#12: Rick Steves on traveling as a political act
For the final episode of Season One, we are delighted to bring you a conversation with American travel legend Rick Steves. Rick is a guidebook author, television and radio host, and the owner of a tour company that has brought hundreds of thousands of travelers to Europe over the years. On the show, Rick speaks passionately about how travel can be a powerful force for peace and human understanding, and he shares what he’s learned about what it’s like to travel during the pandemic.
Toward the end of the episode, Paige speaks to Craig Davidson, the Chief Operating Officer of Rick’s tour company, Rick Steves’ Europe. Craig explains how the company is taking action on climate change.
Scroll down to read a full transcript of the episode.
Thank you so much for listening. We’ll be back in January with the launch of Season Two!
Resources
Free access to all of Rick’s television shows, articles and radio programs
Rick’s program on the Holy Land
Paige’s Q&A with Rick Steves in The New York Times (unlocked)
Rick Steves’ Europe Climate-Smart Commitment
Rick’s book, “Travel as a Political Act”
New York Times article on the Glasgow Declaration for Climate Action in Tourism (unlocked)
Full episode transcript
Rick Steves: [00:00:00] Embrace the culture shock. Culture shock is a good thing, it's a constructive thing, it's the growing pains of a broadening perspective. [00:00:07]
Paige McClanahan: [00:00:10] You're listening to the Better Travel podcast and I am your host, Paige McClanahan. Travel has been a passion of mine ever since I was a kid. But as I've gotten older and as I've learned more about the industry through my reporting, I've really started to see just how complicated travel can be. So each week, we are diving in to some of the most fascinating and complex topics when it comes to travel, and it's all with the aim of helping you. And let's be honest, helping me learn to be a smarter, better traveler. [00:00:43]
[00:01:06] Hi there. Welcome to the final episode of Season One! Today, I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with the one and only Rick Steves. So Rick Steves is kind of a household name where I grew up in the United States, where he's been hosting travel shows on public television since the early 1990s. But Rick is also a guidebook author, radio host and the owner of a business called Rick Steves Europe that brings tens of thousands of travelers to Europe every year, although of course their trips have been canceled since the pandemic hit. But over the years, Rick Steves has really built a reputation for inspiring people to travel who might not do so otherwise. He's also always exuded a persona that's incredibly enthusiastic and sort of unashamedly nerdy, which I think probably explains a lot of his charm. But if you haven't followed Rick Steves closely, you might be surprised to learn that he's a pretty serious political activist. A few years ago, he even wrote a book called Travel as a Political Act, in which he writes about his visits to places like Iran, El Salvador and Turkey, and how and why travel is so important to combat xenophobia. And you're going to hear him talk a lot about that on the show today. [00:02:16]
[00:02:18] So when I started thinking about guests to invite on the podcast, Rick Steves came to mind very early on. You know here in the show, we tackle some of the big problems with the travel industry, but I also want to stress the enormous and really important benefits that travel can bring. And I could think of no one who could put that into words more beautifully than Rick Steves. So I was absolutely thrilled when he agreed to come on the show. And also listen up toward the end because after I spoke to Rick, I had the chance to go a little more in-depth on his tour company's work on climate change. And for that, I spoke with Chief Operating Officer Craig Davidson, who spoke to me about what the company is doing, and what they're not doing, to try to balance out the climate impact of all of their trips. But I started off by asking Rick about what kind of travel he's been able to do lately. [00:03:04]
Rick Steves: [00:03:05] Well, you know, I had not traveled at all, Paige, since the pandemic hit and then this fall, I've sort of scrambled together two different trips and I've had a great time. I've done a fair amount of traveling. I've been in Europe for more than a month. And the first trip was purely a vacation. I was hiking around Mont Blanc with my girlfriend and that took us a week, seven days, and then we finished off with two or three days in Paris. So that was just a great chance to be on a personal vacation in Europe and get a sense of what it was like and frankly, to be hiking around Mont Blanc -- that was six days of ten-mile hikes in a row, going from mountain lodge to mountain hut. That was a great trip. And then I went home for a couple of weeks and then I went back on a business trip and the business trip was two parts. The first half was what we're calling a guides mentoring tour. We've got 100 guides in Europe. We've got 30,000 people signed up for our tours next year, and we've got a lot of young guides that we want to make sure they know "what is a Rick Steves tour." These young guides are professional guides. They know how to do it. But I wanted to personally go with them. So we put them on one of our normal tours, our Heart of Italy tour. It was Rome; Volterra, my favorite hill town; Cinque Terra, my favorite slice of the Riviera; and Florence. And there's a great sampling of things you do as a tour guide. So I had 22 of these new guides on the bus and I was their mentor, and I demonstrated personally what I like in a Rick Steves tour. So that was a fun experience, and it let us actually do it to her during the pandemic and see what is it like? What are the frustrations? What are the precautions? What's it like dealing with hotels, restaurants and sightseeing and to be on the bus with a group of people? So very helpful. And then when that was over, I met my TV crew and we are working on a series of art shows for public television, a six-hour series, which I'm very excited, about taking us from the pyramids to Picasso. And we're drawing from our archives, but I need to go over there and film a lot of the on-cameras and a lot of them little [inaduible], so we have all the pieces of the puzzle together. So we spent four days in Florence, four days in Rome and four days in Athens, in Greece, and that was really fun for me to get back into the greatest museums during the pandemic and see what all that was like. So with all that experience, I do feel like I'm pretty up to date on what's it like right now, practically, to travel during the pandemic, although I know it's constantly changing. But I think we're on a trajectory toward normalcy here, and it was really good to get over there and see what the situation is right now. [00:05:35]
Paige McClanahan: [00:05:36] And I'm curious to hear of all the places that you were going and visiting -- you mentioned some of the responses you were seeing and hearing from the tour guides you were working with. And what about the people who were living in the places you were visiting? Did you get a sense that they were excited to have tourists back? [00:05:50]
