Customer Reviews

Rick Steves' Postcards from Europe: 25 Years of Travel Tales from America's Favorite Guidebook Writer

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

What can I say? My husband and I have always used Rick's guides when traveling to Europe. I enjoyed this book because it shows you a side of Rick himself that you don't have time to get to know during his TV shows. It brought back memories of places we've been. And while reading, I made a list of places I still want to go. I just wish I could have read it before I made my first trip to Europe. It shows you more of what to expect. Which for us has always been just wonderful! The book is not a tourist guide like the others, but an insiders guide to Rick and his experiences. As for the humor, I found parts very funny. It shows a side to Europe that 2 weeks of vacation will never reveal. I loved it.

Although a fan of Rick's public television show, I wasn't sure what to expect from this book since it's a bit of a break from his regular guidebooks. I was very pleasantly surprised! Rick has a dry and sophisticated sense of humor that I found quite amusing. His descriptions about the various characters he has met in his travels are really entertaining.

As a travel guide writer, Rick offers folksie homespun advice for novice travellers,which is fine, but as a humourist he fails miserably. This is like reading someones random thoughts on their favourite places, past experiences and family life. He is all over the place, literally, straining to make the mundane amusing. For die hard Steve's fans only!

I have to admit my opinion of Rick Steves as a writer is tinged with envy. He turned his hobby of traveling in Europe into a successful career writing travel guides, went on to make fantastically popular travel TV shows and videos, and runs a rapidly growing tour company. Yes, he works very hard, but he also gets to spend four months doing research in Europe every year in addition to whatever vacation he takes.

Rick Steves has my dream job. When I took my first trip to Europe as a teenager, I met lots of kids in youth hostels who spent half the year working long hours for low pay so they could spend the other half of the year traveling. That seemed like the perfect life to me then, but now I think Steves has done much better than that (except for the part about being away from his family for a third of every year).

Naturally, I wanted to know how he did it. In Postcards From Europe, he explains. If you have read his newsletters, you've probably already read a good portion of the book since Steves recycles his writing often. If you have seen his travel shows and videos you will be familiar with quite a few of these episodes as well. But in the book, Steves has let down his guard a bit and is more opinionated, a little less bubbly. The prose is still well-carbonated, as he might put it, with lots of travel guide phrasing and over-the-top descriptions.

On the other hand, there are quite a few scenes that would never make it to public TV or even into his guidebooks. Nothing scandalous, he only hints at romance on the road, all in the distant past. He tells of some of the shortcuts he took on his first few trips as a tour guide, such as not making hotel reservations and sending the group out to find rooms for the night, and on occasion, having them all camp out. He even admits a few mistakes he's made, such as putting tour groups up in substandard accommodations in order to make them appreciate being rich Americans. Of course, these were people who signed up for the cheapest tour they could find, and probably already knew that they were incredibly fortunate to be able to travel at all.

Steves's transformation from a travel guide writer and lecturer whose goal was to help people travel on their own, into a tour mogul whose company takes some 3,000 people on guided tours every year (and they aren't cheap anymore), makes an interesting story. Apparently, people practically begged him to lead tours rather than go on their own. Many people simply didn't want to be bothered finding a room and dealing with transportation every day. They wanted to spend their precious time in Europe enjoying the sights and the people. Steves harbors a thinly-veiled contempt for these tourists, even as they pay him scads of money. I can't blame him for taking the money, though. If I were in his shoes, I'm sure I'd do the same. But as someone who traveled on my own or with my husband the first dozen trips, I was surprised at how nice it was to take a tour and let someone else deal with the logistics. I think Steves understands that, but still has no respect for it.

