What makes a great tour guide and host

[Music]

hi everybody and welcome i’m your host

phil klein

and i’m here with the travel writer rick

steves

rick thank you again for being here

you’re welcome phil thanks for having me

so good to see you um i wanted to turn

to the question of being a tour guide

you have probably taught more people to

be tour guides than just about anyone

so i wanted to ask you what do you think

it takes to be

a really good tour guide or host

you know i think a tour guide needs to

have a

passion for what they’re teaching i hope

a tour guide

considers him or herself a teacher a

kind of a mentor for a broader

perspective

uh you know i i’ve been to tour guide

schools where they’re looking for jobs

and i’ve been the employer and we have

like speed dating and i sit there and

each of them come and try to sell

themselves on me

and i’ve talked to 50 people that are

trying to be tour guides i go home

thinking i wouldn’t hire any of these

people

uh you know they’re looking for a job

and they’re looking for

uh to do all the front door kind of

tourism kind of stuff

i want just somebody who’s just a

natural enthusiast

evangelical about their culture i mean i

mean that’s the passion that power is a

good tour guide

and then you can talk about all the

skills necessary to do that but

fundamentally

it’s somebody who’s a teacher and who’s

passionate about the culture they’re

trying to share

rick tell me what do you think it takes

to make

a really good tour guide well simply put

um phil it’s just a passion for teaching

about the culture that you love that’s

it you can learn the other stuff

but if you’re passionate about teaching

a culture you love you’ve got the

foundation

for being a tour guide that i would love

to have leading one of my tours

so what would you say to someone who uh

or what would be a good challenge for

someone who wants to find

a way to take that passion and to tell

local stories or local cultures perhaps

if they haven’t ever done that before

i don’t know what works conventionally

but worked for what worked for me was

just very organic

i traveled as a student and i spent my

lunches in the dormitory at the

university of washington uh

cafeteria helping people plan their

trips i would take my friends to europe

and

they were kind of lazy about what are we

going to do for a reservation tomorrow

and i was always thinking of the

logistics of the travel

i was aware of the potential for a great

time

but also the need for being practical

and lining things up

and then i started taking small groups

around europe uh in just

many buses for my work and i was the

driver in the guide

and then i started teaching other guides

to teach what i was teaching

and through my own experience i gained a

sixth sense

of how do people learn how how much can

people absorb

how many madonnas and children can a

mortal tourist

see before they wouldn’t cross the

street for a raphael these are important

issues

so it’s you finesse it and after each

trip i would do the best of europe in 20

days and i’d sit

in my hotel room in paris at the end of

it i’d read the feedback and i’d think

how can i do it better

and then i’d meet the next group and i

would do this 3000 loop

3000 mile 20 day loop again and i

practiced

what is my strategy am i going to be

everybody’s friend or am i going to be

their stern teacher in the organizer

am i going to be a cheerleader and a

comedian or am i going to be a professor

what are my weaknesses do i really want

to hire a local guide or is it better

for me to do the walk through this town

so i understand the context of my group

it’s an endlessly fun challenge to be a

good guide

and what do you think actually are some

of the bones or the elements

or the rack of an excellent tour

well an excellent tour uses your time

smartly

and maximizes the experience you know

you pay

more for a tour but when all the dust

settles as

if you measured experiences i think a

tour

is a better value because you’re having

less anxiety

less stress you’re using your time

smarter and you’re having more

experiences per day

one of my things that i keep harping on

with my guides and i’ve got a hundred

guides that i employ we took

thirty thousand people around europe

last year on our two and in a couple

years ago on our tours and we had 1200

different tours

and we have an annual meeting here in

seattle where i fly the guides in and

it’s a week-long intense seminar

one of the things i keep harping on is

identify anxiety

and then overcome it what are people

anxious about you know

uh they’re they’re are they they’re

anxious about do they have change for

the

lady at the toilet at the truck stop you

know understand anticipate

uh people are anxious about uh oh

there’s a

a freeloader on our tour should we be

concerned

as the tour guide i will say hey we’ve

got a visitor who’s freeloading on our

tour

you’re welcome to stay but stand in the

back and don’t ask a lot of questions

you know and then everybody relaxes uh

so uh you know you just you have a sense

of

how are people doing you work to

divide them up so that they bond as a

group and there’s fun ways to do that

uh a tour guide needs to have that

leadership

uh something that i call group think it

sounds almost

like scary or autocratic or something

like that but

i love group think it’s just okay um

there’s different drinks at the

restaurant i’m just gonna take orders

right now

for the basic beer if you want the good

local beer

it’s and it’s you know it’s three euros

and twenty it’s

three euros and 75 cents i’ll say it’s

just four euros

and uh somebody will come around get

your order later but who wants a beer

and three quarters of the group just go

beer

great three quarters of the group gets