Rick Steves: [00:05:50] Well, there's two kinds of people in Europe. There's people who make their money off of tourism. There's people have to put up with tourism. So I think if you were somebody who wasn't in the tourist industry, you'd kind of think it's cool to have the Spanish steps in Piazza Navona all to yourself and, you know, to be able to walk over the Ponte Vecchio without having to slalom through all these noisy crowds of tourists. So I've got friends who live in Rome who said it was kind of strange because for the first time in their memory, young families were going to the to the public places and just enjoying them, like those public places were designed to be enjoyed without the mobs of international travelers. And there are places in Europe that were struggling or dealing with overcrowding before COVID. Places like Barcelona and Amsterdam and Venice and Florence; they are actually having a little bit of a backlash against mass tourism. And the big question is, when we come out of COVID, when we come out of this pandemic, what's that going to be like? But the people that I'm most in touch with are people who run little hotels and cute little cafes and restaurants and tour companies. And of course, they're excited for for tourism to come back. They've been very hunkered down. You know, they've survived, but with the help of the government and with help of local patronage, and now they're ready to to be expansive again and there will be a big, warm welcome for tourists, that's for sure. I did notice that during the pandemic, a lot of people were proud that they didn't waste their time, they weren't making any money, but they were investing in what they do with full confidence that they will come out of this. Museums, I think, are improved. I was just went to the Vatican Museum. It was amazing. It was a beautiful presentation. Same thing with the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and the Roman Forum -- they're all excited that they've got a new museum about the House of the Vestal Virgins, and they, as they walked me through the Via Sacra, the main street of ancient Rome. They pointed out different ways that they had worked and worked hard during pandemic times to make the site better. And they're eager, I would say, for the tourists to return. It was strange, Paige, to be in places where I'm accustomed to have crowds. I mean, I was hiking around Mont Blanc and you know, you go to the left in Chamonix and you expect it to be a mob scene and you can walk straight under the gondola. The Mona Lisa is the one piece of art you can hear from a hundred yards away. There's just like a roar of a waterfall, and it's people, people clamoring to get close to the Mona Lisa -- people with their selfie sticks, their arms stretched out and with their cameras in their hands, charging the Mona Lisa and jostling. And now, yeah, there's a lot of people there, but there's not that commotion. Same thing with the Sistine Chapel. Anybody who's been in the Sistine Chapel in the last decade knows put on your shoulder pads and get ready to shuffle and you're going to smell more body odor than appreciate great art if you're not careful, if you're short, you know. But now there was room, there was room -- not to be alone, but to have your space as you look up at the ceiling and marble at the most, you know, arguably the most beautiful art ever created. So it's a transitional time, and it's not as intense and crowded, and Europe is getting a taste of what it would be like if you did control tourism and a little bit more, and those whose bread is buttered by tourism are eager for it to spring back. [00:09:31]
Paige McClanahan: [00:09:32] Yeah, you make some great points. And I think it's been really interesting to see how some places have taken this sort of pause in tourism to rethink the approach that they want to take to managing visitors. And I think, yeah, we've seen some interesting examples in places like Amsterdam and Barcelona and Iceland, even, of where there may be taking a different approach. So your European tours are due to resume in February after a break of nearly two years during the pandemic. We're seeing now news about rising case numbers in Europe, in some cases some new restrictions. I mean, from the perspective of a tour operator, that must be really difficult to manage. How are you adapting to this shifting landscape? [00:10:11]
Rick Steves: [00:10:12] Yeah, it is. I got to say it's kind of unnerving. It's just I'm getting very frustrated by people that refuse to embrace the science and just get vaccinated. And so are the governments. I mean, I think Austria just said it's going to require everybody to get their shots by next February. And, you know, it's hard to plan travel if you're a tour organizer. I'm not ready right now to do tours. I know there are people doing tours right now, but I'm not ready because it's a different thing to organize 25 people rather than your family. I think it's a fine time to be traveling, you know, just as a family right now around Europe. If you know the basics and the basics are pretty straightforward, you know, you've just got to get vaccinated, you've got to get your negative test before you go and you've got to do your passenger registration form or whatever. And then you you go with whatever norms are in that country you're traveling in. But there's two worlds. And when you read about things spiking and so on, I think we've got to remember there's the vaccinated and there's the unvaccinated. And I really do think a lot of those numbers are a pandemic within a pandemic. And it is the unvaccinated community and the world of people who insist on being unvaccinated is going to get smaller and smaller and smaller, as European governments get more and more aggressive. European governments have a little more latitude than our government, I think, to just say, "Hey, this is ridiculous. Just get your shot because you're messing up our whole environment, you're messing up our whole economy and it's not very neighborly." You know? So Europe is being more aggressive about that. But I think in tourism, you know, we just we just decided, OK, you're not going to be on our bus if you're not vaccinated. Bus drivers, tour guides and tour members for Rick Steves tour in 2022 have to be vaccinated. And it's kind of, you'd be doing somebody a disservice if you're a tour organizer like me and you let them go on your tour if they're not vaccinated. Because of dictates in Europe, you're paying customer would be -- you'd have to have them standing out in the street as you go inside and have a good time because you've got to be vaccinated in order to get into these places, to get into a restaurant, to get into a museum, you know, to get on to public transportation, you need to be vaccinated or you need to be constantly having negative tests. So we've learned and we are learning there are going to be people who are really motivated to travel and there are going to be people that are just stressed out by this, and they'll be stricken with anxiety if they go to Europe. Something fundamental