it's kind of tough love I check in with them after bulling them into traveling light and you know they're always happy they did they're always happy they did it's not a hardship to pack light it's a sort of Enlightenment if I had Sherpas I'd set them free all right you need to be 9x 22x 14 in this is my bag I've got it right here I'm going around the country right now eight cities in eight days airport every day and this is my bag I don't check a bag this is my bag I carry it on there's no excuse a lot of people have excuses man woman Rich poor north south 2 weeks 2 months summer winter it's all the same you got to be mobile I like this bag um but you can also get a wheel bag same thing but this is as big as you can carry on to the airplane and um you'll be glad if you can do it you have your big bag which you leave on the cruise ship you leave in your car you leave at the hotel you lock up at the train station and you got your little bag for being out and about now I know I don't have a lot of credibility when it comes to packing light among women okay I've got a one-hour talk about how to pack light but also most of my staff is women all of them pack as light as I do and Joan who's one of our tour guides has a wonderful one-hour talk for women packing light on my website at ricksteves.com there must be 50 hours of lectures Janes talk on pack and light my talk on pack and light one hour talk on Tech for travelers a 2hour talk on cruising 2hour talk on Portugal I mean there are language lessons there's all sorts of stuff it's all totally free and we just love to share it so if you need any of that sort of more information on any of these topics it's all at ricksteves.com transportation is a fun dimension of travel I just love in you know using and learning about Europe's amazing transit systems cities have public transportation that are far beyond what we're used to here in the United States uh you know the United States is sort of wired for cars and that's just the way we we've been designed from the start uh and it's just a reality in Europe they didn't have that sort of commitment to cars from the start and they're more into public transportation here is a good example London the Metro system or the tube right the subway system it's sort of an attitude and I struggle with this myself it takes a lot of brain power to figure out the public transit and wouldn't it be easier just to take an Uber or something like that but Those who commit VES to using public transportation they save a lot of time they save a lot of sweat and frustration and they save a lot of money and they're going local it just is a smart way to travel any city in Europe has this public transportation that we can commit ourselves to and we can travel with that all over Europe they're very interested in making more green and more efficient Transportation becoming traffic free and pedestrian friendly this is nce in the south of France obviously this street would have been full of cars a few years ago today it's a green belt with a couple of uh uh steel rails and you've got trams that Glide by every 3 minutes there's one that goes this way and one that goes that way if you see how it laces together everything you need and you get your all day pass you got the city by the tail it empowers you commit yourself to public transportation a lot of my friends in Europe they never they never learn how to drive it's not a political statement or environmental thing it's just why would they drive you know uh public transportation is subsidized and it works for them so well as Travelers we have to decide what's better for us overall take the train or rent a car and it depends on your style of travel and where you're going uh if you're going from Big City to Big City to Big City you don't want a car a car is a worthless expensive headache if you're going from City to City you pay to rent it you pay a lot to park it you know you spend a lot of time in traffic to get in out of these cities and the last thing I want to do is drive in a city when I rent a car I do the city then I pick up the car on the way out of town and I drop it at the later on in my itinerary before I hit another big city you see I try to do the cities together in the the rural areas in the small towns that lend themselves to car travel Al together so if you're going from City to City you want a train ticket if you're out in the countryside trying to find scen spots like this that's where you're glad to have your own wheels this is d sky in Scotland you know in Ireland you want your own car I mean there's lots of places where you're glad to have a car if there's a group of you like five people it's much cheaper in a big car eight people in a minibus that's really taking advantage of the scale of your group and it is economic for all involved as opposed to five or eight train tickets you have nothing on economy of scale if five people buy train tickets to the same place if there's one or two of you then it's expensive to have a rental car compared to taking the train also you can choose your mode of transportation to a certain degree by how heavy you pack if you just don't buy this business of packing light rent a car you can even rent a trailer the transportation by train it's mindblowing I mean