How a travelers mindset can grow your understanding
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hi
and welcome i’m your host phil klein and
i’m here today with rick steves
travel writer author of numerous travel
guides host of tv
and radio programs on travel and an
advocate of
independent travel while his books and
media deal
with travel mostly in europe his ideas
are relevant
for any of us who would venture from
home and into
unfamiliar territory rick welcome and
thank you so much for being here
well thanks bill nice to be with you so
great to be together
um all right so you have mentioned this
idea of a traveler’s mindset
can you tell us a little bit about what
that is
you know there’s two kinds of travelers
and it’s really determined by what you
bring to your travels
and that’s kind of a pre-existing
mindset
a traveler a good traveler to me a good
traveler’s mindset is positive
it’s excited to get out of your comfort
zone
to try new things if an opportunity
presents itself
you say yes um a good traveler’s mindset
is um ready to to to
change uh to seek out a transformative
experience when you travel
a lot of people travel just to affirm
the way they see the world i travel to
change my understanding of the world
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and can you say a little bit about how
that mindset is different from a tourist
or a home body mindset
well there’s three kinds of travelers um
there’s in my my estimate if i was to
kind of divide it up
there are tourists there are travelers
and there are pilgrims
and a tourist and there’s nothing right
or wrong about any of them i just think
it’s fun to mix it all together
a tourist is as a bucket list you know
they want to check off famous things
a tourist is likely to say
how many countries they’ve been to to me
that means nothing because
how many people did you talk to how many
precon preconceptions did you challenge
that you know
that’s not a function of how many
airports you’ve landed in
uh but a tourist is looking for fun in
the sun
a tourist is shopping a tourist is
recreation
it’s great it’s fun it’s a holiday a
traveler
i think is interested in
learning in broadening their perspective
in trying new things to gain new
appreciations
i’m endlessly interested in just
learning
on the road for me the road is a school
and a pilgrim is
beyond that i mean if for a traveler the
road is school
for a pilgrim the road is church and
you travel to seek you travel to not
learn about other places but you travel
to learn about yourself
that’s a pilgrim and as you travel
the mindset you bring with you
determines if you’re going to travel as
a tourist a traveler a pilgrim
or a little bit of everything
wow so how would you say your travel
mindset
came to be how did you get yours how did
it grow did you start out as a tourist
and become a traveler or
you know phil i can i can assist that by
looking back at a lifetime of travel
i’ve spent 100 days a year ever since i
graduated from high school
in europe my favorite countries by the
way are beyond europe india
southeast asia japan and so on but i’ve
just decided my mission in life is to
teach americans how to travel
and for me europe is the springboard for
world adventure
and if i look back on my teaching and
i’ve just been a workaholic about this i
travel 100 days a year and i i’m at home
teaching the rest of the time
i’ve evolved in what i consider kind of
a maslow’s hierarchy
of travel needs back in the 1980s it was
just cheap tricks
i didn’t have any money i was just
slumming around europe and learning from
my mistakes and come home and teach
people how to
sleep on the train how to find a good
meal how to
you know where to get a a a hotel
and and this kind of basic budget travel
tips
and then in the 90s i realized the most
rewarding thing for me to teach was also
the most rewarding thing for me to
travel
not just catching the train but
appreciating history
art culture cuisine and so on so i
started writing books about art and
history instead of guidebooks to where
do you get a cheat meal
and i started teaching you know history
and art for the travelers so
i was sliding up maslow’s hierarchy of
travel needs and then after 9 11 i found
myself realizing
the beauty of a traveler is you are
gaining
a better understanding of the other 96
of humanity
and i thought that ultimate
accomplishment for a travel traveler
is to travel
with this idea that we can learn more
about ourselves
and our home and our baggage by leaving
home and looking at it from a distance
and that to me is the just it enables us
to bring home the most beautiful
souvenir
and that’s a broader perspective and
that just carbonates my life when i get
home
i’m happier than ever to be an american
but i’m also a better citizen of this
planet
and for me that’s just the endlessly
gratifying
and rewarding thing about being
fortunate enough to travel and explore
the world not just as a tourist
but as a traveler and as a pilgrim
so how would you say that traveler’s
mindset or you know as you grow
and and go up that mass lowe’s hierarchy
of travel needs
you how does that change the way and
what you learn
from your travels
well you learn from your travels by
connecting
i think with people who are different
than you
one of the things i love about travel is
i meet more interesting people on the
road
than i ever meet at home i mean some
people travel by bringing the world to
them at home
you can do that it’s a curiosity
other people travel by venturing out and
finding themselves in a situation
where they’re surrounded by things that
are different
sitting around at a at a truck stop in
afghanistan
while they’re passing around some
marijuana and they’re skinning a goat
that’s a different experience and i
vividly remember that
sitting naked in a sauna in helsinki
with a bunch of working-class fins that
don’t have enough money to have asana
at their home or at their cabin that’s a
great experience
sitting in a salon in warsaw listening
to people appreciate chopin
being played on a beautiful piano in his
the the the country of his birth
that’s a beautiful experience i could
list off all sorts of situations where i
have been
in a different situation and i’ve gained
an appreciation
