Rick Steves

When he was 14 years old, Rick Steves went to Europe on a family vacation. He did not want to go. It was the summer of 1969, and he would have preferred to spend his school break hanging out with his friends. By the end of the trip, however, the encounters with different cultures had changed his life. Having grown up in, as he has described it, “a classic Leave-It-to-Beaver kind of world” in the suburbs of Seattle, Steves later remarked that the experience broadened his world.

That European vacation in 1969 instilled in Steves a lifelong love for travel. He went on to build a multimillion-dollar empire consisting of travel guidebooks, a PBS television series, and a tour company. His stated mission is encouraging “Americans to broaden their perspectives through travel.” Steves accomplishes this through a combination of all-American down-to-earth charm and a touch of liberal politics. Indeed, for many Americans, Steves is the ultimate travel expert, a trusted source who nudges people from every age group, cultural background, and social position to expand their worldview, seek adventure, and spread goodwill through friendly interactions with locals.

Early life and first European trips

Steves was born on May 10, 1955, in Barstow, California, U.S., the eldest of three children; his sisters are Janis and Linda. Their parents were Richard (“Dick”) Steves, Sr., a school band director and piano tuner, and June Erna Steves (née Fremmerlid), a homemaker. The family moved between the Seattle suburbs of Crown Hill, Kenmore, and Edmonds, and they took local skiing and camping trips. In Edmonds, Dick and June Steves opened Steves Sound of Music to sell imported pianos from Europe. This venture led to Rick Steves’s first fateful trip abroad. The family visited Germany to tour piano factories and Norway to meet relatives. Steves immediately developed a habit of documenting his trips on postcards and in journals.

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When the family returned to Europe another year, Steves noticed other young people traveling on their own. “We were in this wonderful classic train station, the Copenhagen train station,” he described to The New Yorker in 2021, “and I remember looking at kids a couple years older than me with their Eurail passes and their rucksacks. I looked over at my mom and dad, and I thought, I don’t need you guys for this. Europe can be my playground. And I vowed to go back to Europe every summer after that.” After graduating high school in 1973 he embarked on his first parent-free backpacking adventure around Europe. Traveling on a shoestring budget (“three dollars a day or something like that”), Steves and a friend sneaked into youth hostels, slept on trains, and ate fruit from trees. He later called it his “Europe-through-the-gutter trip.”

Building a travel empire

Back home, Steves taught piano to help fund his summer travels, which, in addition to Europe, also took him to Asia and the Middle East. To supplement his income, he began offering seminars, called “European Travel Cheap,” at the Experimental College at the University of Washington. He also led tours in Europe for Cosmos, a budget-friendly travel company, through which he gained knowledge of the travel industry.

In 1976 Steves launched the company Rick Steves’ Europe, based in Edmonds. Two years later he graduated from the University of Washington with degrees in business and European history. About this time he began organizing European tours of his own, renting a minivan and eschewing prebooked accommodations. According to a 2016 blog post Steves wrote that he “harbored a misguided notion that soft and spoiled American travelers would benefit from a little hardship.” In 1980 he self-published his first guidebook, Europe Through the Back Door, and sold copies out of his car. Steves also wrote a collection of travel articles that was serialized by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which helped him gain a wider audience. By 1984 Steves had begun leading more organized three-week European tours. He had learned that his audience was primarily older Americans who wanted a youthful kind of experience abroad while spending their time and money smartly. In a Facebook post reminiscing about this time, Steves wrote, “My tour motto was ‘You’re never too old to have a happy childhood.’ ”

In 1991 Steves expanded to television with his first PBS show, Travels in Europe with Rick Steves, which ran until 1998. His next series, Rick Steves’ Europe, premiered in 2000 and continued to air new episodes every other year (the 12th season was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic). He also hosted a number of specials, such as Rick Steves’ Iran (2009) and Rick Steves’ Egypt: Yesterday and Today (2023). By the 2020s, Steves’s empire also included a syndicated travel column; a radio show; and a website selling his books, DVDs, and a line of travel gear. His tour program grew to annually attract 30,000 travelers.

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Back-door philosophy

Although his tour-guiding approach has become more polished over the years (he no longer leaves hotel bookings until the last minute), Steves continues to espouse a “back-door” philosophy of travel. His recommendations have included opting for a picnic in the park over a restaurant, attending a local church service, or starting up a conversation with a shop owner. In the book A Sense of Place (2004), Steves told author Michael Shapiro, “Psychologically you really need to be there. Too many people go to Europe never leaving home, and it’s like going to a high-definition travelogue. They’re looking at it onstage; they’re taking photographs of it; they’re seeing people wearing traditional costumes; they’re not really connecting with anybody.…And it’s not good travel.”

Other publications

In addition to some 100 guidebooks Steves has published in his career, he has also written Travel as a Political Act (2009). The book argues that travel can change the world for the better by exposing people to different worldviews and challenging their preconceptions of other cultures. Among the issues Steves discusses is drug reform, one of his best-known causes. He has not been shy about his own marijuana use and has served as chair on the board of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Subsequent editions of Travel as a Political Act were released to include further discussion about the Israel-Palestine conflict, with advice such as “When visiting Israel, make time to also explore the West Bank.”

Other advocacy

In addition to being an advocate for drug reform, Steves has also donated to the construction of community centers in his hometown of Edmonds and purchased an apartment building that he donated to the Young Women’s Christian Association for sheltering homeless women and their children. His company contributes annually to nonprofit organizations dedicated to fighting climate change, which he says is effectively a “self-imposed carbon tax.”

Personal life

Steves has often been described as a workaholic and has talked openly about the sacrifices he made while building his multimillion-dollar company. His marriage to his wife, Anne, ended in divorce in 2010 after 25 years of marriage, and he has discussed neglecting his parental responsibilities. He says he now has a stronger relationship with his children. His son, Andy Steves, followed in his father’s footsteps by starting his own travel company for students abroad in Europe. Rick Steves also posted photos on Facebook in 2023 with his newborn grandson by his daughter, Jackie Steves. Meanwhile, Steves has been romantically involved with local bishop Shelley Bryan Wee since 2019.

In August 2024 Steves announced that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Two months later he revealed that he had successfully had surgery to remove his prostate and was on “the road to recovery.”