their beer they got their drink right

away

and then the oddballs get their special

drink later on so it’s that group think

efficiency you get the efficiency and

then

when you’ve covered the efficiency

groundwork then you got to teach in a

way that’s fun

and that’s a whole different thing you

got to understand the culture

of my guides i wonder if somebody wanted

to get a job working for rick steves in

my tour program

what would be your best way to present

yourself

for me i don’t want somebody who’s just

an expert in that european country that

we travel in nor do i want somebody

who’s just

a great american personality who relates

wonderfully with people and can teach

i need somebody with a foot in both

cultures

so i find americans that have married

into europe or

europeans that have lived and studied in

america

they have an honest intimate

understanding of who are americans

and they know what their culture is all

about those kind of guides have a

big advantage over other guides

and of course the language skills are

critical

you mentioned a little while ago the

importance of feedback and seeking and

processing that and translating that

into improved behavior

what are some ways that a tour guide can

seek

feedback and the feedback especially

that would help them to become a much

better

guide or uh host yeah this is just sort

of

the weeds of being a good tour guide but

you need feedback people don’t

people are of people need to be

comfortable

explaining what is their need halfway

through every tour

on a rick steve’s tour we have a

mid-term review

and the guide just says i’m just going

to collect an anonymous scrap of paper

and you can tell me the music’s too loud

on the bus or

you don’t have enough rest stops or you

walk too fast

or the bus driver has body odor you know

let me know i can i can straighten that

out it’s

okay we’re in this together you’ve paid

good money we want you to have a good

trip

help me give you the greatest trip at

the end of the trip

we have the serious feedback and this

goes back way to my

uh minibus days the minibus days when

there was one rick steve’s guide and it

was me

and i would drive eight people around on

a minibus and at the end of the tour

they would give me

a an envelope with their anonymous

letters in it that gave their feedback

and i told them

you guys are guinea pigs for all future

travelers

and you are the recipient you’re the

beneficiary of all the guinea pigs that

came before you

and my trajectory as a tour guide is

like this

and you’re helping out so give me your

candid feedback and it was a very

emotional thing for me

phil because i worked so hard as a kid

in my 20s driving these buses and

starting out my tour program

and it was a ritual i would i would

finish with the group in paris i always

went to the uh sakura court church and i

just i’ve

i just went there and i just was

thankful there’s this beautiful neo

byzantine church on the

mar overlooking paris and then i was

very tired

i was very thankful and i was trying to

be very thoughtful and then i go back to

the hotel

and it was a ritual i’d open the

envelope and i would read each of these

letters from my groups

who i had been servant their teacher

their

their the guy who poured their juice and

i would read the feedback

and then i would learn and i would meet

the next group a couple days later and i

would do it again

but the feedback is your friend in fact

i say that to my guys when we have our

annual

gathering feedback’s your friend you’re

great but you can be better

you know and you what you want is candid

feedback my worst feedback was from my

grandma she just said oh rick you’re so

good you know i don’t want to hear that

i know i’m good i want to know how can i

be better

and that’s feedback that’s really great

what would it be like do you think to

live in a world where

everyone had well-developed abilities to

be a good host and a good tour guide

how do you think people might treat one

another in that kind of an environment

you know it’s got to go two ways you can

be a good tour guide but you got to have

people that are

eager to receive who are eager to learn

who want to be changed who want to grow

i’m really lucky with my the way we

promote our tours on a rick steve’s tour

because we get people that want to get

out of their comfort zone

we get people who see culture shock

as the growing pains of a broadening

perspective

now if my neighbors in my community we

could see

life in my community as a tour also

if we wanted to learn from each other if

we wanted to

have this i think rousseau nature

of the social contract where we all give

up a little bit more than

you might think is necessary in order to

live peaceably together rather than that

don’t tread on me

lock social contract which is just get

out of my way i can do anything i want

as long as i don’t hurt anybody else you

know

that sort of socialism

community-ism then you could have a

chance where we could all learn from

each other

and we could be thirsty for inspiration

from other people that would be pretty

utopian

i hadn’t thought about that but what i

love about my role as a tour guide is

i’ve got people who knowingly get on

that bus

knowing they’re going to be changed and

they’re thirsty for change

and they want me to help keep them safe

and

curate all this information but they

want to be different

when they get out of this tour and

that’s why they dedicate the time and

the money to take the tour

so how do you believe tours actually do

change people

are there specific kinds of ways that’s

you see that

i have to be really careful because i’m

thankful for how travel has changed me

and i just want to hit people on the

head with this you know

but you can’t do that that’s

