Hometown hero Rick Steves is a public television host, a best-selling guidebook author, and an outspoken activist who encourages Americans to broaden their perspectives through travel.
He has dedicated his career to providing accessible information, helping Americans to have the most stress-free, cost effective, and enlightening travel experiences possible. Steves is a big proponent of “Traveling as a Political Act,” the subject of his SAL talk.
In 1976, Steves began his business, Rick Steves’ Europe, headquartered in Edmonds, Washington. There, he produces his iconic best-selling guidebook series, including Europe Through the Backdoor. A big proponent of public access, Steves also produces a public television show as well as a weekly public radio show. Free travel information is made available from his travel center in Edmonds, and from his website, ricksteves.com.
Steves also runs a small-group tour program taking 30,000 travelers to Europe annually. In line with Steves’ dedication to natural and social betterment, the company contributes annually to a portfolio of climate-smart nonprofits, essentially paying a self-imposed carbon tax.
Steves works closely with several advocacy groups and makes regular financial contributions to more than 170 organizations, including annual contributions to Bread for the World. All of the royalties for his updated copy of Travel as a Political Act are donated to this same charity. Additionally, Steves is a board member of NORML, an advocacy group which seeks to reform laws around marijuana.
Though Steves is known most for his travel excursions across Europe, in his 2009 book, Travel as a Political Act, Steves reorients his focus towards countries such as The Former Yugoslavia, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Turkey, Morocco, and Israel. Steves looks closely at what America could stand to learn regarding issues of democracy, health care, taxes, attitudes towards drugs, sex work, and globalization. Steves believes that being a patriot is to be critical of one’s own country, continually seeking to improve the lives of its citizens.