Rick Steves: America’s Favorite Tour Guide

[MUSIC]

[“Hi, I’m Rick Steves” MONTAGE]

TARIRO MZEZEWA, HOST: If you couldn’t tell, that’s Rick Steves. He’s a pretty famous traveler. Born and raised in Washington state, he first left home back in the ‘60s to explore Europe. And he never stopped.

[RICK STEVES FROM YOUTUBE CLIPS:]
“This time we’re exploring the wonders of Paris!”
“Eternally entertaining and endlessly inspiring Rome.”
“Yep, we’re on a cruise ship, and we’re sailing the Mediterranean. Welcome aboard!”

TM: If you’re an American who likes to travel, you’ve probably heard his voice or read one of his guidebooks. Even if you haven’t, your travel decisions have undoubtedly been influenced by Rick. He’s ubiquitous in the travel media industry: the nerdy guy wearing wire-frame glasses and jeans with sneakers, telling other Americans where they should go, what they should do, and how they can have the best time on their trips abroad.

[MUSIC]

TM: From WHYY, this is Peak Travel. I’m Tariro Mzezewa. In this episode, we’re doing something a little different. We’re having an in-depth conversation with Rick Steves. We’ll talk about his new book — and ask him to reflect on his career, how influencers are changing travel media, and his impact on the places he recommends.

RICK STEVES: Tariro, let’s go!

TM: Hi, Rick.

RS: Hey

TM: How’s it going?

RS: It’s going good, thank you. It’s early in the morning for me, so I’m still kind of waking up, but I will just grab my tea.

TM: Are you in Washington?

RS: Yep, I’m looking out at the Olympic Mountains and Puget Sound. It’s very nice.

TM: Sounds beautiful, with your cup of tea.

RS: Yeah.

TM: Oh my gosh, OK, your time is precious. So I am just going to, like, dive right in. You have had this incredible career. I was like doing the math this morning and you first traveled to Europe when you were 14 in 1969. I mean, what, 56 years ago? And then you went back four years later, you just graduated from high school and you’ve said that that trip to Europe was, like, to this day, your best trip to Europe. Tell me about that, like, why is that?

RS: That was the first time I went to Europe without being on my mother’s passport. Back then, you could actually have a passport with the mom and the kid on the same photograph, and the kid had to stay with the mom, you know, that was just horrible. [Laughter] No, I loved traveling with my parents when I was really little, but, it was, to be able to go to Europe without a safety net, to be able to fly away from home on that airplane as a teenager with very little money and a continent to explore was a thrill. I was with my best buddy from high school and this was your typical Europe on $5 a day but we had like $3 a day plus our Eurail passes and back then you could do it.

The trip was just so full of experiences and learning and memories and fiascos and eurekas, and everything was new. I had heard about the Leaning Tower, and the Eiffel Tower and Big Ben, but I had never seen them. And now I was there. I had heard about crepes and I had heard about escargot and I had heard about bullfights. Now I could go to a bullfight and actually go out back after the bullfight. I remember when they were, they always processed the bull that dies so they can, you know, use the meat. And I remember I bought, I actually purchased the horns of the bull. And I thought, “Well, that’s kind of exciting.” And I carried around the horns of the bull with me for a couple of weeks until they got so stinky and covered with bugs, I had to leave them behind. But that was just the adventures of a green, poor little street urchin backpacker.

TM: [Laughter] Not a street urchin! Oh my gosh. You’ve journaled forever. You’ve sent the postcards home. You’ve kept some postcards. I would love to have you, like, read from a journal. Did you happen to bring anything along for that?

RS: I’ve got my ‘Hippie’ book here. This is my newest book.

TM: I am reading it right now.

RS: Oh, you’ve got it right there! That’s so cool! This book is written almost directly, right from my journal, a 60,000-word journal that I wrote when I was 23 years old, years before I wrote my first real travel book. This was just my personal journal for me. It got hidden away for 40 years, and with COVID, I had some time on my hands. I found this journal and I read it, and I mean, when you look at the beautifully written pages, I don’t have, I don’t know who wrote this, it was me, but I don’t have penmanship like that. You can’t read my writing now, but that was just great writing. And I was passionate about this, but it was only for me. And I read it and I thought, “God, this is dang good,” you know?

TM: [Laughter] You’re like, “Who wrote this?”