there's a whole web of bullet trains all around Europe now I was on a train in France recently I was just coursing across the countryside tinted windows beautiful pastoral views uh and and and was silent and smooth and so comfortable and I noticed the speedometer in the passenger car only turned on when it exceeded 250 kmet an hour or something like that I mean 150 miles anything less than that it was It was kind of embarrassed they didn't tell you how fast it was going okay so the trains are really fast I remember a time when everybody would fly from Madrid to Barcelona people don't fly from Madrid to Barcelona anymore because the train is so fast and inexpensive and it goes from City Center to City Center no airports to deal with it just makes sense to take the train instead of fly uh so the trains are great and the trains are coordinated with other forms of transportation if you're on a remote Norwegian Fjord and there's two trains coming in and there's two boats a day going out they're going to be coordinated the train will come in coordinated with the boat which then after a few minutes will depart all over Europe except in Italy where the train comes in just in time to see the boat pulling out you will find that there's this wonderful coordination uh so celebrate that um and there's kind of a equation uh for the cost of first and second class uh first class costs 50% more than second class $100 second class ride cost $150 in first class second class more crowded four seats across noisier a little more chaotic uh first class less crowded three seats across a higher caliber of travel people willing to pay 50% more to buy themselves out of the rabble frankly now if I'm working I want to have peace and Qui I'll pay extra to go first class but the action's down in second class it's fun down in second class and I've noticed that almost every train has both first and second class cars on it going each of them going precisely the same speed okay so from a from a transportation point of view second class really is a better value I remember a time when nobody would fly who was spending their own money it was just really expensive but now the air industry airline industry has been uh deregulated and it's quite inexpensive to fly in Europe so I like to no longer just take a year rail pass to cover everything but my style is typically a few train rides point to point a few flights to connect the big connections and then rental car here and rental car there so you Cobble it together don't underestimate the economy and efficiency of flying point to point point in Europe generally it's $100 a hop okay if I'm in Bergen and I want to go to Helsinki that's quite a complicated surface trip but it's 100 bucks by air so remember that it can really play a part in a smart itinerary on the other hand remember it's becoming an ethical issue it's much more green to take the train than to fly and a lot of people are favoring the train when they can so factor that in but remember that the the the Airline option is a real one a big part of your travels is eating I just love eating in Europe I didn't always love uh eating well but uh I've evolved and appreciated good food on the road and I know one of my favorite things to do when I'm researching is run around town with a food guide in the evening to check out all my hotels and all my restaurants um I spend about a 100 days in Europe probably a third of that time I'm working on our tour bus program a third of that time I'm making TV shows and a third of that time I'm researching our guide books every day with my guide book work I've got a on my schedule it says uh G10 and G6 a guide at 10 o'clock for the daytime activities and a guide at 6 o'clock for the evening activities and that evening guide is a food guide going to all the restaurants and I've learned a lot one thing which is kind of common sense if you're a smart eater you don't go to the most crowded touristic high rent square and look for a restaurant that says in big English letters no frozen food with a pre-printed menu in three languages that has lots of courses and stays the same all year long everything's wrong about that and if you go in there it's just going to be a crowd of tourists because no local would ever eat there and that's bad also I like to go three blocks away find a little no-name place on a low rent location thriving with an enthusiastic local clientele and I look for a small handwritten one language menu okay if it's a low rent place filled with locals enjoying a great time and it's serving what you're looking for and it has that simple handwritten on language menu it's great it's going to be a good meal it's a small menu because they are interested in serving food profitably but at a good price it is handwritten because it's shaped by what's fresh as the market this week and it's one language because they're targeting locals rather than tourists I love it okay you go that way and then also you remember in Europe it's really important to focus on good ingredients Europeans love top quality ingredients and as a budget traveler for years I would not be aware of that if I'm going to Spain and I want to plate a ham I'll pay $5 for hamon Sano it's just the mediocre ham whereas if you pay $122 you get a plate of hon IO