Rick Steves's Blog, page 33

Thank You, Public Radio!

 

I’m so grateful for public broadcasting — and for all the hardworking people who make it happen. Thanks to them, we can all enjoy programming that assumes an attention span, respects our intellect, and is driven not by a passion for keeping advertisers happy, but by a passion for educating and inspiring us to embrace life and celebrate diversity.

My weekly public radio show, Travel with Rick Steves, is one of my favorite endeavors. I’ve been at it for 13 years now, and along with produce...

Video: Christmas in Germany

To celebrate the season, I’m sharing clips, extras, and behind-the-scenes notes from Rick Steves’ European Christmas.

When it comes to traditional holiday images, Germany’s Bavaria is the heartland. In this clip, we savor classic holiday themes: glittering trees, old-time carols, and colorful Christmas markets.

Even though I was determined to limit the shopping focus in the show, I couldn’t help but be impressed by Germany’s grandest Christmas market in Nürnberg. Like the region’s children,...

Video: Christmas in France

To celebrate the season, I’m sharing clips, extras, and behind-the-scenes notes from Rick Steves’ European Christmas.

Today we travel to France, where Christmas is the stuff of dreams. Rich sounds of medieval carols abound, simple rituals are shared by families and friends, and when days are short and nights are long, it’s customary to leave a single candle flickering in the window.

We found that Paris celebrates Christmas with its typical urban flair: extravagant lighting, yummy window displ...

Video: Christmas in London

To celebrate the season, I’m sharing clips, extras, and behind-the-scenes notes from Rick Steves’ European Christmas. Today we travel to London, which offers Christmas fun fit for a queen and streets twinkling with joy.

The Christmas special is the only time we’ve ever filmed with a sound technician. We knew that we’d be privileged to film at wonderful Christmas concerts throughout Europe and we wanted to get the music just right. Our sound team did a marvelous job, and music was a big part o...

Video: Christmas in the English Countryside

To celebrate the season, I’m sharing clips, extras and behind-the-scenes notes from Rick Steves’ European Christmas.

Writing the script for my Christmas special was a fun challenge, and I needed to tap my European friends not just to be good tour guides, but to take us into their homes to be there with their families as they celebrated. England came through royally. Maddy Thomas (who runs Mad Max Tours, my favorite minibus tours from Bath into the countryside) has a lovely family and delighte...

Lobbying for the Hungry: The Value of Advocacy

Yesterday, I shared some exciting news: Our community of travelers has now raised one million dollars to help empower Bread for the World, an advocacy organization that speaks up for hungry people in the halls of government.

We did it! Rick Steves’ Europe travelers have met our goal of raising one million dollars to help empower Bread for the…

Posted by Rick Steves on Wednesday, December 12, 2018

 

Many of you understand the value of advocacy. But a few questioned why we would fundraise...

Behind the Scenes: Filming Christmas in Norway

To celebrate the season, I’m sharing clips, extras and behind-the-scenes notes from Rick Steves’ European Christmas.

In writing the script for the special, I had to choose which countries would “make the cut.” I could fit only seven into the mix. Being Norwegian, I admit that I was biased…and Norway was destined to make the cut. But when we started filming, it looked like Norway would be a weak segment…so I needed to scramble.

Norway happened to be wet and warm when we visited, and the secula...

Video: The Christmas Story

Christmas is almost here! Over the next two weeks, I’ll be sharing clips, extras, and behind-the-scenes notes from my one-hour special, Rick Steves’ European Christmas.

The tour guide in me was determined to cover the biblical story of Christmas in the special while also explaining related holidays and traditions and meeting the locals. We learn about Epiphany, Advent wreaths, the origin of St. Nicholas, the pagan roots of so many Christian traditions, and all those fascinating cultural diffe...

We Met Our Goal! $1,000,000 for Bread for the World

 

We did it! Rick Steves’ Europe travelers have met our goal of raising one million dollars to help empower Bread for the World to combat structural poverty and hunger.

2,323 of you gave $100 or more each, totaling $378,292. As promised, I matched your donations 2-to-1 with $700,000 — and together, we raised $1,078,292. All this money (100% of it) was given to Bread for the World to advocate in our halls of government for policies that help the hungry both at home and abroad.

Good Americans,...

Behind the Scenes: How We Make TV

I work with a really small TV crew — just me, my producer, and one cameraman. And after shooting about 140 episodes over the last 20 years, we have a great filming process. These photos from our Scotland shoot give a few peeks at how we work.

While you can shoot an “on camera” just about anywhere, we search out beautiful and meaningful settings for me to talk directly to the camera. We only shoot “on cameras” for material we can’t cover well with images of locations — generally heavy history....