RS: “Who wrote this?” And it’s unguarded, it’s kind of, I gotta say, it’s sort of a diamond in the rough.

TM: I’d love for us to hear, like, one excerpt.

RS: Yeah, I could read you, I can read a couple of little excerpts here. Let’s see.

[PAGES TURNING]

RS: I was in Yugoslavia when there still was a Yugoslavia and I wrote this, “In Belgrade, after being unable to find an affordable hotel, we settled in for the night on a train that looked like it hadn’t moved in weeks. Within moments, we found the sleep we craved. Then, kabam! Lurching forward, the unthinkable happened. And the train trundled into darkness, going, we didn’t know where.” OK, so that was just led up to a bit where we actually jumped out of the train at a moving suburban train station and tumbled into this night watchman’s world with a lantern. He let us sleep there on the floor, and then we went back into the town the next day and took a train where we wanted to go.

Here’s another example in Herat, the first city we stopped at in Afghanistan, “Leaving the wedding party as things started dying down, we took a nighttime walk. Mingling was a bit intensified. I didn’t know if it was because of the hashish or because I was in a very good mood. But I was tickled by little things like a man weighing tomatoes. Hustlers became playful. The sun had gone down and lanterns came on. Chariots with torches charged through the darkness. Herat is small, but it really doesn’t matter because no street is ever the same if you walk through it a second or a third time.” I remember just walking through those streets was amazing.

TM: I mean, do you think you can still have a trip like that today? That kind of, sort of classic backpacking experience?

RS: You know, I meet kids that are taking that trip after they’re done with school and so on, and they’re doing it on $40 or $50 a day now instead of $3 a day, but they’re still doing it. And it’s hard to rough it like we used to rough it, but they’re still doing it. There’s more information than there used to be. It’ll never be quite the diamond-in-the-rough kind of travel, but it’s still there. And I love it when I meet young people who are doing that kind of trip. I marvel at it, to be honest. I just go, “That is so cool. Tell me more.”

TM: Lots of people travel the world, have a lot of suggestions in mind for other people, but was there a moment when you realized that you were the right person to guide others? Make that crossover from just a traveler who minds their own business and has a great time to, sort of a professional helping others along the way.

RS: Yeah, it was an interesting evolution because at first, I was just a piano teacher and my kids would not practice in the summer. And I said, “I’m not going to fight this. I’ll see you in September. I’m going to Europe.” You know, so I would go to Europe. I didn’t have a lot of money. I was learning from my experience taking my summer breaks in Europe. I remember a moment which was very interesting for me as a teacher. I was in Oslo changing money at a bank and I changed $100 with five $20 traveler’s checks back in the day of traveler’s checks. And I counted my crowns and I was missing about $15 worth of crowns. And I said, “What’s going on? I should have more here.” And they said, “Oh, well in Norway we charge $4 commission per check. Not per transaction, but per check.” And they said, “Next year rather than five twenties, you should bring a $100 check and you’ll save four fees.” You follow me?

TM: Mm-hmm.

RS: So I thought, “Oh, see, that’s my stupid mistake.” So the next year I went back to that same bank in Oslo with a $100 check instead of five $20 and I got only one fee instead of five fees. And the woman in front of me, the American traveler in front of me, had five $20 checks, you see? And I thought this is a shame. I learned from the school of hard knocks, and now she’s got to learn from the same school of hard knocks. Why can’t I package the lessons I learned from my experience into a book or a lecture or something so people can learn from my mistakes, rather than their own, have a better trip, and I would have a good excuse to go back to Europe every year and update my material. So that’s what I do. I’m just catching butterflies of good ideas for travelers and then I write them up and type them into my laptop. And for me, good travel is connecting people with people. And that’s what I get to do.

[SOUND FROM YOUTUBE CLIP OF RICK STEVES VISITING A RESTAURANT IN VERONA]

RS: “This is a classic little mom-and-pop restaurant, with Juliano helping diners match fine Italian wines with just the right local dishes.”

RS: Part of the joy of my work is I really like little mom and pops. My mom and dad, they had a mom-and-pop travel shop in my little town here. And I just love entrepreneurs and people that have a passion and things that have personality, to be honest, more than the chain fast food store, shop in the strip mall, you know. And Europe is, you can go through an entire town in Europe and it feels like everything is just mom and pops. And I get to sort through the mom and pops and connect them with the mom and pops who have my guidebook and it’s a celebration.