to my approach to travel is we have to address people's anxiety. If you can't relax because of terrorism or because of some volcano or because of some pandemic, don't go on the trip. You need to relax on your trip. But if you are of a mindset or a sort of a psyche that you can relax over there by just taking the reasonable precautions and you realize that life is short, and if you're responsible, you can do this without any unreasonable risk and you want to do it, you can do it very reasonably. So it's going to be something we're going to handle people gently. We're not going to compromise in the areas of safety and we're going to move forward. And I think that Europe will will set the standards for us. I mean, if it's dangerous, they're not going to let us travel there. If they'll let us travel there, they'll tell us how we can travel there in a way that is common sense and sensible and not risky. And then we will follow those rules very strictly knowing that we've already got some kind of social distancing on our busses because we're half the size of most tour groups. [00:13:43]
Paige McClanahan: [00:13:44] And are you seeing demand for these tours coming back among your typical customers in the United States? [00:13:50]
Rick Steves: [00:13:51] Oh, there's a huge demand. I mean, when we, you know, in 2020, when we in February or March or whenever we had to close down, we had 24,000 people signed up for that year and we gave everybody back their deposit. Just no, no screwing around. I'm kind of embarrassed by a lot of people in the travel industry that kept people's deposits and gave them credits and this kind of thing, or different hoops and confusion to get their money back. We just said we're sending everybody's money back. People said, "You can keep it on hold." "No, no, no. You take your money back. We're friends. We all want to go to Europe, but we're going to wait until the coast is clear." And then a couple of months ago, we decided, "Hey, it looks good for spring of 2022." So we opened the floodgates and, Paige, we were signing up literally five people a minute, all day long. It was five people a minute. I just that blows my mind. And we sold 28,000 seats just in the space of a couple of weeks. And the point is, a lot of people are not comfortable going to Europe. You read the headlines and you don't really understand everything and you just kind of go, No, no, I can't. There's people after 9/11 that still don't travel. They just decided it's too stressful. "There's too many hoops. I just don't like all this TSA stuff. So, you know, that's it. I'm not going to travel anymore." Well, that's a personal choice. There are, you know, there are older people that don't feel comfortable traveling. There are all sorts of people of different, you know, situations that decide they can't travel. And there are other people that are gung ho and determined to travel. So I just think it's important for people to stay in their comfort zone this way, don't do anything they can't be comfortable in and relax about. And there are plenty of people to fill up our busses. We are right now. We have massive waitlists and we have about a thousand tours for next year, and most of them are sold out. So I'm really thankful for that. And as the CEO of Rick Steves Europe, I've got a huge responsibility to make sure that we are focused on people's safety, not on our bottom line, but people's safety. [00:15:52]
Paige McClanahan: [00:15:53] Yeah, absolutely. You've spoken really passionately in the past about the enormous positive value of travel, both for individuals and for society. And you're really known in the United States for encouraging people to travel who might not do so otherwise. Why do you think that's so important? [00:16:10]
Rick Steves: [00:16:11] Well, first of all, Paige, we're looking at a globalized future. I mean, you cannot really live fully surrounded by barriers and trying to keep the rest of the world away. Everything is interrelated now, and it's going to be more so in the future. So, you know, if you're going to just be an old person and live out your life as if we don't live in a globalized society, that's your choice. But if you're young and if you're progressive and if you're open to the world, that's the future. And I think this pandemic is just the first of a whole series of new challenges, new crises, and these will be different than the challenges of the past. In our society, we spend $800 billion a year for military hardware to keep us safe. It's the Department of Defense here in the United States. Well, what will defense be in the future? I don't think it's going to need military hardware as much as it's going to need an ability to embrace science and deal with challenges that are going to be existential. You know, there's going to be more pandemics, there's going to be climate change, there's going to be -- these are challenges that will define our future, and they're going to be blind to borders, impervious to walls. They're going to be dealt with not by conventional military hardware, but by science, by people working together. They will be confronted not one country against another country, but all countries together against this crisis. So the solution is going to require reaching out and working with other countries. It's a family of nations, and I really hope that we can understand that going forward. And we Americans are four percent of this planet. You know, there's 96 percent out there. And when we travel, we get beyond our borders, we get to know our neighbors. Europe has this wonderful program called the Erasmus program. And even in tough economic times, the EU invests in this and it funds teachers and students to have the ability to work and study in other countries within the EU. Why is that? So they know each other, so they understand their style and their appetites and their personalities and their tempos and their frustrations and their taboos. I went to a fraternity house in Coimbra, a university school in Portugal, a few years ago filming, and I thought I would go into this frat house in Portugal, sort of an Ivy League frat house in Portugal, and I'd have a bunch of, you know, smart young Portuguese students to hang out with and drink beer. No, it was a United Nations of Europe there. It was a few Portuguese, a few Norwegians, a few Irish, a few Greeks, you know, a few Germans, a few Serbs. It was really cool and it was Erasmus. They're all there on Erasmus. So Europe gets it and we need to get it too. And when we look at our world today, from an American perspective, there's a lot of fear. Fear is bad. If there's fear, people who want to manipulate you by capitalizing on your fear can take you down the wrong road. Hitler did it. People who are governing in Hungary right now and in Poland, they're not democratic, they're autocrats. And how are they getting in power? Fear. People are afraid of people who have different-colored skin. Immigrants, they're going to get you. Donald Trump: "Those Mexicans are going to come in and rape your daughters." That's fear. That's nothing but fear. And if you haven't traveled, you're afraid. I've been to Mexico. I know Mexicans are beautiful people and they're not, you know, drug pushers and rapists, criminals any more than we are. But that's because I've traveled. Fear is for people who don't get out very much. The flip side of fear is understanding, and we gain understanding when we travel. It makes us less fearful. It toughens the fabric of our democracy. It inoculates us from opportunistic politicians that will play on our fears to take us down a wrong road. I just think it is so important that we travel because then we become less fearful and we come home with the most beautiful souvenir, and that's the passion for building bridges rather than building walls. That's fundamental. So going forward, I've talked about the importance of travel. Going forward, I think the importance of travel is greater than ever. [00:20:36]
