11 Things You Should Know Before Booking A Rick Steves Tour

Touring Europe is a fascinating experience. Whether you target scenic Alpine towns, lesser-known destinations that don't typically experience huge crowds, or a medieval town basked in history, there's an abundance of phenomenal cultural experiences to be had across the continent. These exist in both self-exploration formats and, of course, through the assistance of expert tour guides. One tour operator that stands out from the pack is the venerable Rick Steves. A longtime European traveler, Steves has spent decades crafting immensely memorable tour experiences for travelers looking to see and experience a European vacation they never thought possible. His motivation lies in providing travelers with an enriching and educational holiday that will never fail to amaze.

These experiences highlight some of the often-overlooked aspects of a destination and give travelers a unique sense of a place, its people, and its culture, something other tours don't always accomplish while seeking to hit the major tourist hotspots above all else. However, there are a few key features of a Rick Steves tour that travelers should keep in mind before booking a spot in one of these travel groups. For one, they aren't for the faint of heart! Tackling a Rick Steves tour can be a life-changing experience, but it's important to keep these things in mind when considering one.

Rick Steves has been designing expansive European tours since founding the brand in 1976. Steves is an avid traveler who never misses an opportunity to spend time in some unique part of the world. He branches out all over the globe but has a particular fondness for the European continent and is routinely drawn back year after year. These trips find him exploring some of his personal favorites, as well as new destinations and sites that might make for amazing inclusions on his tours. One of Rick Steves' commitments to travelers exploring the world through his excursions is a level of personalization that simply can't be found in many other tour groups. Steves designs each of his tours personally and routinely revisits them, both in concept and as a tourist himself.

With so much skin in the game, it's clear that a Rick Steves tour is a one-of-a-kind experience that will give travelers huge amounts of satisfaction. Not only does he call these tours his "babies," but the constant attention they receive means that booking a tour with Steves ensures an experience filled with fantastic information, plenty of excellent attractions and stops along the way, and perhaps the most up-to-date exploration of your chosen destination's highlights and hidden gems possible.

Part of the allure of a Rick Steves tour is the group dynamic built into the experience. Unlike many other tour groups and guided adventures you might find when touching down in a new city, Steves introduces a comprehensive tour group mentality from the jump and promotes this feeling of unity throughout the entire experience. On a Rick Steves tour, experiences are meant to be shared.

Many tours act as a sort of collection of individuals who happen to be doing the same thing at the same time. Day trips and longer excursions can be a valuable — if sometimes surface-level — way to experience the culture and environment of a new and exciting place, but this approach doesn't fully tap into the vast and wonderful memory-making opportunities at hand when embarking upon a brand new adventure. For Rick Steves and anyone who goes on one of his tours, this community-making opportunity isn't one that should be missed. The people you do things with are just as important as the activities themselves. When signing up for a Rick Steves tour, you can be sure that you won't just be traveling around to tick off a few boxes here and there. Instead, every traveler on the journey will play an integral role in the overall adventure and every memory made along the way.

A Rick Steves tour is a well-oiled machine. Every detail is planned so travelers can attain maximum enjoyment and check off every little thing they want to see and do. These tours simply don't account for any wasted time, so when you sign up for a Rick Steves tour, you agree to a strict itinerary that doesn't factor in any dead space and accommodate tardiness.

Whether it's arriving at the meeting point first thing in the morning, stopping briefly for lunch in a town square, or returning to the bus after exploring some part of a community, tour participants engaged in a Rick Steves experience are expected to stick religiously to the itinerary timings. These tours have been meticulously crafted in order to squeeze in as much as humanly possible into every day on the road (within reason, of course, Steves isn't trying to totally exhaust his companions in adventure!). That means groups must be ready to move when scheduled so that tourists are able to avoid rush hour traffic, gain entry to each new cultural site, and still enjoy enough time on the front and back end of each day for relaxation, sleep, and a good meal. This schedule allows tourists to be well prepped for the next day of adventure.

