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Rick Steves (born in Edmonds, Washington in 1955) is an American author of more than thirty European guide books, producer and host of the syndicated Rick Steves' Europe show broadcast on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) stations, and host of the syndicated Travel with Rick Steves broadcast on National Public Radio (NPR) and podcast. Steves also authors a weekly travel column syndicated by Tribune Media Services which shares the same name as his television program. His influence as a travel expert has led to the popularization of less than mainstream attractions in various countries such as Rue Cler market street in Paris, France, leading travel editor John Flinn of the San Francisco Chronicle to dub the location "Rue Rick Steves." Steves has over three decades of experience as a travel guide and author and his company, Europe Through the Back Door, is a multimillion dollar enterprise. 

Steves is an important fundraiser for PBS during their pledge drives, with Tom Doggett of Oregon Public Broadcasting stating he is one of three top fundraisers for them. His television show has aired on PBS for eighteen years and today is broadcast on more than three-hundred stations, reaching 95% of the U.S. market. In 2003, his book Rick Steves' Italy was the bestselling international guidebook in the United States. In spring of that same year one of his television episodes, based in Prague and the Czech Republic, won a CINE Golden Eagle Award in the Professional Telecast Non-fiction Division. In 2006 his production company, along with Oregon Public Broadcasting, won a Gabriel Award for the Rick Steves' European Christmas special.

Early life
Rick Steves was born in 1955 and raised north of Seattle in Edmonds, Washington, the state where he currently resides. He took his first trip to Europe in 1969 with his family while still a teenager (age fourteen), visiting relatives in Norway and touring Germany's piano factories with his father (who imported pianos stateside). Despite not wanting to go in the first place (a trip which disturbed his summer plans back at home), Steves fell in love with traveling while there and has spent four months of every year somewhere overseas since 1973. He returned to Europe four years after his first trip and paid his way in part by giving piano lessons. There he traveled with a friend, riding Europe's rail system and freed of any parental supervision. Traveling on only a few dollars per day, Steves pilfered apples from orchards, slept on trains, and would sneak his way in to museums.

Career
Today Rick Steves is the syndicated host of a television and radio program and the author of more than thirty European guide books. Of his career in the industry, Steves has said, "You must have a passion for sharing and teaching travel not for money but for the love of travel. And this teaching needs to sit upon a big fat foundation of travel experience. For 30 years I have been building upon this foundation. My desire for others to learn from my mistakes rather than their own, for Americans to broaden their perspectives through travel, and for the beauties of travel to be accessible to regular people has powered my work from the start." Most of Steves' career has focused on his travels to Europe, in part due to his belief that this is where most Americans first come when traveling abroad. However, he has also visited places such as India, Papua New Guinea, El Salvador and Iran and encourages others to do so. Steves has stated that of all the places he has been on earth to date, India was the most "culturally stimulating." He has also remarked on what he saw as the remarkable faith exhibited by the peoples of Central America, who face expansive economic challenges.

His career took flight in the late 1970s, when Steves was already an experienced traveler who had learned a lot during his travels via trial and error. He got the idea to share his knowledge with others and began giving courses on traveling Europe to Americans headed there. One thing he noticed was that the travel itineraries he was producing for these courses were constantly disappearing, so Steves published the first edition of his book Europe Through the Back Door in 1980.

Travel Company
In 1976 Steves established his own travel company, incorporated as Europe Through the Back Door (ETBD). Today the company is operated by seventy employees and is helping to teach Americans how to travel Europe more wisely. It is headquartered in Edmonds, Washington and offers well over one-hundred escorted European tours each year. The company specializes in guided tours of Europe and also offers trip planning. During the early years Steve sold Cosmos Tours (now Cosmos Holidays) and, for every twenty individuals who signed up for one, he effectively earned himself a free pass to Europe while accompanying the tour groups. Unsatisfied with the quality inherent in these tours, Steves ultimately discontinued his association with them. A friend then hired Steves as a tour guide for a group trip to Europe, which marked the beginnings of his own travel company.