TM: Do you ever worry that the one that you suggest could end up, like, scamming people or maybe you suggest one that’s gonna get way too many people? Like, sort of, how do you make that kind of decision about how to, where to suggest?

RS: I’m very skeptical about anything that sounds too good to be true, and I tell that to my researchers. If it’s too good to be true, next year there’ll be different people at that desk, you know, is this really reliable information? We’ve got to be conservative about not putting that in the book unless it’s pretty reliable. But it’s not foolproof, and good travelers have to understand that.

TM: Have you ever sort of regretted a decision, regretted a suggestion?

RS: Oh yeah, and then they’re out of the book the next year.

TM: OK. [Laughter]

[MUSIC]

TM: After the break, we’re going beyond the logistics of travel. We’ll talk about another kind of advice Rick likes to give tourists: he recommends new destinations for Americans to visit, too. But some of those places aren’t used to receiving visitors. What does this practice mean for them?

[MIDROLL BREAK]

[MUSIC]

TM: Welcome back to Peak Travel. I’m Tariro Mzezewa.

Rick doesn’t like crowds, especially while traveling. Avoiding them became a pillar of his work early in his career. When he started drafting guidebooks back in the ‘80s, Rick made a point to seek out less popular destinations.

RS: Everybody goes to Stonehenge and I went to Stonehenge and it was a disheartening experience. Barbed wire, tour groups, porta-potties, crowds, crass tourism at Stonehenge. And I then said, “I want to find my own private Stonehenge.” And I was in Dartmoor in Southwest England as a young backpacker, and I stayed in a youth hostel, and I hiked to this mystical stone circle. It wasn’t as big as Stonehenge, but it was all mine, just me and goats and sheep and wind and moss and rain. And I was all alone there with the winds of the past. And I sat down there and I wrote, I remember I don’t know if this is poetic or just silly, but I thought, I’m dipping my pen into the cry of the birds and I’m capturing this experience. And I thought, “Nobody knows about this place. Everybody’s going to Stonehenge because it has a promotional budget.” And I thought I could write up the, what I call, the back doors. And then later on, maybe on that same trip, was way back in my early days, I discovered the Cinque Terre on the Italian Riviera, the most beautiful part of the coast of Italy.

[SOUND FROM YOUTUBE CLIP OF RICK STEVES VISITING THE CINQUE TERRE]

RS: “The Cinque Terre is five little towns like this, beautifully isolated, in the most seductive stretch of the Italian Riviera. For me, the best bits of Italy are traffic-free, and in this unique mix of Italian culture and nature, there’s not a Fiat in sight.”

RS: And I discovered my favorite village in the Swiss Alps, Gimmelwald. Everybody goes to Grindelwald, the one with the big promotional budget, the fairy tale town, so touristy, mass tourism. Nobody even knows about Gimmelwald.

[SOUND FROM YOUTUBE CLIP OF RICK STEVES VISITING GIMMELWALD]

RS: “Good evening, good beautiful evening. I’m Rick Steves, I’m high in the Swiss Alps in the little village of Gimmelwald. I was just walking down the main streets of this traffic-free village and I was thinking “Imagine if you lived here.”

RS: And Gimmelwald has been such a big deal for me and Cinque Terre, the Italian Riviera, villages, five villages, has been a big deal. And then I realized I’ve got a critical mass of these discoveries that I call back doors, whether it’s the alternative little fishing village on the south coast of Portugal instead of the famous resort, you know, and so many special places that I discovered that had no crowds at all. And I thought, if I could just write a book, the first half of the book would be essentially the notes of my lecture that I give about how to travel smartly with the skills. And the second half of the book would highlight my 20 favorite discoveries, what I call the back doors. That’d be a cool book, and that was my first book. It was self-published. It was called Europe Through the Back Door in 1980 when I was 25 years old. And that really kicked off my career. When you write a book, even if it’s a worthless book, you get more credibility. People think, “Oh he’s an author,” you know.

TM: I mean, I love the idea of the back door, right? But I also wonder, like Cinque Terre today, right? Hardly back door. And it feels like that happens everywhere, right? We all want to feel like we’re off the beaten path. We’re away from the tourists like we’re doing our own thing. But do you ever feel like just by going somewhere new and recommending it, you’re about to send a flood of new people there and sort of perpetuate the same cycle of overtourism?