now that's a huge difference life is too short to eat mediocre ham when you're in Spain I mean Sano iiro excuse me I just want a a quiet moment with my ham that is one of the best deals going and it's not cheap you know spring for Quality ingredients fagra uh escargo hamon cheese everything when you're out in the market the Europeans no good quality and they're willing to pay for it I think that's very important eat with the season zucchini flowers I didn't even know what that was until I was in Italy during zucchini flower time and it's everywhere I remember thinking the daily menu the daily special was the push list that they were just trying to move a lot of old produce you know no that's what's seasonal that's what the chef is excited about you trying go for the seasonal menu go for the seasonal menu I love the idea that a smart eater can go to a good restaurant and look at the menu and know what month it is and where they are you see that's really cool because Europeans are into this idea of a zero kilometer meal it's just the enthusiasm for eating with the season and eating local a big deal in my guide book research for restaurants is finding Splurge worthy restaurants and I don't like to list a Michelin star restaurant I mean it's great but it cost a hundred bucks you got to dress up and you got to book it weeks in advance and it's pretentious but I like a Michelin rated restaurant a more casual Gourmet restaurant there's even a word for it in some countries Bib gormand and when I'm doing my research I'll ask my staff to list me all the Michelin rated restaurants not the Michelin star restaurants in the city and then I'll look at it when I'm there and depending on what neighborhoods I'm interested in adding restaurants to I'll visit the Michelin rated restaurants and invariably I'll find a couple that are great for my listing this is a restaurant I went to in h Toledo in Spain this spring and it was a wonderful restaurant beautifully presented food wonderful clientele I love to eat with a a sharp smart local clientele instead of a noisy bunch of tourists you know when I'm having a nice romantic dinner in Europe also remember if you're on a budget you're inclined to go to a mediocre restaurant because the prices are better and then you order recklessly um I would rather spend the same money going to a nice restaurant and Order sparingly and a lot of tourists they don't think you can do that but there's nothing wrong with two people ordering two appetizers and splitting one onree and splitting a dessert and having a glass of wine each that's going to cost you no more than ordering the full thing at a mediocre restaurant and it's going to be an experience they're glad you're there and you're never going to forget that meal I mean have a dessert but ask for three spoons you know uh ask the waiter for little plates when I'm traveling with friends and my travel partner we always ask for a small plate we have a deal where we never order the same entree and we always try the different things why not there's nothing wrong with that there's this notion that there is and it's flat out wrong I like family style eating share it have the maximum experience and I also like really enjoying that Tapas kind of culture and you know in Spain you got Tapas in Greece you got in Venice you got the chti these are all little tiny sharing plates and it's just a food festival every night for um lunch it's usually not a big deal for me I usually just go for a salad or a sandwich or something like that and uh salad Nas is just great the the tasty fruits and vegetables when you eat seasonally in Europe are just amazing I never knew what a tomato really tasted like until I went to Europe Americans don't realize most of us anyways what what we're missing until we go to Europe and we see what tasty fruit eaten seasonally and eaten locally is it's so important in our travels now having said all that about restaurants I think a lot of times you just want a picnic nothing wrong with that you can go to a supermarket and you can eat in the park or you can eat in your hotel room for for6 or8 dollar I mean it's expensive to go to a restaurant every night I was just in Scandinavia and uh I found myself uh not going out to restaurants every night here's a supermarket in Scandinavia uh by the way if you look at this numbers here this is an example of being a a traveler who's a little bit on the ball can you imagine what those numbers are for the hours that's right for me I would say I've never seen that before but it must mean something so I look at that and I think what could that be it's a it's a co-op it's a supermarket and it is open on workdays from 5: until 1: in the morning and it's open on Saturdays from 7 until midnight and it's closed on Sundays you see you can figure that out I mean you just a lot of people sort of insist on being confused when they're in a foreign country I mean there's no nice way to say it they just shut down I'm not smarter than you I just look at that and I say there's got to be a reason for that you see and uh you can do that you have to have that attitude in your travels and it'll serve you very well the markets in Europe are wonderful I just love the markets and one thing great about the markets is they're becoming food