Speaking in an interview, Steves described the tours offered by Europe Through the Back Door by comparing them to his guide books, stating, "Our guidebooks are designed for people who want to do our tours without us--who want someone else to do the legwork but would rather travel alone. Our tours follow the same basic itineraries as the guidebooks, but they help travelers get more out of their time. We've already made reservations for the Alhambra, the Uffizi Gallery, and so on. There's no need to stand in line--we march you right up to the front and take you in. With our 20-day tours, you accomplish what it would take you 30 days to accomplish on your own from a sightseeing and travel perspective."

Writings
Steves is the published authored and co-author of more than thirty European guide books and also has a weekly travel column syndicated by Tribune Media Services.

Steves published the first edition of his book Europe Through the Back Door in 1980 (2,500 copies). The first copies had no ISBN number which hampered stocking of the books in stores. Soon after, however, a travel editor for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer serialized it. Though Steves' style and approach were popular among the papers' readers, advertisers were unhappy and Steves says it ultimately cost the editor his job.

In 2003, his book Rick Steves' Italy was the bestselling international guidebook in the United States.

Television
Steves is host of the syndicated Rick Steves' Europe television program which is aired on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), produced by his company Back Door Productions. Prior to this program, Steves co-wrote 52 episodes of Travels in Europe with Rick Steves which still air on PBS, a show which first began appearing on PBS in April of 1991. Today his show is aired on more than three-hundred PBS stations and reaches 95% of the U.S. market.

Steves is a major fundraiser for PBS, appearing at various fund drives to help raise money for the stations. He has said, "I want to be a cash cow for public broadcasting." Tom Doggett of Oregon Public Broadcasting says that Steves is one of their top three fundraisers. In December of each year he spends ten days traveling to various PBS stations throughout the country to help bring in more money during their pledge drives—traveling to places like Cincinnati, Ohio, St. Louis, Missouri and Austin, Texas, to name a few.

In 2006 his production company, along with Oregon Public Broadcasting, won a Gabriel Award for the Rick Steves' European Christmas special.

Radio
Steves is host of the syndicated Travel With Rick Steves radio program which is aired on National Public Radio (NPR) and podcast. He was attracted to radio because he feels it interacts with listeners in ways television does not, saying, "Radio provides a virtual café for travelers to meet up, sharing tips, insights, and discoveries. On my radio show, rather than being the tour guide, as I am on television, I get to host the coming together of experts on various cultures and travel themes with our callers and listeners. Serving as the conduit for all this exciting travel information comes with a downside: now I want to travel everywhere our radio show does." The show began in 2005 and airs weekly on NPR in 130 U.S. cities. It features conversations with listeners, fellow guide book authors, and various experts on a range of cultural topics.

Marketing
Steves believes in sharing the information he gathers from around the world generously with others and engages in what Enrique Cerna of KCTS-TV speculates is mass marketing. He measures the success of his ventures, he says, not by the amount of funds he can bring in but by the number of trips abroad his works have made a positive impact on. He doesn't believe in using PBS as a mere marketing platform however, stating, "I'm just a travel writer trying to get more horse power, more amplification." He does not charge for his television or radio programs, and has never charged for his lectures. He derives enjoyment from being able to share his information and ideas freely with others, and places all of the self-guided tours from his books on his website so people may access them free of charge. It is not that his business is not lucrative, as Steves himself has said of his approach, "I make plenty of money, but I don't do it in that way. I have other services people can buy."

Steves believes knowing one's own personal ethics in business is crucial to a person's decision-making processes. He has turned down lucrative offers from companies like VISA in the past, who wanted him to promote only those restaurants that accept VISA exclusively. He has also remarked that other deals have fallen apart due to sponsor concerns about his "liberal politics." Following a question posed by interviewer Enrique Cerna about whether or not his outspokenness on issues like the legalization of marijuana might negatively impact his business, Steves responded, "There are a lot of people who are really disappointed with me. Not for my politics but for my willingness not to profit-maximize. They think it is almost unpatriotic for me to be honest at the expense of my business. I had a peace flag hanging...I fly a peace flag in times of war, because I think there are no winners in war and that we can find alternatives. I remember standing in front of my building a while back and a man next to me, one of my neighbors, said to me, 'I bet if you understood how much that peace flag cost your business, you wouldn't have put it out there.' It was just obvious to him. If it would hurt your business then you wouldn't speak out for peace. And, I thought, just (and I didn't say this to him) what a sorry, sorry personal ethic. That you would be quiet about peace and support a war that you didn't believe in because it was good for your business."