RS: Yeah, I’ve got 50 or 60 books covering all of Europe, and I highlight these little odd places and there’s a handful of cases where I do have a noticeable impact. The places I just mentioned, well, Cinque Terre, as you know, is full of tourists now. And the cruise companies have found out about it, so they’re selling excursions there, and that’s the beginning of the end right there and the village up in the Alps. But generally, I have a back door approach to regions and cities and second cities and villages that just helps people enjoy it in a more intimate way, as a temporary local, instead of seeing tired cultural cliches on stage. And so I don’t worry about it too much. When it comes to the Cinque Terre, it used to be a very poor part of Italy with almost no hotels, no fine restaurants, no place to leave your bag. It was just a bunch of bed and breakfasts and hikers and little tiny humble restaurants. It was great. I just absolutely loved it. So I started sending people there and other people started sending people there. Now it’s a quite wealthy part of Italy. The towns are filled with tourists. All the locals are happy because they’re rich all of a sudden, and all the tourists who are there are really happy, it seems like, except for those complaining about the crowds, and I go there and somebody corners me and they say, “Why did you tell everybody about this? Why didn’t you just tell me?” You see, that’s the thing, I can’t just tell one person. It’s either I keep it a secret or I tell everybody, and I’m really not interested in keeping secrets, secrets. I’m like the whaler who screams, “Quick, harpoon it before it’s extinct.” It’s kind of crass, but my job is to find these places and to send my readers there, and I contribute to it a little bit. But it’s pretty simple. If you’re standing in a long line, it’s your problem. It’s your fault. There’s lots of Europe without lines and if you don’t want lines, you don’t need lines. You just choose to go to a place right now that was in a J.K. Rowling book and everybody’s going there because it’s trendy. That’s your problem.

Also, I’m really into what I call second cities. You know, everybody goes to Edinburgh, what about Glasgow? Everybody goes to Lisbon, what about Porto? Everybody goes to Paris, what about Lyon? You know, everybody goes to Dublin, what about Belfast? Of course, you got to go to Dublin and Edinburgh and Paris. But you could also really make your trip a lot more exciting by splitting that time and spending more time in these edgy, industrial, newly arrived towns that don’t have tourism and give you a warmer welcome and lower prices and more creative little one-off restaurants and street art and this kind of thing. So there’s a lot of ways to enjoy Europe without the crowds. But Americans, a lot of times, they’re their own worst enemy. We go to the same places at the same time and we let crowdsourcing information shape our priorities, and then what we’re just doing is getting into that whirlpool of overcrowded sites. We’re working very hard now in all of our books at highlighting places that let you avoid the crowds because crowds are just going to get worse.

TM: You’ve seen how we travel evolve through the decades, but also how travel is covered and people learn about it completely change. And it does, I often sort of struggle with this where I think even a few years ago, I could write a travel story sort of suggesting things to travelers without necessarily thinking about the impact for the people who live there sort of beyond economically, right? I think economically it’s like, “You’re gonna get a ton of traffic and you’ll make a lot of money from it.” And that’s a win, sort of, for the traveler and the business. Now it does feel like we have to sort of, we need to think more about sort of the longer-term effects for the people who live there. And I am wondering, you know, like I hear you when you say, you know, “Go to a second city, go to Lyon. You can see Paris, but maybe spend more time somewhere else in France.” But people will definitely go to Paris, right? But now we’re sending all of that traffic to Lyon. Same thing with Portugal. I love Lisbon and I love Porto, but Porto will be overrun in the next couple of years. Is there a next solution to this? Is there another solution that’s not just second cities? And like, what’s our responsibility as journalists in sort of guiding people through these travels?

RS: Well, just to explain to people that the choices you make determine the crowds you endure. A big part of it is when do you go? Do you go peak season or do you go off season? I love off-season travel. You can go to the most crowded places in Europe in the off-season, in the winter, and just dress well. There’s no crowds, you walk right in. I mean, they charge to go to the Pantheon now in Rome, but in the winter, I don’t believe they charge. I think it’s just open and it’s empty. And it’s still the Pantheon, you know. You can go to the Acropolis in Athens with no crowds in the off-season. As we always like to say, there’s no bad weather, just inappropriate clothing. And I don’t know why people insist, or even in the case of one day, you know, if, take the Acropolis in Athens, for example, it is jam-packed from 10 till 4, and it’s open, I forget exactly, but it’s open ‘til 7 o’clock probably.

