How Rick Steves Suggests You Handle Language Barriers Abroad

What happens to us in a place where we don't speak the local language? We each respond differently. Some see all those unfamiliar street signs and panic, not knowing how to function. Others see this as a problem that must be solved, using translator apps and action plans. Many enjoy the sound of foreign speech, read body language, use pantomime, or use simple words to communicate. A few even embrace linguistic isolation, where no small talk is required or even possible.

But a "language barrier" is more than just a failure to speak fluently with each other. For travelers with genuine curiosity, a lack of language prevents us from understanding a place. We get caught up in the most quotidian topics — paying for gum, finding the restroom — and hopscotch from one necessary interaction to the next, never learning who these people are, what they think, or what they care about. Knowing a few essential phrases is extremely helpful, but it only scratches the cultural surface.

Travel master Rick Steves has some sound advice for indie travelers who want to dig deeper. In a presentation called "European Travel Skills," Steves spoke on a wide range of topics, including language barriers. The solution? Local guides. As Steves explains, "There's all sorts of tours. When you go to almost any city, there's gonna be public tours, where you share the cost of the guide... Have you noticed in my TV show, it seems like I have friends all over Europe? 'This is my friend and fellow tour guide Christina, in Lisbon.' I'm just paying them to be my friends! Okay? You can do that, too," says Steves.

Now, Rick Steves is a big proponent of independent travel. "That's what I'm quite excited about, actually," he remarks in the video, "is people having a guidebook and traveling on their own." Many of us think of "guides" as big package tours, with special buses and T-shirts, or a "local expert" droning into a microphone about names and dates. But guided tours come in all forms, including small groups and one-on-one excursions. Your guide — who ideally lives in the community you're visiting — becomes your emissary, translator, and consultant. Suddenly, you can break the ice with anyone you pass, thanks to the guide's language skills and cultural immersion.

As Steves notes, many tours around the world are affordable or even free, if you know where to look. Tours don't have to be boring histories of old monuments; you might enter an old-fashioned marketplace, like the busy alleyways of Egypt's Khan El-Khalili, where your tour guide can explain the significance of a rababa (the oldest stringed instrument) and help you purchase one. You could take a coffee tour in Costa Rica, touching beans and learning about the picking and drying process from actual cultivators. Pedal around Tokyo with a bike-tour group and experience the way many Japanese commuters get around, then converse with shopkeepers through your guide. Tours are tailored to a wide range of ages and interests, and a savvy guide can open up worlds of knowledge –– often in two or more languages. You may be "paying them to be your friends," but the price is usually worth it.