Paige McClanahan: [00:20:37] Absolutely. You know, you're really known for your work in Europe, your guidebooks in Europe and the tours you run in Europe. But you've also made some programs on other parts of the world. And I actually watched your television program recently on the Holy Land and really enjoyed that. And you know, it really struck me that you don't shy away at all from the politics in that program. And I'm curious to hear what motivated you to do that show and what kind of reactions did you receive? [00:21:04]
Rick Steves: [00:21:05] You know, that's so interesting because for 25 years, I spent so much of my time with a mic in my hand on a tour bus, teaching my American travelers. And I learned how to be an effective teacher. And I learned that the the fun challenge of it was not avoiding the hard issues, but talking respectfully about the hard issues. Standard approach for tour companies in Europe is: Don't talk about religion, don't talk about politics and don't talk about soccer. You know those are things fraught with emotion. And I tell my my guides, "Sure. Talk about religion, talk about politics, talk about soccer, but do it in a respectful way." Our job is to get people out of their comfort zones so they can hear the other narrative. Now, as a TV producer, I'm still a tour guide. I just have a bigger group of tourists, and many of them are couch potatoes, you see? But I can bring the world home, and I jump at the opportunity to go to a place where people, curious people, smart people are steep on the learning curve. It's something they should know about, but they don't. I went to Iran and did show about hunger and the value of modern developmental aid. I went to the Holy Land. What an exciting challenge to write a script about the Holy Land, especially when you consider the power of media these days and how hard it is to get balanced media on the Holy Land. When you're dealing with Israel and when you're dealing with Palestinians, you're realizing that anybody with mainstream media in the United States. It's dicey for you to talk about both narratives. It's scary. I produced a wonderful balanced show on the Holy Land and I had programmers -- and a big part of my work is station relations, talking with programmers and making sure they know about the show and that they have any questions they can ask them, and hopefully they're going to run it and run it at a good time. And there are cities that, for various reasons, would not run my show about Israel and Palestine. And a big part of it was because I used the word Palestine. You know, I wrote an editorial for the Los Angeles Times. I wrote an editorial that a bunch of newspapers were running in. The Los Angeles Times wanted to run it, but they said, "We can't run it if you use the word Palestine." Just woven into their their parameters was, you cannot use that word. Well, when you go to Palestine, the West Bank, anyways, there's 3.2 million people who -- my takeaway from going to Palestine was these people are so happy to wave their flag and say "Welcome to Palestine." That's what people wanted to do all over Palestine was wave their flag and say, "Welcome to Palestine." It was great to go to Palestine. Was that anti-Israel? I don't think so. I think it was pro-Israel. You got three million people there. You want to have them living angry in a cage or do you want to have them living as neighbors? There's enough to share there. There's a wall in the Holy Land. And if you don't get both narratives, you don't know that wall. Many people go there and they get one narrative. It could be the Palestinian narrative. It could be the Israeli narrative. It's just one narrative, and they don't know the wall. There's good people on both sides of that wall. There were reasons for building that wall. OK, but the unintended consequence of that wall, Paige, today is it keeps younger people saddled with their parents' cultural and political baggage. And younger people can't talk to each other, and that's tragic. As travelers, we can help weave that together. We can cross back and forth. I was so excited to be able to do a show, a thoughtful show, a balanced show, a show that angered Israelis and Palestinians about equally -- about my best take on what's the story about this amazing chunk of land. God sure has a funny sense of humor to put the most holy piece of land for three different great religions on the same place, right there in Jerusalem. And to be able to bring that home -- it was fun, and I'm thankful that there's public broadcasting, which had the political kahunas to, or the broadcasting kahunas to air that show, because that wouldn't see the light of day anywhere else on the dial. [00:25:11]
Paige McClanahan: [00:25:11] Fantastic. And I'll be sure to put the link to that in the show notes, because it's up on YouTube and, you know, available for anybody to watch now. [00:25:18]
Rick Steves: [00:25:19] And I should remind people that all of our shows -- Palestine, Iran, Ethiopia, Guatemala, the Reformation, fascism, they're all available for free with no ads at ricksteves.com. They can just go to the TV section, click and watch all hundred and fifty of our shows. Not in one sitting, but, you know, as you like, [00:25:38]
Paige McClanahan: [00:25:40] There you go, at your leisure. Yeah. In your book "Travel as a Political Act," you write a lot about the value of travel to these kinds of places that are probably not on a lot of people's bucket lists. And I wonder, do you think that Rick Steves tours would ever -- you mentioned Turkey earlier, but do you think that Rick Steves tours would ever take people to these kinds of places? [00:26:01]