courts as well a lot of these classic old Victorian lat 19th century Industrial Age Market Halls cannot make it as vegetable and fruit merchants selling their their goods uh it's just people don't shop that way anymore so there's a little bit of that but they are viable now because they are hosting great little restaurants often times a branch of a very respected local restaurant in the town no chains I mean in the United States it's free market so the chains can rule but in Europe they protect their local economy by keeping the chain chains out of there another trend is Food Tours 20 years ago there were no Food Tours now they're everywhere my I was just in Morocco a couple weeks ago last night we spent on a food tour the second tour we took food tour we took on that 10day experience I love Food Tours a food tour is kind of expensive $80 or $100 it takes four hours you get together with eight other tourists and a local food expert a food guide and you visit seven or eight or nine little gourmet artisan Food Shops and it's a meal it's a mobile meal you learn a lot with your guide you make friends with the tourists you've had a $50 meal out of a $100 tour and you've learned a lot about that culture if you're interested in that it's a great option and you can find a food tour anywhere now somebody might ask well how do you know where a food tour is you Google it for one thing guide books have it of course if I enjoy a food tour it'll be in my guide book uh well anybody who's in business in Europe in a tourism kind of way has to play the game to get in with crowd sourcing site right you're invisible if you're not listed on these kind of sites when I'm doing my work I'll be honest I check out these sites to see what's available and if it looks like something that's interesting I'll go check it out and see if it's worth putting in my book schnaps tasting food tour Sound of Music Tour you know all sorts of stuff but you've got all those options there and you can check that out so and you'll certainly find the Food Tours uh this was a tour I took in nce wonderful local food guide uh made friends with the tourist we had a great morning visiting all all these places uh it was just a great idea sleeping on a budget now a long time ago I used to think this was a good budget deal it's $2 $2 uh nope for $10 you get a bed and a kitten tossed in for no extra but that's not a good value either uh these days what I'm talking about when it comes to budget accommodations is an alternative to this when I go all the way to Europe I don't want to stay in American style high-rise hotels go all the way to Europe to enjoy a European style Hotel these are not necessarily cheaper than the big hotels they're just a better experience for me if this is roughing it sign me up I'm in a little village in Switzerland I'm standing on my balcony looking at Avalanches on the far side of the valley I can hear the peasants downstairs in the bar after a long day of cutting hay they're they're playing the spoons and yodling and and and drinking their beer you're in a little town where everybody has the same last name I mean this is this is Switzerland that's where I want to be you know uh two star hotel in Paris great idea I don't need a four-star hotel it's just little extras that give them the excuse to charge more that I will not appreciate in my style of travel I like a little family Run Place a mom and pop place this is run by Stefan and and franois it's on a pedestrian only street with a with a market outside every morning seven blocks from the Eiffel Tower it's so French when I step out outs side of the morning I feel like I must have been a poodle in a previous life this is the kind of charming little hotels that I love to go to they're the kind I love to list and they're always centrally located to me that central location is critical I don't want a view the view comes with noise Europe is very noisy late at night I want to be on the back it's less expensive and it's quiet you know so think about quiet think about safe neighborhood you know think about night noise but do you need over-the-top uh facilities I don't you know I just need a good friendly safe comfortable place this is the level of uh Hotel comfort that I like this is what we have on our tours this is good enough for me for some people they need more and you can find a different style of travel uh but that that takes you away from what what you traveled so far to see bed and breakfasts are a big deal um they used to be very Charming in the old days I mean it was a chance to get to know a family and uh you know I remember going to the this Mrs frell's place and the far west of Ireland on the west coast where they' stand on the bluff and gaze out at the Atlantic and say ah the next Parish over is Boston you know and uh Mrs farell was always just so excited that Ricky from seetal was here you know but uh these days bed and breakfast is really you know Airbnb type sites right and the the Charming little ladies that are renting out a room really have been pushed aside and they just Farm it out to some company that rents them in mass and they've got this it's like a Adam ized Hotel taking over a neighborhood uh it's still an efficiency I think Airbnb offers is a great you know it's it's it's