worshiping with coptic christians in a
city of 20 million
muslims in cairo that’s an interesting
situation to be in
um you know i just love that the thought
of that and you have that wherever you
go
now you can travel in a way where you’re
sitting on folding chairs with
six tour bus loads of people watching
slap dancing on stage
and then you can go back to your
american style hotel and complain about
the air conditioning
or you can immerse yourself
intellectually emotionally and
physically
in a foreign culture two different ways
to travel and two different ways to
learn
my my challenge as a travel teacher is
to inspire and equip americans to travel
in a way where they get out of their
comfort zone
and they risk changing themselves
i mean culture shock some people try to
avoid it
for me culture shock is the growing
pains of a broadening perspective
i seek culture shock i i revel in
just the exhausting emotional
wow i can’t believe what i’m
experiencing right now feeling
that you get when you put yourself in a
situation that
is out of your comfort zone and what
does that do to your sense of what’s
normal or what
norms there are does that change those i
love that
ethnocentrism is sort of thinking you
are normal
and we are not normal
americans are experts at thinking
they’re normal but ethnocentrism is not
just
an american thing big cultures tend to
be ethnocentric because if you’re in a
big culture you could think you’re the
norm
you remember the old concept of the ugly
american well ugly american just means
an ethnocentric person so that doesn’t
mean you’re bad you’re just a little
naive
culturally and you think you’re the norm
if you think
sitting on the toilet is normal you’re
wrong squatting over a hole is the norm
i was on a on an airplane in india with
a decal over the toilet in the airplane
and it was teaching people with a stick
figure how not to stand on the rim
of the toilet and squat over it and it
occurred to me oh
i was wrong i thought it was normal to
sit on something when you go
to the toilet i noticed in south asia
how comfortable people are
sitting on their hunches i can’t sit
i was at a in indonesia i was at a
village
where there was one television and it
was on a on a post and everybody would
gather to watch tv
on the village square and watch
television and there was no chairs there
people were just sitting on their
hunches
and occurred to me i can’t sit on my
haunch and relax and watch tv
but these people sit on their hunches
naturally because all their life they’ve
been sitting on their hunches
that’s exciting i’m changed when i
recognize that
i’m humbled it’s pretty nice to travel
with a mindset that you want to be
humbled
every time i’m humbled i celebrate
because i come home
with a with a broader perspective
so thinking about being back at home or
being at home
what would you say are the ways that a
traveler’s mindset can serve us
when we’re at home well there’s a lot of
issues we face at home
and i i think if the world wanted to be
more stable and more peaceful and to
trade better with each other and so on
they would
establish a fund and give every american
a a three-month trip to some place other
than
hawaii or cancun you know to really
travel
and when you graduate from school you
get this little fund
and you go traveling um europeans do
that with their erasmus program
they pay for people to work and study in
different countries in the european
union just so they can
be more empathetic with each other
empathy is an important thing
so when you’re a traveler in your home
you have more empathy for other people
you’re a little more humble about what
the rest of the world is like
you have um an appreciation of diversity
you celebrate diversity
you’re less fearful i mean i could go on
and on about the values of a traveler’s
experience life life view life story
when they come home and just
function as a citizen of their home
country but
think of the challenges in america right
now for diversity people are afraid of
diversity
if you travel i think you become less
afraid of diversity
i’m i’m always impressed by how i come
home thinking the world is filled with
beautiful people it’s filled with love
it’s filled with families it’s filled
with joy
joy does not make the headlines but
there’s a lot of joy
i india is my favorite country and i i
think it’s because
in india there’s a lot of suffering and
a lot of heartache and
a lot of squalor but there’s a lot of
joy
and i think of india as bulk
joy a billion people all
with a little joy celebrating it
together now of course there’s lots of
problems in india but there’s so much
joy there
and when i come home i celebrate the
world i have an appetite for it i want
to get out i want to be friends with the
world imagine being friends with the
world
having a mindset where you want to build
bridges to the world rather than walls
to
protect us from the world this world is
getting smaller and smaller and it’s
going to be more and more futile to
build walls and barricade
yourself behind you know in all of your
your privilege
we’re in this together it’s related to
fear also
travelers are less fearful there’s a lot
of fear in our country now when i
started teaching people said bon voyage
now nobody says to have a good trip
they say have a safe trip where did that
come from fear
and who are the most fearful people the
people who have not traveled
people with no passports people buried
deep in the middle of our country
people whose world view is shaped by
commercial television news rather than
actually getting out there and meeting
people
clear to me and i thought a lot about
this because you know my business
kind of depends on people not being
afraid so this fear
frustrates me in a lot of ways but most
importantly i just think it’s dangerous
for us to be so fearful
we’re four percent of this planet fear
is for people who don’t get out very
much the flip side of fear is
understanding
and we gain understanding when we travel
for me
travel i went to a conference a long
time ago when i was a kid up in
vancouver bc was called travel
a vital force for peace it was one of
the most inspirational weekends i’ve
ever had
and fear you conquer fear when you
travel and you come home and then you’re