Rick Steves: [00:26:02] You know, my favorite travel experiences have been what I called reality tours, educational travel to places like Nicaragua and El Salvador and Cuba. And I would be abusing the trust people have in me if I was going to do tours to those countries. You need somebody who's well-connected in those countries, who knows what they're doing. And I've got a lot of friends who run little tours companies and they'll do a tour to whatever, wherever the wind is blowing, wherever they can fill a bus. And I don't think that's very ethical. I think you have a responsibility if you're going to put your name on a tour to really know what you're doing. And we do Europe. That's all we do is Europe, as a tour company. The farthest away we get from that is Turkey, which is kind of straddling Europe and Asia minor. And for me, that's our real "welcome to the world" tour. It's the tour that has the biggest impact on anybody. It's the tour I made sure to take all my loved ones on. But these other places, Paige, are really worthwhile. And whether you're going on your own, whether you're going on your own with a guide or whether you're going with a reality tour, they are rich travel experiences and I highly recommend getting a private guide or going on an educational tour so you get the most out of it. Because when you go to Nicaragua, when you go to El Salvador, when you go to Egypt, when you go to Iran, it's nice to have a local that can get you in and let you talk with different people and have these cultural exchanges. You know, you learn more about your own country by leaving it. And I love this idea that when I go far away and when I go to a country that has a complicated relationship with my country, I learn who's my enemy and my enemy learns who's their enemy. It's a beautiful thing. And when people meet people, it makes it tougher for their governments to convince them that we're enemies - ha! That's a really cool value of travel. And when we travel into places that are out of our comfort zone, we have firsthand experiences and we humanize struggles that you would never have empathy for if you just stayed at home and watched documentaries on TV or watched the news. And you put yourself in a situation where you're experiencing a little culture shock. And the conventional thinking about culture shock is, "Oh, culture shock, how do we avoid that?" No. Embrace the culture shock. Culture shock is a good thing. It's a constructive thing. It's the growing pains of a broadening perspective. Enjoy the culture shock. Enjoy the culture shock. People thorough around this word, "transformational travel." Not many people really have transformational travel because they're so good at avoiding culture shock. I like transformational travel. That's why I travel -- is to grow. And then when I come home, I have the most beautiful souvenir, and that is that broader perspective. So I'm so enthusiastic about people traveling into complicated corners and doing it with help. And rather than me doing those tours when I produce a show on Iran or Palestine or whatever, I will to the best of my ability I will have in our website and the support pages, links to organizations whose mission is to help Americans and travelers from the developed world travel there and get more out of their travels. [00:29:28]
Paige McClanahan: [00:29:29] When we spoke before, you talked about the importance of people traveling in the right way. What are some of the choices that travelers can make to try to ensure that they maximize the positive and minimize any negative impacts of their presence as guests in a place, whether it's a European city or a more rural area? [00:29:46]
Rick Steves: [00:29:47] Well, a lot of people travel with a big heart and they want to do the right thing and they know we're rich and they're poor, and they want to help build a little house with cinder blocks and they roll up their sleeves and they work and they do this thing, and then they're contributing. And that's fine. I think that's really cool. But I would say, don't be too burdened by what can we do physically in that country to help people? The most important thing you can do is learn -- is to go there and gain an appreciation for the struggles of those people. Look at it in an honest way and see how the United States relates to that struggle and then come home and when you step into the voting booth to do something that is very, sort of unusual: don't vote for your own economic best interest. Vote for what's right. Vote for what's right. And if you're a person of faith. That means you believe in God. And, if there is a God, that's our heavenly father. And that means we're all brothers and sisters, and when we're all brothers and sisters, you want to get to know the family. And you do that by traveling. And when you travel, you realize suffering and need is just as real across the sea as across the street. There's no proximity for suffering for me because I'm a traveler. For somebody who doesn't travel, suffering is all about proximity: "How can I walk by that struggling person right here?" How can you ignore a person struggling south of the border? It's the same issue. So I just love that when we travel, we go home with a place in our heart for the people that we got to know. That's what you can do because we are a powerful nation and who wins the next election has a bigger impact on people south of the border than it does right here at home. I was in Guatemala when the headlines were "President Trump line items out $400 million of aid for Guatemala." And I was with peasants who were working hard, fighting climate change, fighting gang problems, fighting civil wars, fighting all sorts of challenges that I've never had. And then to see that we pulled out that little bit of aid just for some political reason -- bam. Their whole world fell flat on their faces. And to be there and to see that is to be reminded that a little tiny shiver of political opportunism or whatever in Washington, D.C., has life-or-death consequences south of the border. And what I've learned is, [inaudible] aid these days is smart. In the old days, it made people dependent. Today, it makes people independent. And I came home from my -- I spent a lot of time in Guatemala and Ethiopia, scouting and then filming my show called "Hunger and Hope: Lessons learned in Ethiopia and Guatemala." And you can care about the fact that 10 percent of humanity is trying to live on $2 a day. Eight hundred million people trying to live on $2 a day, that's desperate poverty. We can tackle that and you can tackle that, and America could tackle that easily. For what we spent in Afghanistan, we could solve that problem of 800 million people living in desperation. You know, it's just a matter of priorities and the smart use of our military and economic might. But when we think about that, when we travel in these countries, we gain an appreciation for that and we realize that you can do it because you love your neighbor or you can do it because you just want to live in a more stable and peaceful world. There's a practical investment, and there's the altruistic reason. And, you know, it's actually a little bit of both. So I think that's a pretty cool takeaway. So that's my encouragement for people to go to these countries. It's not to help out by rolling up your sleeves right there and doing work, but to help out by going home and becoming more, having a more global perspective. Having said that, sure, when you're traveling, especially in a poor country, I like to spend money in a way that helps the local economy that stays there. I don't want to travel to a poor country and stay in some German-owned health spa and golf course that's taking water away from parched land for farmers so they have nice putting greens. You know, a lot of people, they do some nice things, but they end up traveling in a way that that just rapes the local land and abuses local people and empowers and enriches people from already rich countries by the way, they spend money on their vacation in that exotic and very poverty stricken corner of the world. So that's an example of a way that we can consume in a way that we have to believe can shape the reality in the future. And if you really care about this or that, then you want to consume in a way that mirrors your concerns. Climate change would be a good example. [00:35:00]
