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