TM: Yeah, and it opens at 8 a.m. I went this time last year. I was the first person in line and I basically had the place to myself. It was incredible. So, I mean, the crowds ruin it for us when we’re visiting. Do you think they’re ruining it for the people who live there?

RS: They grin and bear it just because it’s part of the economy. I mean, certain people have a bad attitude about tourism, but tourism is really important for the economies in much of Europe. We’re a major employer, a major source of revenue, and when tourism is down, the economy is down for a lot of these towns. I think it’s a terrible thing for your society to become reliant on tourism, but most people that are just interested in, you know, stoking their economy, they welcome the tourists. They do not welcome people that come in and stampede through and buy a postcard and a popsicle and then leave. That’s the worst kind of tourism and that’s what people are getting angry with when it comes to Venice and Barcelona and so on. But if you’re spending the night and buying dinner, you’re a quality traveler. And if you can then visit places that aren’t so crowded, make the reservations in advance like you should, and do things in off times, I’m not worried about the crowds.

You know, in the old days, there was not enough information. Now there’s too much information, and it needs to be curated. Too many people are just trying to make a quick buck when it comes to travel information. I think it’s really important to know that you need to have something that is thoughtfully written and artfully written by somebody who really knows what they’re talking about. That’s my approach to a place that I’ve never been to before. I equip myself with a good guidebook, expect myself to travel smart, and I do. Not because I’m a great traveler, it’s because I understand the value of using good information.

TM: Well, I mean, on that topic, it does feel like so much of travel advice now and travel journalism even is listicles and TikTok videos. Lots of influencers in this space.

RS: But isn’t the reward for that is the more clicks you get, right?

TM: Yup.

RS: So, I know if I say a certain word, it’s going to get more clicks, you know? And I don’t pay myself in clicks, so I’m not susceptible to that. But if you’re working in a world where it’s all about clicks and your pay is all about clicks, then you’re going to put those keywords in the title so you get more clicks. There’s a lot of good information that is not clickbait. And I think that’s, it appreciates an attention span. I love to buck this conventional wisdom these days that people can’t read more than something quick on the internet. I’m all about long-form, you know, I’ve got two books for each of the cities in Europe.

TM: Do you think of yourself as an influencer?

RS: No, I don’t… I don’t even… I mean, I could probably figure out what that is, but influencer? What is an influencer? I mean, I know what it is, but what motivates an influencer? To influence people. Not to teach people, but to influence them. I’m a teacher. If you ask me what you are, an influencer or a teacher, I’m a teacher. I go over there, I make mistakes, I love what I’m doing, I love what I’m teaching, I’m mission-driven, and I’m not trying to influence you. I’m trying to share with you what turns me on so it can turn you on. So I’m a turn-on-er.

TM: [Laughter] I like that, a turn-on-er.

[MUSIC]

TM: Coming up, Rick Steves tells us how to think like a traveler — even when we’re back at home.

[MIDROLL BREAK]

[MUSIC]

TM: Welcome back to Peak Travel. I’m Tariro Mzezewa. Let’s get right back into our conversation with Rick Steves.

I have so many more questions for you, but I know I have to let you go. So could I ask you, I know over the summer you shared that you had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, and I wanted to ask how you’re feeling now.

RS: Oh, yeah, prostate cancer is no fun, that’s for sure, but it’s also not very rare. And I’ve been public about it because I just have all, all my life I’ve just thought we shouldn’t keep things private to our own lives that matter for us and people in our community. We’re all in this together. You know, I’m 69 years old, I had never spent a night in a hospital that I remember until now. And two months ago I had my prostate removed with a beautiful robotic surgery, and I decided, I’m going to tackle this like I go on a trip. I don’t speak the language. I’ve never been there before. I want to be curious, I want to be positive, I want to learn from it, I want to be thankful. And that’s how I’ve addressed this. And I’ve let people know the importance of people who should be aware of what’s going on in their body to just be good stewards of your body, know what’s happening. I should have had this checked earlier, but I was just too busy living, and I’m lucky I’ve caught it. I just had my lab reports in and I’m reasonably confident that I will be cancer-free, and if I’m not, we’ve got technology that I can be a beneficiary of, and I’ll be OK. And all the prayers and the good thoughts and the warm thoughts I’ve got, they’re almost like they take on a tangible force. And if I think of this as a journey, it’s like a sailboat, a part of my life and it’s those prayers and warm thoughts that are filling the sails as I go through it.