Paige McClanahan: [00:35:01] That actually leads me to my next question for you because I know climate change is something that you've been acting on as a business recently, and I'm going to speak to Craig Davidson, your COO, about this shortly. But I'm curious to ask you, why did you feel it was so important for your business to take action on climate change? And what was your initial approach? [00:35:19]
Rick Steves: [00:35:20] Well, first of all, anybody in tourism is contributing to climate change because we're encouraging people to travel and we're making money off of people by traveling and they're flying. And I think, if I understand it correctly, the biggest contribution when it comes to carbon, when we travel is flying. A lot of people are flight shamed out of it and they stay home because they don't want to contribute to climate change. But there's this cool word called mitigation, and if I understand mitigation correctly, you can create some bad and then you can invest in something good. And if you create enough good to negate what you did, that was bad, it zeroes out and you become carbon neutral. It makes perfect sense to me. You know, travel is a valuable thing. We need to travel so our world can work together and understand each other and know each other. It's a vital force for peace, but it also contributes to climate change. Do we want to stop traveling or do we want to mitigate the carbon our flying creates? So, as a tour company, I took 30,000 people to Europe on our last good year before COVID hit -- 30,000 people flying from the United States to Europe and back. That's a lot of carbon. I learned that if you invest $30 per person smartly in mitigation, you negate all that carbon because you create that much good. Now, the conventional thing in America is to invest in carbon offsets. But I wanted it to have kind of a two-fer. I wanted to create the same good, not by investing in first-world companies, but by investing in developing world farmers for smallholder family farms in the developing world. And bless their hearts. You know, they're struggling and they're just trying to make ends meet, but they contribute a lot to climate change with their farming practices, and they can learn how to do their work better with climate-smart agriculture and better forestry programs, and then they can contribute less to climate change. So what we decided is that we learn from scientific studies and so on, it takes $30 invested smartly to negate the cost of one person flying from the United States to Europe and back. So we invested $30 per person times 30,000 -- $900,000, rounded up to a million dollars, divide that by about 10 companies who are nonprofits working in the developing world to help farmers do their work with less impact on climate and better for their forests. And we have made a huge difference by supporting those companies, and all of our travelers have the comfort and peace of mind, of knowing that they are flying carbon neutral. Is this heroic? No, it's just ethical. We made too much money because we should have spent a million dollars out of our profit being carbon neutral. I wish our government would have taxed us, but our government doesn't do that. So we taxed ourself. It's a self-imposed carbon tax and I just am so thankful for it. I'm so excited about that program, and Craig will talk about it more. But right at the top of the Rick Steves Climate-Smart Initiative, it says, If you're a tour organizer, please steal this program and don't credit us. Just use it. We need to pay our way if we're going to make money in the tourism industry and climate. Climate climate changes is the it is the big problem of the next generation and we got to get serious about it and I think tourism needs to take the lead on it. [00:38:29]
Paige McClanahan: [00:38:29] Well, fantastic. Thank you so much. Yes, I'm really looking forward to getting into that with Craig Davidson in a little bit, but it's been fascinating to hear your travel experiences and to hear you speak so eloquently on why it's important for us to get outside our comfort zones. And I love what you said about embrace the culture shock. Any final thoughts you'd like to share? [00:38:47]
Rick Steves: [00:38:47] I'm just thankful I found my niche. I love to travel and I love to teach travel. I've been teaching travel in a focused, kind of workaholic way ever since I was a kid. And if I look at the evolution of my teaching, Paige, it has an interesting progression. In the first decade, it was all about cheap tricks, you know: catch the train, get a Eurail pass and find a bed and breakfast, you know, get a good lunch, stay healthy. And that's kind of the bottom of what I would think of as Maslow's hierarchy of a traveler's needs. And then after that, that got a little boring. You can just read the book, and I wanted to teach appreciating history, art and culture and cuisine and so on. So I wrote a book called Europe 101, and I was passionate about teaching appreciation of that dimension of European culture. And then, since about 9/11, I realized that the pinnacle of your Maslow's hierarchy of travel needs, if there was such a thing, is traveling in a way that is what we've been talking about today. This whole travel as a political act thing: getting out of your comfort zone, trying new things, gaining an empathy for the other 96 percent of humanity and then bringing that home and incorporating it into your lifestyle. And you probably become somebody who's more thankful than ever that you live where you live. But at the same time, you become a better citizen of this planet. And that's just the fundamental beauty of travel. And that's what I get. The most joy and gratification and gratification out of teaching is talking about these altruistic values of travel and the importance of realizing that you can travel in a way that does nothing to tackle your ethnocentrism and does nothing to tackle your naivete about the rest of the world. Or you can travel in a way that turns you on to this and inspires you to be engaged and make a difference. And for me, that's a fun challenge for all of us. We're going to travel. We're going to have a good time. And at the same time, we can travel in a way that makes us better citizens of this planet. [00:40:45]
Paige McClanahan: [00:40:46] Well, fantastic. Thank you so much. That's really beautifully put. And best of luck with the return of your tours next year and with the production of your television show or the television series on art and architecture. I'm looking forward to that. That will be out in the fall of next year, is that right? [00:41:02]