Travel philosophy
Rick Steves' travel philosophy for Americans centers around the idea that tourists should experience the culture of a given place as the locals themselves do. He refers to this as becoming a "temporary local." He encourages his readers, viewers and listeners to not obsess over things like train schedules and hopes that they will keep an open mind during their travels. He also believes that people can travel anywhere, particularly to locations sometimes characterized as dangerous or spotty; his trip in May of 2008 to Iran was an affirmation of that belief. Steves hopes that his guide books broaden the horizons of those who use them, stating, "I sell a lot of guidebooks because I list a lot of restaurants and hotels, but my passion is to inspire people and equip people to travel in a way that broadens their perspective and celebrates the world. Of course, the practical hook is the tips and the tricks and the budget ideas. I thought if I could just package the lessons I've learned from my experience, other people could learn from my mistakes rather than their own and travel better, and I would have a good excuse to go to Europe every year and update my material."

While much of his career has focused primarily on his travels in Europe, Steves has also visited countries such as India, Papa New Guinea, El Salvador and Iran. On traveling to some of these, Steves has said, "When you travel (in developing countries), you realize that the poorest people on the planet operate from a mindset of abundance while the richest people operate from a mindset of scarcity. That's a very challenging thing." He goes on to state, "There is just nothing as valuable to understand our world out there as to physically leave your home and go far away and look at your home from a distance."

Spiritual travel
Steves enjoys independent traveling, which he likens to a spiritual experience. An ELCA Lutheran, Steves explains, "For twenty-five years I've taken groups around and, even in my secular tour company, we'll have Sunday morning fellowships, I call them...and it's very inclusive. It's probably common sense to say God instead of Jesus a lot—because I want all of these people who are spiritual, but not necessarily practicing Christians, to get together and share how their travels are affecting their faith. And, it's a beautiful and powerful part of your travels to acknowledge that you are a person of faith and, as you go to these great churches, and as you meet these little children in the markets, and as you walk on the ridges in the Alps, you become very in touch with the wonders of this planet and how blessed we are—how connected we are with our Creator."

Influence
In the mid-1970s Steves took a course on traveling to Katmandu from Istanbul from a professor who had lots of experience to impart though he never did so—failing to understand how his students might appreciate and ultimately benefit from his experience. Steves made the trek on his own anyway and learned something significant through the process—the importance of sharing one's own travel experiences in order to help them have "smoother, more economic, and more meaningful travels."

His own influence as a travel expert has led to the popularization of less than mainstream attractions in various countries such as Rue Cler market street in Paris, France, leading travel editor John Flinn of the San Francisco Chronicle to dub the location "Rue Rick Steves." In fact, some worry his giving exposure to the lesser known areas is turning them in to more mainstream attractions. Writer/journalist Jackson Holtz writes, "...Steves' legions of fans may have followed him too closely. Visitors to the tiny Italian coast towns in Cinque Terre may not find Italians eating in the charming restaurants Steves talks about. Instead, they may find a room filled with American tourists, their Rick Steves guidebooks tucked under their arms."

Charity
Sometime around 1990, impressed with the images of poverty he had encountered in El Salvador, Steves had a conversation with his pastor at the Lutheran church he belongs to about ways in which the congregation could provide assistance to the area's homeless population. Feeling a sense of urgency, he and his wife Anne purchased a duplex adjacent to the church one month later and donated its' use to Pathways for Women—a nonprofit organization from their area that works with a local YWCA to help find housing for homeless mothers and their children. In the decade that followed he and his wife Anne had purchased a total of four duplexes housing homeless mothers and their children. In time, however, the buildings developed a mold problem and were no longer habitable, causing Rick and his wife to tear the buildings down and plan to build up new four-plexes (doubling their occupant capacity). They would call the community Trinity Way, although building code requirements disrupted their plans for the new construction. By now receiving further help and support from the local Noontime Edmonds Rotary Club for their initiative, Steves and his wife eventually purchased a 24-unit apartment complex in April of 2005 for the YWCA (naming it Trinity Place).

