October 21, 2004
Travel guru urges Americans to experience, not judge
Next week, travel guru Rick Steves will speak on campus, but he won’t be talking about how to find a cheap hotel or what the must-see sites in Paris are.
“I’m going to talk about the value of travel, not how to travel,” said Steves, who was speaking by phone from his office in Edmonds, where he heads up Europe through the Back Door, a travel company that takes about 6,000 people to Europe every year.
Americans Abroad in 2005: Rick Steves’ Thoughts on Traveling in Europe is the title of the talk, planned for 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 28, in 120 Kane.
Sounding exactly the same as the relaxed, chatty guy you see on his KCTS/ 9 travel programs, Steves is nevertheless a man on a mission. “I want to convince people that travel is more than a good time,” Steves said. “It’s a way to broaden your perspective; there’s intrinsic value in leaving your own culture and experiencing another, then coming back.”
Steves says too many Americans go abroad not understanding the cultures they encounter and come back with erroneous impressions. “For example, Americans go to a restaurant in France and the service is slow, so they conclude that the French don’t like Americans,” he said. “Actually, in France, slow service is respectful service, because for the French a meal is an event; it’s not something you do on the way to something else.”
But Steves doesn’t think it’s necessary to study up on culture before leaving home. “I’m often the classic buffoon when I travel,” he said. “I screw up all the time. The point is to not judge. Americans are too quick to judge.”
In fact, Steves went on, Americans have a reputation for making such judgments. He quoted a man in a café in Kabul, Afghanistan, who said to an American, “You know, one-third of the world eats with a knife and fork like you do, one-third eats with chopsticks and one-third eats with their fingers like I do. And we are just as civilized as you.”
Steves is convinced that if people travel with an open mind, they’ll “come back with a positive impression of the people of the world.” Then, he said, “they’ll see diversity as something to celebrate, not something to fear.”
Big as Steves’ business is now, it’s easy to forget that he started out teaching a class in the UW’s Experimental College. He self-published his first book, Europe through the Back Door, in 1980. That book is now in its 23rd printing, and he’s also written many guidebooks to individual countries.
A UW graduate, Steves majored in European history and business. “I don’t think I could have picked more perfect majors for what I wound up doing,” he said.
Steves’ talk is sponsored by the Center for West European Studies. For more information, contact the center at 206-543-1675 or cwes@u.washington.edu.