non-productive

what you’d have to do as a more

thoughtful guide is

respect that everybody has a different

life story and it’s legit

and then thoughtfully

gently put them in a cultural situation

that’s going to challenge them

open them up to it and let them draw

their own conclusions

it’s a beautiful thing and i’ve seen it

i’ve seen people who are very

sort of set in their ways i won’t say

liberal or conservative i’ll just say

set in their ways

and then i’ve watched them over the

course of a two or three week tour

struggling with this reality that

europeans do things differently than we

do in america and they’re

thankful for it we don’t need to be we

don’t need to say that’s right and we’re

wrong

but it’s the first step

in a broader perspective is to realize

good people

thoughtful people deal with the same

challenges in different cultures

differently and it’s cool to compare

notes

you know i’m really into drug policy

reform not because i’m

pro-drugs i just think our drug laws are

very painful

and non-productive in our society

and europe has the same appetite for

drugs and the same problem with

opioid abuse and addiction and the same

enthralment with marijuana and alcohol

how do they do it

how do they do it in a safe way in

scandinavia

in june you see flatbed trucks all

decorated up with kids painted and

wearing costumes

just drunk as can be going from house to

house on graduation

and their parents are pouring the beer

their parents

hired the flatbed truck and the driver

because the parents know the kids are

going to drink anyways let’s

organize it in a way where the kids

aren’t going to drink and drive

now that’s that’s called pragmatic harm

reduction

that’s good parenting that’s a european

that is so european to me it’s gonna

happen anyways

let’s not just say no let’s just find a

way to let it happen where nobody gets

hurt

uh we’ve all been there we’ve all been

kids wanting to do that we’ve all been

parents wishing our kids weren’t going

to do that

scandinavians they they host the keggers

as parents um and i’m i think that’d be

a tough sell in america but it sure

works for scandinavia

and uh i celebrate that i love being in

scandinavia

in graduation time because it’s a joy a

joyful occasion

and the kids are all breaking into

adulthood in a fun way

um you talk about learning from other

cultures is a way in which that learning

is also a political act that would be

another kind of way to get at that

right you know i i find it so

entertaining

that people complain that i’m making

travel a political act

to me thoughtful travel

gives you empathy for the other 96 of

humanity

it lets you see your country in the

context of the rest of the world

it lets you be appreciative of how

privileged you might be

of how there are consequences on how we

live our lives that that that that

that ripple all through our community

they ripple into the future

and they rip both south of the border

when i say south of the border i mean

you know into the developing world and

when we

travel we bring home the most beautiful

souvenir

and that’s this empathy for the other 96

of humanity

and then when we live our lives here

as citizens of this most powerful nation

on the planet

just mindful of that we’re making travel

a political act

a lot of people say oh there’s there’s

there’s hungry people and

and you’re going spending so much money

go down there to see this poverty in

central america if you really cared

you would just give it to some food aid

and and then they would be able to

live better well you you can make that

point

but when i travel i knowingly spend

five times the annual income of the

people i’m taking photographs of

just to to go visit with them it’s okay

because i’m going down there i’m

learning and i’m coming home

with a better understanding of them with

an empathy for their struggles

and when i take that empathy into the

voting booth

it seems perverse but i don’t vote for

what’s good for me i vote for what’s

what’s right what’s ethical

what’s good for the world what’s good

for people who are less privileged than

me

what’s good for the future what’s good

for our children what’s good for people

with no voice

and if you really were selfish if you’ve

traveled

you know that even if you’re motivated

only by

greed you don’t want to be filthy rich

in a desperately poor world it’s a

miserable place to raise your kids

you want to work for that kind of

justice that’s

travel as a political act and if that’s

if that’s something you’re afraid of um

that’s a shame because i think that’s

the most beautiful thing about travel it

makes me a better citizen

of the world so

what if uh every teacher parent

uh explorer had some of the skills

or orientation or mindset that you and

your tour guides

have curiosity

willingness to follow through with acts

of empathic

exploration and discovery

when i cross the border and they say

what’s your occupation i say teacher

because that’s i feel what i am i love

teaching and i’ve got the greatest

classroom and that’s the road

the road and my classroom is taking

people out there and it’s experiential

i suppose that’s fundamental to good

teaching is

tangible it’s right here it’s real it’s

getting out of my norm

i believe so strongly that you can learn

more about yourself by leaving home and

looking at your world from a distance

i i think you can extrapolate the

challenges we’re facing as a nation if

you go to other nations that

are further along that road and see the

consequences of their mismanagement and

their bad governance and their

corruption and their

greed or whatever you can see things in

in high contrast that way and then you

go home and you realize

we’re you know history’s speaking to us