Rick Steves: [00:41:03] God willing, that'll be out a six-hour series on public television all across the United States in the fall of 2022. I'm excited about it. Thanks and best wishes with your travels and your work too, Paige. [00:41:13]
Paige McClanahan: [00:41:22] Wow, what an interview. I think one of my favorite parts of that conversation was when Rick talked about how travel can inoculate us from politicians who want to play on our fears and how the flip side of fear is understanding and how travel can do so much to help us see people who live in other parts of the world as members of our family, you know, as our own brothers and sisters. The world needs more of that kind of thinking, that's for sure. I should mention that wasn't the first time that I've spoken to Rick. Back in October, I interviewed him for a Q&A that ran in the New York Times. We covered some of the same territory in that conversation, but other stuff as well. So I'm going to unlock that article, and I'll put the link in the show notes if you'd like to have a look. And because it's unlocked, you can read it even if you're not a subscriber to The New York Times. So after I spoke to Rick, I jumped straight into another conversation with Craig Davidson, the chief operating officer of Rick's tour company, Rick Steves Europe, to talk about the company's climate change program. You know what to do about climate change is a question that so many businesses are grappling with these days in the travel industry and otherwise. And as we just heard Rick say, they decided not to use carbon offsets, which is probably, you know, an option that a lot of businesses might think of. They decided to do things a little bit differently. So I started by asking Craig how he first started to think about designing the company's climate-smart commitment after Rick gave him the task in 2019. [00:42:54]
Craig Davidson: [00:42:55] It came to me that, well, I've heard about carbon offsets, I've heard about carbon footprints. I've heard about all this stuff over the years, sustainability accounting, there has to be guidance. So of course, I googled it and I found nothing. I just got frustrated. There was no guidance at all, really is what it what it came down to. I had been playing with our carbon footprint or trying to understand it for years, or not years, but I'd known how many miles we traveled by bus. We know how many hotel nights we stay, where we stay at restaurants. And so we kind of knew all the components. But if you use carbon offset calculators, every site is different. Every site gives you a different answer. There's no government standards. There's no accounting standards. So after we spent some time looking at that, Rick and I just said, "Well, if nobody's going to tell us what to do, we're going to do it ourselves." And that's where we came up with, let's just impose a carbon tax on ourselves, our self-imposed carbon tax, and publicize it because maybe we can spur some action in the industry, given Rick's notoriety. And that's really where we started, we said when we look at our carbon footprint, we know that the air flight itself is the lion's share of the carbon footprint. So we looked at different carbon calculators, Rick looked and talked to some experts that he knows because in a bunch of different circles that I don't operate in. And we came back and we all agreed that $30 a person basically would cover a round-trip ticket from Seattle to Frankfurt. And that's how we came up with our number, the self-imposed carbon tax of $30 per traveler and announced it, as I said. And then we had to figure out how we were going to fund it. [00:44:39]
Paige McClanahan: [00:44:39] So you ended up focusing, if I remember correctly, you ended up focusing on two types of organizations organizations that are advocating for climate change action and organizations that are promoting climate-smart agriculture in the developing world. Can you talk about why you chose those types of organizations for your funding? [00:44:57]
Craig Davidson: [00:44:58] I mean, the the most simple answer to that is because we believe those two criteria are key to ensuring fundamental and lasting change. First and foremost, we believe the U.S. has to lead. From my experience and everything, I think we need to change the way we account for and report our environmental activities from a financial perspective. I think companies need to pay for the carbon they use and probably the entire environmental impact that they have. And to me and to Rick, if the U.S. steps up and starts to enforce those kind of standards, the rest of the world will follow. The capital markets will be forced to do something if the U.S. adds standards. Secondly, the U.S. does a lot of you know, they use foreign aid and other subsidies to countries for food aid and humanitarian aid, and that can be a huge lever to create positive and sustainable change. We want politicians to hear from people who are concerned about that kind of change. And with ideas on how aid, foreign aid and subsidies can be used to better society. The climate change side is really the understanding that our program at its core is really about dignity. So we know that climate change, everybody talks about this, but we know climate change is hitting the poorest people in the poorest countries the hardest. And small farmers are caught in the middle, and they're losing choices. As commodity prices drop or natural disasters are ruining their yields and their production, farmers have to expand production in order to make more income, many do that through deforesting. Some lose their land because of illegal deforestation and other plantations or other owners are encroaching on other farmers' land. Some farmers switch from agriculture to livestock, which -- livestock creates its own bevy of environmental issues. And some just give up; they can lose their land and then they migrate. And we know nobody wants to leave their homeland. Nobody wants to leave where they grew up, and people are being forced to make choices that they shouldn't have to make. They should be able to make them on their own and not be forced into it. And so that's really to us what these two criteria empower, boiled right down by funding those two programs -- lobbying and climate-smart agriculture for small farmers -- that's going to create U.S. leadership and give farmers the right to self-determination. [00:47:35]
Paige McClanahan: [00:47:37] Were you ever looking or considering putting some of that money toward carbon offsets? Yeah, was that ever something that you were thinking about funding, and why or why not? [00:47:47]