In addition to the tightly coordinated itinerary, a Rick Steves tour is known for what he calls a "precision dump." For Rick Steves, it's not enough to plan a busy itinerary with meticulously crafted timings at each location, so his tours get into the nitty gritty of pickups and drop-offs. Travelers on a Rick Steves tour will be asked to engage in precision loading and unloading when maneuvering between their bus seats and the attractions they are visiting. In practice, this means preparing everything you'll need to take with you off the bus before it arrives at its destination and then quickly and efficiently standing up and exiting the bus without hesitation or delay. Similarly, when loading back onto the bus, tourists will be asked not to linger in the aisles or doorway and to get right to their seats so that the group can load up and move out at a swift pace.

To the uninitiated, this might seem a little overbearing. However, the ability to rapidly exit the bus and climb back aboard at the end of a visit allows your driver to double-park right by the entrance of the place you're exploring. Rather than lumbering across a lengthy parking lot to return to your bus, travelers on a Rick Steves tour can expect to capitalize on solid time savings through this method, heading straight to the next destination rather than messing around with disorganization.

One thing you won't get around on a Rick Steves tour is the walking. Transportation to and from destinations is obviously a major feature of these experiences. But when you're exploring cultural sites, one of the most entertaining cities in Europe, and many other highlights found prominently within European destinations, quite a bit of walking is to be expected. A Rick Steves tour will see you ramping up your step count considerably on a daily basis, so the footwear you choose to bring along for the ride is a crucially important decision.

A good pair of walking shoes should be high on your packing list, and if you don't already have a set that can support your daily needs, buying one is a must. However, this advice comes with a bit of a caveat. Shoes often take a little bit of time to break in, and a brand-new pair will often be uncomfortable and leave blisters on your feet if you jump right into a full slate of activity in them. Veteran travelers who have toured Europe with a Rick Steves group recommend purchasing any new pair of shoes you plan on wearing at least a month in advance, perhaps even two or three months ahead of your departure. Giving your feet and new footwear enough time to acclimate before throwing them into the deep end will ensure that you don't have to compromise your adventure by slowing down.

In addition to new footwear, travelers will need to take their endurance preparation seriously. It's not enough to simply pack light and purchase new shoes when preparing for one of these tour experiences (although both are essential considerations). Taking the time to do a bit of walking in the lead-up to your adventure will make it a far more enjoyable experience on the whole. Those who already exercise regularly should keep up their activity level, adding walking or running if they aren't already a part of the routine. But for those who don't regularly get out and about for their wellness, building stamina can make all the difference when embarking on a tour of Europe.

Plenty of walking is to be expected when exploring any part of the continent, and this is especially true when taking on the itinerary of a fully-formed Rick Steves tour. Those who aren't physically prepared for the demands of each day will certainly begin to feel fatigued, perhaps even after just the first day on the ground. Fortunately, when armed with a new pair of shoes, you'll need to do a bit of walking to prepare for the trip. Breaking in your new walking shoes is a great excuse to get a bit of exercise and tackle this element of preparation at the same time.

Packing light is one of Rick Steves' most important travel tips when embarking on an adventure. This advice remains a part of his core beliefs surrounding travel, regardless of whether you're part of his tour group or not. By skipping the checked bag and only packing what you can carry around town in a day pack and rollaboard suitcase (or wheeled duffle bag — a great option for road trips with toddlers, by the way), you'll eliminate delays while in transit and make routine movements far less stressful at your destination.

When traveling with a Rick Steves tour, you'll carry your own bags and will be limited by the group's time needs when it comes to getting things out of your main suitcase inside the bus's lower cargo hold. Packing as lightly as possible will make movements simple and efficient, and dedicating some time to constructing an effective day pack will ensure that you have everything you need while exploring your European destination. It's a good idea to bring rain gear and a few other clothing options that can easily slip into the bag you'll carry with you every day. But you'll obviously be able to make alterations between travel days while resting up in your hotel room. Speaking with your guide and consulting the itinerary and weather apps that you trust can help you tailor your day pack for each new adventure and prepare you for an efficient and immensely fun tour every single day.