TM: I was reading that article in People over the weekend, and there’s this photo of you, smiling big, like the Rick Steves I know from TV, in the hospital. And I just wanna talk a little bit more about that in terms of like your health, but also just as a parting word, like how do we all move through life with a traveler’s mindset?

RS: Well, fear is for people who don’t get out very much. The flip side of fear is understanding, and we gain understanding when we travel. I don’t like to be fearful. I like to be engaged. I like to be curious. I like to be positive. I like to feel myself as part of a community. I like to get out of my comfort zone. I like the thought that I can learn more about my home and myself by leaving home and looking at it from a distance. We live in a beautiful world and I think my favorite souvenir because of my travels is that the world is filled with good people, it’s filled with love, it’s filled with joy. I mean, my book “On The Hippie Trail” celebrates that, as a little 23-year-old kid coming of age in places that are, as far as my parents were concerned, behind the dark side of the moon, you know. “Will he be OK?” And I was OK, and it has been a blessing in my life that I’ve drawn upon now for, how many years is that? That’s 45 years or something like that. Our travels can really, really carbonate our lives and give our outlooks a lot more meaning and make life, I think, just more rewarding and vivid. And as an American travel writer, if I can help Americans venture beyond Orlando, I think I’m doing a service, and I think the feedback I get from my travelers bears that out. The world’s a great place and when somebody tells me, “Have a safe trip,” I tell them, “Have a safe stay at home, because where I’m going is safer and much more rewarding than where you’re staying.”

[MUSIC]

TM: Thank you so much.

RS: OK, I hope to talk to you again sometime, either on my show or on your show, OK?

TM: Perfect, we’ll do it again, thank you.

RS: Thanks, so nice to see you again.

TM: You too, bye!

RS: Bye bye!

TM: Rick’s new book came out earlier this month. It’s called “On the Hippie Trail: Istanbul to Kathmandu and the Making of a Travel Writer.” You can watch clips from his TV show, Rick Steves’ Europe, on YouTube.

Coming up on Peak Travel…

[MUSIC]

TM: When you were telling people that you were heading to Rwanda, how did they react?

HANNAH UGURU: They were very like, why are you going there?

TM: For many years, Rwanda was known for its traumatic past.

ARIELLA KAGERUKA: Rwanda was, for a long time known for, the tragedy, of the genocide. That past overshadowed everything else that we’re doing. Our country needed to, rebrand itself.

TM: But that’s starting to change.

DZARI RANJATO: The whole objective was to increase the country’s visibility as a premium, like, travel destination.

JACQUES MURIGANDE: People should visit Rwanda because it’s a beautiful country, first of all, and it’s a cradle of humanity! [Laughs] Who wouldn’t want to come and visit?

TM: Rwanda’s rebirth as a destination. That’s next time, on Peak Travel.

[MUSIC]

TM: This is Peak Travel. I’m your host, Tariro Mzezewa.

Our executive producer is Tom Grahsler.

Our senior producer is Michael Olcott. Our producer is Michaela Winberg, and our associate producer is Bibiana Correa.

Our editor is Meg Driscoll. Original music by Catherine Anderson. Mixing and sound design by Emma Munger. Engineering by Al Banks, Charlie Kaier, and Diana Martinez. Our tile art was created by Nick Rogacki.

Peak Travel is a production of WHYY, distributed by PRX, and part of the NPR podcast network. Find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, the iHeart Radio app — or wherever you get your podcasts.

Executive Producer: Tom Grahsler
Senior Producer: Michael Olcott
Producer: Michaela Winberg
Associate Producer: Bibiana Correa
Editor: Meg Driscoll
Original Music: Catherine Anderson
Mixing and Sound Design: Emma Munger
Engineers: Al Banks, Charlie Kaier, Diana Martinez
Tile Art: Nick Rogacki

Peak Travel is a production of WHYY, distributed by PRX, and part of the NPR podcast network.