Craig Davidson: [00:47:48] Well, we did. I mean, carbon offsets were part of the conversation when we started, but we did move past them once I developed more of the framework of the program. And that's not because I don't necessarily like carbon offsets or that they're not helpful. I think they're an easy way for people to understand their impact on the environment and try to make a contribution to offset that. But for us, I think it comes down to we're a very entrepreneurial kind of organization. We like to fund programs, like I said before, that don't have a lot of administrative and overhead costs. We actually split our money up locally. We we will pay for administration separately and we'll pay for the program separately so that we don't mix the two. And with carbon offsets, we found that a lot of administrative or overhead fees actually exist in the buying and selling and administration and auditing of the projects. And so not all your money gets to the project itself. And we didn't really like that as a tie-in to who we are as an organization. And the second piece is really about accountability. We wanted to create this portfolio of companies that were accountable to us and our travelers for what they were doing. And we really thought that having a direct contribution to those organizations would allow us to build that kind of relationship. We'd be able to understand the project more. We could empower smaller organizations who maybe wouldn't get carbon offsets to begin with to do work in the way that they wanted to do it. And then we could develop long-term partnerships if we really liked the programs or the program showed promise. And it would give us that extra opportunity to be able to work with them and their marketing teams and really communicate their story and get the notice out there. [00:49:40]
Paige McClanahan: [00:49:40] Well, I think that's an interesting approach and, you know, interesting just to hear about the different ways that a travel company might think about balancing out its carbon, its climate impact. Because I mean, I think there was a European Union study, a European Commission study recently that looked at offset projects and found that I think 85 percent of them weren't terribly effective or didn't achieve their stated goals. So we're just a few weeks out from the climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, and I know that a big there was a big step forward for the travel industry there in terms of the Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action and Tourism. And yeah, I'm curious, is that something that you were following or curious to hear your reactions to the declaration. [00:50:25]
Craig Davidson: [00:50:26] I can say I followed it enough. I mean, Rick and I, we have not talked about whether we'll will sign on to it or not. But together, I can say that we're happy that there is progress towards standards and goals. But on the other hand, I think to us, the time for action is now. You know, I think they titled it "A commitment to a decade of action." We're saying the time for action is now not a decade, not by 2050. You know, you can you can take action now and we actually would encourage people and we do it on our website: steal our climate smart commitments, steal our idea and start taking action now. And if you look at the two, the Glasgow Declaration really matches our climate-smart commitment. They acknowledge biodiversity is an issue. They acknowledge that climate change impacts underrepresented people the most, and those people need to be involved in the solutions they talk about knowing your footprint, measuring it, trying to decarbonize or reduce it. They want to regenerate biodiversity. They want to collaborate with shared ideas and make a commitment to fund it. And so when I look at that, you know, it's like, well, we know our footprint, as we just said, we're trying to reduce it where we can. We're committed to biodiversity. We're committed to helping under-represented communities be part of the solution, and we're trying to educate our travelers about it through our annual reports and all the stuff that's on our website, and we're funding it, and we're committed to funding it. And when you talk about COVID, I mean, we haven't run a tour for two years. And so we've got literally zero revenue for two years. Yet we've still given a half a million dollars last year and this year to these organizations who are doing this great climate work, because we believe in it so much that we're committed to this. And, you know, so that's what I would say is that anyone who's listening: Don't wait for the Glasgow declaration, don't wait for somebody else to tell you what to do. Just take action. Do it now. The water's fine. It's fun. These organizations are great. [00:52:32]
Paige McClanahan: [00:52:32] Well, excellent. Thank you so much for that, and thank you so much for taking the time to explain the climate-smart commitment and other ways that Rick Steves Europe is trying to give back. [00:52:41]
Craig Davidson: [00:52:41] I mean, thanks very much. Thanks for having me. This was fun. [00:52:45]
Paige McClanahan: [00:52:51] Hi, there. Welcome back. Thanks so much to both Rick and Craig for joining me on the podcast. I'm definitely going to set aside some time during my holiday break to dive into some of Rick's shows. I think the one on Iran would be fascinating. And of course, in the show notes, I'll put the link to the site where you can find all of Rick's television episodes and radio programs. I'll also add a link to the Rick Steves Europe climate-smart commitment, so you can check that out, too, if you're curious. And on the climate change question, I thought it was interesting to hear Craig's reaction to the Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action and Tourism. I mean, of course, a lot of businesses are working hard on their own right now to figure this out, but I do think there can be some real value in companies coming together around shared goals, which is exactly what that declaration does. There's also an element of accountability built into the declaration because everyone who signs commits to creating and sharing a climate action plan within 12 months of joining. They also promise to publish reports every year that publicly show their progress toward both short-term and long-term climate goals. So in the show notes, I'll include a link to the declaration, as well as to an excellent article in the New York Times that gives more details about the declaration and what it aims to do. And I'll unlock that article so you can read it even if you're not a New York Times subscriber. So have a look and see what you think. But thank you so much again to Craig for explaining the Rick Steves' Europe approach to climate action. And thank you, of course, to Rick Steves for sharing his beautiful activist thoughts on travel.
So, guys, that's a wrap on season one. This has been such a fun ride. I have learned so much along the way and it has been such a privilege to connect with so many of you. I am incredibly excited to come back for Season Two, which will launch in January. We have already planned out nearly the entire season. We are going to be digging into some big topics and taking you to some fascinating places. So Season Two will launch in mid-January and we will be releasing a trailer early in the new year. So listen up for that. I would love for you to join us. You've been listening to the Better Travel Podcast and I am your host, Paige McClanahan. Artemis Irvine is our producer and social media editor, and Jessica Dannheisser composer our score. A special thanks to friend of the podcast, Seth Pietras, for his essential help in making sure this episode happened. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you have a fantastic holiday season and I will see you in 2022. [00:54:18]