For someone who has spent months out of every year traveling in Europe, Steves seems to hit the same places over and over. In Postcards From Europe, he goes on a circuit of Europe that mimics his most popular guided tour and highlights many of the same cities he emphasizes in his guidebooks and on his TV shows. Of course Paris and Venice are worth seeing over and over. But Rothenburg and Gimmelwald (a tiny town in the Swiss Alps), charming as they are, don't seem to be worth quite this much press. There must be other small and picturesque town that Steves can discover, even after all these years. What I would find really interesting is to follow Steves as he visits a town he's never been to before and see how he approaches it. His motto is that he makes the travel mistakes so we don't have to. How does a seasoned traveler make a new town one of his favorites or decide it just isn't worth his time?

Postcards From Europe is a readable narrative of how one man was able to make a living doing what he loves, and is also something of an unintentional tale of how money can influence even the most idealistic and focused of people.

Rick Steves postcards from Europe is a great way to relive places in Europe that you have been and a nice way to preview places that you might want to visit in the future.He introduces you to people from many different places and you almost feel as though you know them.

Although a touch maudlin at times, this is an entertaining travelogue that gives the reader far more insight into Rick Steves than do his travel guidebooks. It's heartening to know that even "the guru" has doubts, fears and misgivings when he travels in Europe.

If you have been to Europe 5 or 6 times, feel as if you've "seen it all", and want to discover a renewed interest, by all means read this book! Rick takes us on an adventure in Europe that gave me all sorts of new ideas for my own trips. Because after all, Europe is more than just a list of sites (Eiffel Tower, Tower of London, St. Peter's, etc.) that the tourist needs to "check off". Europe is it's people...and the experiences one can have while getting to know another culture!

Rick...I just gotta see the Tippelzone though....that was a new one one me!

A wonderful book on travel. Rick Steves writes wonderfully about his experiences travling. It's like listening to a friend. It is a great way to get to know the people of Europe through his experiences and a very enjoyable read. It's really entertaining and you learn a lot about Europe and it's people also. It's a delightful read. I'd recommend it to anyone that loves and appreciates travel. It's a must have travel book. By far the most interesting I ever read.

I've used numerous Rick Steves' guidebooks in conjunction with other travel guides before, but became truly impressed after relying exclusively on a Steves' guidebook for a recent trip to the Mediterranean. His passion for European travel and combination of practical, informative, and entertaining details places his guides nicely between Let's Go and Fodors. Being in my 30s, that's just about where I fit, too.

Realizing there was a certain depth to Steves (despite his on screen, PBS campy-ness) I picked up 'Postcards from Europe.' How does he continue turning out quality travel guides to an entire continent, year after year? Does he get burnt out? 'Postcards' reveals a conflicted Steves--he's still in love with the Europe he first discovered in his teens, but he's terribly distraught at how tourism has watered down much of Europe's cultural authenticity, in so far as it affects a traveler's ability to experience it (to say nothing of Europeans' willingness to peddle it). Most significantly, as one of America's premiere travel authorities on Europe, Steves is keenly aware of his role in it all.

Consider the following passage from his chapter on medieval Rothenburg: "Rothenburg has never depressed me until this visit. I love the place, but so does everybody else. Millions of people can love a TV show and not ruin it. But the charm of a small medieval wondertown is a consumable, and there's only so much to go around. My Rothenburg is being loved to death. But it's not 'my' Rothenburg. And I'm part of the problem." (p.61)

Despite tourists' worst efforts, along with those Europeans who turn their villages and galleries into an amusement park to accomodate them, Steves is an optimistic man, and he's not so egocentric/Americentric as to think tourism will ruin Europe. His insights here, however, make 'Postcards' as much (or more) of a revealing guide to contemporary Europe as his 'proper' travel books.

I am a big fan of Rick Steves guidebooks. I use them every time I travel around Europe. I am really happy to say that I enjoyed this book as well. It is neat hearing more information on some of the same people and places he lists in the guidebooks. Also, I really learned how Steve came to love travelling to Europe and a bit about how he started the business.
He definitely has a dream job as some others have said in their reviews. Definitely would recommend this book to Rick Steves fans!