the lessons that people have learned

from another country are speaking to us

these are vivid ways of learning one

thing i talk with my guides about when

it comes to teaching is

don’t just stand in front of something

and talk about something that doesn’t

relate to anything

it needs to have a tangible rack to hang

on so

you know you’re standing there with a

roman column embedded in this wall

you can talk about how you know on every

church

you’re sitting on uh the the previous

civilization’s

holy ground under the church would be

uh a roman temple and under the roman

temple would be some

prehistoric holy ground and it’s just

logical that one society builds

its holy place on the dirt of the

previous

society these kind of ways of teaching

to me are more vivid

and more fun so if we can do that

if we can make that learning vivid and

then with my tour guides i

whenever you’re teaching or telling a

story

i don’t tell a story just to entertain i

just frankly i’m not that wild about

this whole

passion that people have for

storytelling i always say

it’s got to get a litmus test so what

that’s that’s the litmus test first of

all you need an agenda as a teacher

you know all over europe in the 1800s

nations were coming together uh and

existing

nations didn’t want more nations

together and these nations were

exercising their their their nationalism

you know

norway was distinct from sweden um

bulgaria was not part of the ottoman

empire

the german-speaking people should be one

nation

not 20 little german-speaking nations uh

the italians

should be one nation in 1850 there was

no germany there was no italy

in 1880 you got germany and you got

italy uh in the same

generation america was fighting the

civil war are we one nation or are we

two nations

that’s not a coincidence okay there’s

something you want to teach

nationalism romanticism late 1800s all

happening at the same time

in different countries you want to teach

that let’s teach it by telling stories

and then oh yeah they created italy and

then the leaders of italy the the

madisons and jeffersons of washington of

italy who you’ll see their names on the

squares all over

italy you know mazzoni kabor garibaldi

and so on victor emmanuel

they declared now we’ve created italy

now we’ve got to create

italians and italians have this concept

of

campanellismo it’s the land of a

thousand bell towers you know a bell

tower is a campanile

and the italians love the sound of their

church’s bell tower

you know that’s great but their loyalty

is to their town or their region

and they had the challenge of creating

italy so these are ways of teaching

and and then you go home and you’ve

learned something that i think matters

i don’t want people to go home with

goofy little stories i want people to go

home with a better appreciation for

history

that can then apply to us today because

in so many ways history is speaking to

us right now

and if you happen to be a historian or

appreciate history you can hear it

and a lot of people are oblivious to

that wow so

making history and whatever is taught

clear through having an agenda and

making sure that it’s relevant

to the listeners and answers is so what

those are really critical elements

that when they are part of a tour or a

teaching experience

they animate it with value for the

listener

uh if with that all together is there

something that you’d like to kind of

leave us with uh in in hopes that we uh

take a next step in our journey to

become better uh

guides of whatever tours it is that we

live in our daily lives

you know phil i i it’s so vivid to me

when i look at foreign study programs in

europe

our kids on a foreign study trip with a

chaperone and in a lot of cases these

are very committed chaperones and great

teachers

and in some cases they’re just people

that scammed a free trip you know

and what saddens me is sometimes they

don’t appreciate the opportunity for

these students they’re all kids in their

in their school age you know

they’ve got this beautiful chance to

maybe a once in a lifetime chance to

open up to the rest of the world

and if they didn’t have leadership on

the part of their chaperones and

teachers it’s just

it’s just a silly high school party

but with inspirational teaching and

leadership and guiding

it’s a life-changing experience so

that’s specifically for students

but i see us all as students and for me

as a tour guide

i’ve got that opportunity that

responsibility that

thrill that honor of taking people

and opening them up to what i think is

so important

a broader perspective so we can do that

in our guiding in europe

and i think we can be enthusiastic about

that the value of that kind of teaching

in whatever niche we find

ourselves as we embrace life with

enthusiasm

and and celebrate the fact that we’re

not the norm but that we live in a world

that is a fascinating

tapestry of cultures and

and eurekas and opportunities and

challenges

and it just really carbonates our life

it puts more colors on the palate it

it makes the weave more beautiful i just

there’s so many

many ways that you can celebrate the

value of learning

travel is my way of learning it’s my way

of tour guiding

but we can learn we can celebrate life

and we can inspire people

in many many ways and that’s a joy

thank you so much rick you really have

given us another window into what it

means to be

on the school of the road as

we travel in each our own way but gain

so much from what you’ve been sharing

today and and so many of your other

moments of insight wisdom

and wonderful teaching and tour guiding

thank you so much rick thank you phil

and it’s been fun just to

talk with you and explore the many ways

that

the road can be a kind of a school and a

celebration at the same time

you