dedicated to understanding the rest of
the world playing ball with the family
of nations
celebrating the diversity that’s boy
i got over taking home kitschy little
souvenirs a long time ago my souvenir
is this beautiful understanding that
that we’re part of an exciting planet
and if we could all just travel and get
to know our neighbors
there’s more than enough affluence to
make everybody happy and still have room
for people who are filthy rich
so a really wide and diverse world are
there ways we can use a traveler’s
mindset
in our daily lives as sort of an
everyday toolkit for
encountering uh whether it’s difference
or diversity
or the varied experiences around us and
enriching those a little bit you know
phil i’ve thought a lot about that
through kovid because
basically we’re all locked up for a year
and
my whole life has been ridiculously
one-minded i live and breathe
everything travel i was walking home the
other day and i saw a snail on my
neighbor’s
fence and white picket fence and snail
on the top of it and all i could think
of was escargot
you know i i just think in terms of
travel a culture
you know this family of nations and
cultures and so on and
when i was locked up throughout covid i
was
exercising this traveler’s mindset here
with no
option to get on an airplane and travel
and i realized
i’m not i don’t regret it but i realized
that there’s so many dimensions you
could focus on
some people live and breathe their
garden some people are so into their
dogs some people just
can’t get enough of cooking some people
are just
into all music you know it’s
all good it’s the weave of a life that
is embracing creativity and
collaboration
and and sharing and fun
and i took this covid lockdown
as a chance to not be a traveler but
employ my travelers mindset in things i
never took seriously
cooking i just spent a thousand dollars
for sharp knives a year ago if you told
me i’d spend a thousand dollars on
knives i’d say you are
out of your mind my children my kids
don’t
they all they say is who is this guy i’m
i’m excited about
the inventory of the fruit and
vegetables in my refrigerator
when i sit down with my partner we talk
about the decisions we made and how to
season the satay
i would have never ever ever done that
uh before
this period this opportunity to embrace
something new
i’m embarrassed about what i really
thought about people who walk dogs
until i had a chance to fall in love
with two dogs
and walk them i’m so thankful for that
i’m so tuned into nature right now every
sunset is a devotional
i just can’t get over how beautiful it
is it reminds me how fragile
and precious our environment is
and how we have to be stewards of our
environment uh
being at home i’ve i’ve made myself be
patient
you know there’s more to life than
increasing its speed
i’m a very good capitalist i’m a very
productive person
and suddenly i’m not able to make money
i’m not able to produce
and it’s god’s way of telling me to slow
down take a breath
i’m i’m open to that i’ve got i i’m
eager for that i’m hungry for that
it’s therapy for a workaholic um i’m a
privileged person
and now i’m aware that i’m in a
community where there’s a lot of
darkness a lot of fear a lot of
suffering
a lot of unemployment a lot of people
wondering how are they going to pay
their rent a lot of people with loved
ones who are sick
this is real this is more important than
anybody’s vacation to europe
and i’m tuning into it so i’m taking a
pause
i’m recognizing okay there’s more to
life than what i’m passionate about and
whatever anybody’s passionate about
that’s great
but there’s many more dimensions to life
and i’ve spent the last year
getting out of my comfort zone in ways
that are kind of traveling while you
stay at home and
i’m really thankful for it it’s been a
beautiful year for me
in that regard i’ve learned a lot
and let me ask what would you what would
you most like to leave us with
well i would most like to leave you with
that
this world is a place that
we need to embrace uh and i’ve said it
just in the last few minutes
but uh there’s there’s a lot of serious
challenges
i think the more we understand our world
the more we
see that we can work together the more
that we can put ourselves in a mindset
where we’re more likely to build bridges
and less likely to build walls
i think when we think about the future
considering our recent past with our
fears and with our frustrations and and
with our challenge with
this pandemic and so on i think the
challenges that are confront us in the
future
are going to be challenges that are
different than the challenges of the
past
they’re going to require embracing
science
they’re going to require good governance
they’re going to require
diligence on part of the citizenry
they’re going to require families
working together the family of nations
the challenges of the future are going
to be impervious to
conventional defense they’re going to be
blind to walls
and we can do it but we’ve got to be
thoughtful
and we’ve got to be able to step forward
and
and recognize the challenges and
i think if we if we take with us a
traveler’s mindset
with that get out of your comfort zone
uh try new things
be humble learn from others be positive
celebrate all the goodness and love on
this world it’s not pollyannish of
course there’s serious challenges and so
on
but um we’ve got a lot to be thankful
for we’ve got a lot of power
and we’ve got a lot of ability to make a
world a better place i
you know a lot of times in europe i find
myself just blurting out like a little
child giggles
life is good i just that’s what i i’m
i’m
on the top of a mountain in switzerland
or i’m having a great incredible gourmet
tapa
in basque country or i’m sucking on a on
a big
hubbly bubbly in turkey and i just think
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life is good and
this last year or so i’ve been thinking
life is good
for me and if we play it right
life can be good for everybody
that should be our goal and we can do
that
rick thank you so much for taking the
time well thank you phil for the excuse
to think about the value of travel
and share why it’s been such a joy in my
life and why i’m so
evangelical about the value of travel
especially the value of travel with the
right mindset