amazing system and and its competitors so you got Airbnb you got hotels uh I would say wherever you're traveling the more you put in a room the cheaper it gets per person and I do want to remind you if you are on a tight budget there's lots of accommodations that are renting by the bed rather than by the room dormitories and uh the Y the Mountain lodges they're called mat rotson logger you know mattress Lofts and hosts youth hosts when I'm hiking around Mount Blanc I'll stay in a mountain lodge or a hostel every night and um you know of course inside is a very rustic uh Mountain Lodge where people share a a dorm you could have pay extra for two people you could pay less for eight people in a room uh and the focus is the conviviality all the people coming together my favorite moments were having a beer after a long day of hiking in the front yard right there I I got to remind you there are big institutional hostels uh that serve you know industrial strength rooms with the efficiency of a member's kitchen and a lot of people think well hosing can I still do that uh well they took the word youth out of the system now it's just called hosing International so you know if you're alive you are young enough to hostile um and it's just an option and there are people that are on a very tight budget and the only way to travel in Europe on a tight budget is to take advantage of these kind of options all right something you got to decide right off the bat is are you going to take a tour or are you going to go on your own there's good reasons to take tours but the worst reason to take a tourist because you don't think you can do it on your own anybody smart enough to be here this evening has what it takes up here to be your own tour guide the reason to take a tour is because you want to pay somebody else to do the driving to organize the hotels and all of that and there's lots of specialty kind of Tours that I think make a lot of sense uh uh but the masses of people that take tours they just take cheap Big Bus 50 people on a 50 seat bus tours and that's what I want to talk about for a minute when you look at a cheap bus tour it can be a good value but you got to understand that they haven't worked in their profit yet you see they get you on the bus and then they Park you outside of town where the hotels are cheaper and then they make their living selling you optional sightseeing take you a shopping for Kickbacks and they make their living with tips okay that's where the profit is now there's nothing wrong with that but as a consumer you should understand when you get that super cheap bus they're going to have an interest in making more money off of you once you're on the bus and that's what you got to be aware of so uh in my book Europe through the back door there's a chapter called bus tour self-defense that talks about how to take advantage of a cheap bus tour without it taking advantage of you it's great economy to have 50 people sharing a 50 seat bus and you can tap into that if you think of the bus tour as a bus pass that comes with hotels that's all skip out of everything else you see and then they're not going to make any money off you if everybody did that they'd have to charge for their service differently you see um seriously if you took a cheap bus tour you'd be paying more for hotels alone than the hotel you're going to get plus the bus transportation for that itinerary find an itinerary you like now that's the the mass produced tour there's also very good tour companies uh small buses uh any kind of different mode of transportation that you can imagine hiking tours you name it I've had so much fun taking different kinds of Tours and we do our own tours but what I talk about mostly in my teaching is going on your own being your own tour guide equipping yourself with information and expecting it to work and expecting yourself to travel smart you can and you don't need to tab your guidebook this aggressively this is a bit much but I'm glad she doing that because I'm sure she's getting the most out of that and that's what I'm quite excited about actually is people having a guide book and traveling on their own if you're going to travel on your own you got to be good at finding information because you don't have a guide you're your own guide and there's all sorts of Tours I mean when you go to almost any City there's going to be Public tours where you share the cost of the guide in some tours in some cities it's even free put on by the local tourist Port that can be a very good value also you can hire your own private guide have you noticed in my TV show it seems like I've got uh friends all over Europe I introduce my you know this is my friend and fellow tour guide Christina in Lisbon or alfio or Franchesca or whoever I'm just paying them to be my friends okay you can do that too they're wonderful people they're great guides and you just need their email send them an email saying I'm going to be in your town I'd love to hire you for half a day are you available on this day it's not cheap uh it varies from City to city and Country to Country according to the cost of living there but I love it it took me a long time to figure this out and I have guides everywhere I go now to do my work communication is a challenge for us