Rick Steves is a big believer in eating what the locals eat. For him, embracing the things that people prize for themselves is a fantastic way to experience, learn about, and ultimately appreciate the place you're traveling around. While engaging in a Rick Steves tour, you'll have plenty of opportunities to taste the local cuisine. Your tour guide will happily introduce you to dietary staples of the region and community, pointing travelers toward the most authentic dishes and a bevy of fantastic restaurants in order to amplify the experience to an even greater height.

There's just something missing when you travel all the way across the ocean to experience a new place and its culture only to fall back on the familiar food items that you routinely order. Food is such a loud cultural language and speaks to the heart of a place and its people. The way in which sugars, salts, and acidity are blended together in every community's own unique flair is a testament to hundreds or even thousands of years of cohesion and history. Unique herbs and spices elevate the dishes of a people and add a powerful charm that simply can't be replicated outside of a food's cultural home. Steves suggests embracing food, and those engaging in a tour curated by the European adventurer will have plenty of opportunities to do just that.

Since Rick Steves' first tours, his company has prioritized a commitment to crafting small group experiences that bring about maximum enjoyment and a community sentiment that raises the bar for all other travel experiences. A Rick Steves tour will always be composed of a small group. This will be a happy band of travelers that rises up to just 24 or 28 people at its maximum, and when setting off on one of these journeys, you can expect to know everyone's name.

A small group is the perfect way to travel around Europe. As mentioned previously, these tour experiences are different than the fly-by-night operations that bring travelers on a day trip to see a few highlights within or around a city. On a Rick Steves tour, you'll get to know your travel companions on a personal level, and this dynamic is a central theme within the tour's underlying DNA. Creating memorable experiences with a small group of people who share a passion for adventure and exploration is a phenomenal way to build memorable and massively enjoyable adventures. When signing up for a Rick Steves tour, you shouldn't expect to be lost in the crowd or feel like you're doing it alone.

One interesting aspect of a Rick Steves tour can be found in the hotel choices that the operator selects. Rick Steves himself is an avid traveler who spends plenty of time sleeping in hotel rooms across the continent. He and his team have taken considerable steps to curate a list of hotels for tour groups that cut against the grain. Travelers should expect to find themselves sleeping in accommodation that's prized for its character rather than cookie-cutter aesthetics or chain elements.

Instead, tourists exploring with a Rick Steves tour will be treated to a variety of boutique European hotels that put forward their own unique character and add their own stamp to the experience rather than just acting as a place to lay your head. However, it's important to note that this means you may find yourself in a nicer room one night and a slightly more cramped or awkwardly shaped space the next. The reality is that many individual hotels in Europe are built into the fabric of their communities rather than featuring in a purpose-built setting. Instead of standardized room dimensions and bland amenities, these hotels often highlight their eccentricities and quirks, providing a new depth to a traveler's time abroad.

Finally, Rick Steves is a big believer in the notion that "travel is a political act." By this, he means that travel is a fantastic opportunity to learn from the people you are interacting with. When experiencing a new culture, you'll often find many of your underlying assertions challenged by a brand-new way of thinking. He isn't focused here so much on ideas of electoral politics but rather on the everyday lived experience of the people you interact with. 

The reality is that many people across the world deal with the same basic issues as one another, from food insecurity and economic issues to questions about raising children to be good people and caring for those who can't provide for themselves. At the heart of it, people all over the world are very similar to one another in their needs, concerns, and basic moral instincts. Even so, speaking with people who live in different parts of the world will reveal new pathways of thinking about these problems and their solutions. Travel is a fantastic way to broaden your horizons and learn from the mindsets and experiences of other people. Steves considers this task to be a crucial aspect of any travel effort and goes out of his way to make experiences that can challenge his belief system an important part of his adventures.