Activism
Rick Steves has an activist side to him which some of his fans may not be aware of. Kevin Berger of Salon.com writes, "Behind his abnormal geniality thrums a daring political agenda. Not a didactic one, mind you, but a Rick Steves one." He wants Americans to reach beyond their own geographic isolation. Beger later takes a quote from Steves himself, who has written, "Everybody should travel before they vote." In May of 2008 he produced a documentary travel show in Iran upon the request of a friend at the United Nations to help show a different side of the country than the portrait many Americans hear about in other media outlets. In spite of the political significance of this program, Steves was uninterested in doing a program on the politics of the region and instead took his characteristically human approach to the filming of it. And yet, Steves hopes this documentary will have a political impact on those who watch the program. Before his twelve-day trip in Iran, Steves admits he was actually afraid to set foot in the country. He imagined he might even be stoned in the streets. It's his hope that his film can in some way mediate a path between such fear and understanding.

During an interview Steves did with Jim Benning of World Hum on his book Travel as a Political Act (2009), Steves explains that the book's title is about the way traveling can impact one's political convictions, stating, "We are all more or less ethnocentric. This is not a good thing in our globalized society. Not all travel helps, but I believe when you consider travel a political act that broadens your perspective, that is helpful medicine."

Rick Steves is on the Advisory Board for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), a group which advocates the decriminalization of marijuana in the United States. Steves believes marijuana is a 'soft drug' that deserves a similar legal status which drugs like tobacco and alcohol enjoy—drugs which are both regulated. He feels that marijuana should be treated as a health issue and not a criminal one and supports the decriminalization of marijuana for "responsible adult users" in the United States. He does not support the use of marijuana by children. On whether or not he advocates the use of marijuana, Steves states, "...I don't advocate smoking marijuana at all. I believe, however, that if mature adults want to smoke marijuana recreationally in the privacy of their own homes that is their own decision." In response to a question posed to Steves about where the best spot to smoke marijuana is in Europe, Steves responded, "With good friends. I love the ambience in a little vegetarian restaurant in Copenhagen. Or coffee shops in small-town Holland. The big city coffee shops—the menus look like a drug bust—are full of people who are pierced and tattooed and dreadlocked. That's not my crowd. But go to a small-town coffee shop and you end up talking about philosophy and music with 50-something locals who just drop in to chat and relax. It's like a pub."

Personal life
Steves is married to his wife Anne and is the father of two children, Jackie and Andy. Steves is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and belongs to a congregation (Trinity Lutheran) in Lynnwood, Washington.

Honors and recognition

 * 2009 Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, Northwest Regional Chapter for hosting the ACLU of Washington's film Marijuana: It's Time for a Conversation
 * 2008 The film Marijuana: It's time for a Conversation won two Silver Telly Awards and one Bronze Telly Award at the 29th Annual Telly Awards
 * 2008 Podcast Award for the Travel with Rick Steves podcast
 * 2009 The Citizen Diplomat Award from The National Council for International Visitors (NCIV) in Washington, D.C.
 * 2008 Wittenberg Award from The Luther Institute, an affiliate of the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg
 * 2007 The television series Rick Steves' Europe earned Oregon Public Broadcasting honors from American Public Television by winning it a Programming Excellence Award
 * 2006 Gabriel Award for Rick Steves' European Christmas awarded to Oregon Public Broadcasting and Back Door Productions
 * Spring 2003 CINE Golden Eagle TV Award in the category People & Places (Professional Telecast Non-fiction Division) for the episode of his television program, Rick Steves' Europe: Prague and the Czech Republic

Filmography

 * Complete filmography