because most of us speak only English I speak only English nothing to brag about but we speak the world's linguistic common denominator okay if a Greek meets a Norwegian hiking up in the Alps how do they communicate English what Greek speaks Norwegian I don't think it happens now don't just assume that people speak English I think it's polite to ask paru Ang and if they say no I do my best in their language generally after a couple of sentences they'll say actually I do speak a little English but you know if they're going to speak your language do them a favor and speak clearly speak what voice of America calls simple English no contractions no slang internationally understood words if my car is broken port Portugal I point to the vehicle and say Auto kaput that would be understood you know I speak this way almost robotically for a 100 days out of every year when I return home my friends say Rick you can relax now we speak English fluently okay but listen to your friends and and imagine trying to understand that assume the Europeans that you're talking to are reading your lips wishing it was written down hoping to see every letter as it tumbles out of your mouth you can communicate speaking English I've saying this for a generation and since then a whole generation has grown up speaking better English than ever if you find young people well educated people in in tourism they're going to speak English okay there's a whole chapter in my book called uh hurling the language Perry that that'll give you some tips on it one thing make educated guesses if you're not feeling well in Denmark and you see a sign with a red cross on it pointing to the central sick house go get fixed up it's impressive to me how many Americans would bleed to death in the street corner looking for the word Hospital they've got different words for those things I want to talk a bit about safety because Europe is a very safe place from a violent crime point of view and it's a very dangerous place from a petty purse snatching and pickpocketing point of view thieves in Europe Target Americans not because they're mean but because they're smart we're the Fools With all the good stuff in our purses and wallets we're easy solve that by not being vulnerable right you are vulnerable with your valuables on the streets now remember this woman is not a bigger she's a compelling person she's got a beautiful baby and a sad story and she's you think she just wants a Euro she wants your wallet it's a harsh thing to say but you're on the street and you're being targeted by the thieves thieves don't dress like thieves they do their best to dress like tourists and they're riding the trolley they're riding the tram they're riding the bus that all the tourists ride I don't want to make you paranoid I don't want it's it's just sport really you're not going to get knifed or mugged there's just poor people that want your valuables and you're rich and you're traveling around the world bam you lost your camera bam you lost your phone bam you lost your purse it's kind of exciting and if you're sloppy it's expensive so just don't be sloppy don't leave your bag sitting there somebody comes buying a bicycle and it's gone be on guard I was in copenh or Stockholm a couple months ago watching The Changing of the Guard and I decided I'm not going to watch the the the the band and and the and the soldiers I'm going to step back and get the pickpockets view all that commotion whenever there's a commotion there's pickpockets hovering around there's not that many of them but they are where you are targeting us a money belt's a great idea on our tour we include a money belt if you really want to be safe you tie your valuables around your way waste and tuck it in like your shirt tail you don't get ever added for every nickel Diamond quarter this is your deep storage for select deposits and withdrawals okay and you operate with a day spending money out of your pocket I want to talk about avoiding crowds because you know Crowds Are a huge concern these days Europe is crowded when you go to Europe you're going to find the most famous sites during the most crowded times are almost unworkable so we have to decide how are we going to minimize those crowds remember there's two IQs of Europe Travelers those who wait in lines and those who don't wait in lines this is the pantheon in the middle of the day I stay about a block away in my favorite hotel in Rome for the pantheon and man oh man it's mobbed in the middle of the day but I go in the morning and I'm only all I'm all alone there and I go in the evening and I'm all alone there so we need to not go to the famous places when they're so crowded it's it's kind of Elementary when I look at this slide here it almost has a soundtrack to it I can hear the guard blowing his whistle at me saying Mister it's time to go that's because I'm there during the last two hours of the day on the Acropolis in Athens if you're in Athens and there's three ships in Port there's 3,000 tourists on each ship every one of them it seems like wants to go to the Acropolis that's crowded why would you go in the middle of the day I like to go when everybody else is leaving we can do that if we're not on that cruise ship we can do that so find a way to enjoy the sights during