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America's Travel Guide on Iran, PLUS come to NYC for DSM at Tribeca Festival in June

Rick Steves is best known for his dozens of European travel guides and the long-running PBS show called Rick Steves Europe, but more broadly, he’s an evangelist for Americans’ traveling outside the US.

And he does it in the most inviting, down-to-earth way. As Sam Andersen wrote in a New York Times Magazine profile in 2019, “Steves is so completely American that when you stop to really look at his name, you realize it’s just the name Rick followed by the plural of Steve — that he is a one-man crowd of absolutely regular everyday American guys: one Rick, many Steves.”

Underneath that broad appeal is a radical commitment to principle—one that’s driven his activism for marijuana legalization and the end to mass incarceration, and his decision back in 2008, when then-President George W. Bush had already declared Iran to be part of an Axis of Evil, to travel to Iran with a film crew to invite us to “make some friends.”

So after America bombed Iran and started a new war, I wanted to talk to Rick about his life’s mission to make the unfamiliar more familiar.

We talk about his experiences in Iran – a country he first visited as a young man in 1978. And we also talk about how travel has shaped his personal and political opinions, particularly his trip to Central America in the 80s, and how experiencing hunger and hardship on the road has led him to donate millions of dollars to help homeless women and children in the Seattle area, where he was raised and lives when he’s not traveling abroad.

The most frightened people in our society are the people buried deep in the middle of it with no passports, whose worldview is shaped by fear-mongering commercial TV news. The flip side of fear is understanding and we gain understanding when we travel.

You can also watch some of our conversation here.

Speaking of travel….

As you think about your upcoming travel possibilities, savings plans and calendar, here’s a little more inspiration.

You could join us at our Just Announced live show at Tribeca Festival in New York City on June 10. We are thrilled to partner with Tribeca again and I can’t wait to dig into conversation with artists, and spouses, Peter Dinklage and Erica Schmidt. Tickets go on sale April 28. Here’s their full audio line-up with so many good shows!

And if communing with nature is something you’re craving, here are some select photos from my family’s recent trip to Costa Rica, which Rick Steves and I also discuss.

Glorious!

As the wife of a wildlife ecologist, it was also fascinating to learn about the combination of forces and policy choices that created Costa Rica’s ecotourism industry, from scentific research investment and government policy to large-scale private land conservation and small-scale entrepreneurism.

Rick Steves Says Travel is the Antidote to Fear

Speaking of travel….

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