a Time time when they're not overwhelmed with tourists these people are waiting in line not to get into the Coliseum but to buy a ticket to get into the Coliseum you see and there are ways to get tickets that don't involve waiting in that line that's a good tip right there think of the Eiffel Tower everybody wants to go to the Eiffel Tower last time I went I used my guide book I made a reservation when I got there there was a long line but I had a reservation so you know I went through this long I was kind of in a bad mood I had to walked through all these empty stanions and I got to hear and they said oh you have a reservation come on to the front they put me on the elevator I went up had a great time came down before that last person in line got to the front when I was before I left I went through this whole line I looked at each person in this line one at a time and by the time I got to the end of this line it occurred to me not one of them had the Rick Steve's Paris guide [Applause] book it's amazing it's amazing how many people just they don't really care about the lines there are a lot of lines make reservations it's not something I enjoy doing but you know the more I do my research the more I realize you've got to be in you've got to be aware of what is requiring a reservation in each City when I update a chapter for my guide books it's almost like we need a a sidebar in the first page of every city that says what you need to have a reservation for going to Amsterdam if you're a typical tourist you need a reservation for Van go for anrank for the rembrand at the reiches Museum and for a fancy trendy restaurant okay there's four things you need a reservation for for Amsterdam that means everything else you're wide open you see but just don't stumble into Rome hoping to see the Vatican Museum and the Coliseum without a reservation in evance or are you're going to be very frustrated get online make that reservation and you read your guide book and find out what needs the reservation in the city you're going to this is a serious issue these days and the information is there remember one way to get around the lines is to buy a city sightseeing pass because there you already have your ticket and with this you can walk right up to the Turn Style and you'll be in so that can be a really good Advantage a past like this pays for itself in a in a in a few admissions but the added Advantage is you're saving a lot of time by not waiting in lines with my U guide mentoring tour we always go in the winter and when I'm with that group in the winter it occurs to me why aren't more people traveling in the winter it's a beautiful time to go you just got to dress for the for the cold weather in Europe they say there's no bad weather just inappropriate clothing okay the small towns and the countryside closes down in the winter but if you're going to do mostly big cities and City sesing winter is a great time to go it really is better and better and remember most of Europe never has any tourist crowds at all anyways so why not spend some time where there are no tourists and then be an extrovert it's people that carbon Ates the travel experience it's the extroverts that meet more people that's what we need to Aspire to if you see four cute guys sitting on a bench ask him to scoot over nothing else is going on I was doing this ever since I was a kid I'm still doing it now and it works it really does work and I want to remind you the most grueling thing about European travel especially if you're an older travel is traveler is the Heat and the crowd of Summer okay we really need to respect the Heat and the crowds of Summer go shoulder season uh do what you can to avoid those crowds um but I'm so inspired by the people I meet in Europe traveling this way many people whose grandchildren said you shouldn't be doing this they were going over there without a lot of reservations without a lot of experience without a lot of language skills without a lot of money and having a great time if you equip yourself with information and expect yourself to travel art you can it's great news it's just great news and my enthusiasm for this is really stoked by all the people I see over there who are doing just that and having the time of their lives or you can take a tour as well there's a lot of different ways you can enjoy Europe and that's what we're all about where I work at Rick Steve's Europe I've got a hundred wonderful colleagues up in Seattle and we're working really hard to organize all the lessons we've learned from our travel experience and help other people learn from our lessons rather than their own and enjoy enjoy maximum travel Thrills on their trip Europe is ready for us it's so much fun to not act your age and you can do that on the road uh the art and the culture is on display better than ever The Artisans are proud of what they're doing and they'd love to show it to you and the culture is Alive and Well if you know where to find it and a big part of that is finding those offbeat nooks and those backdoor crannies all right well I hope that gives you some good tips and I hope that you have some very nice travels and thank you very much for being here tonight ciao thank you thank you so much thank you [Music]

2025-01-08 22:57

Other news