Failing to be Rick Steves

Riding a bike and reciting lines to the camera. Fail.

I’d love the food part! I’d be terrible at just jumping in to random local events. Talking to a local at a bar, just hanging out, sure. Asking questions to a waiter/vendor/guide, no problem Going up to a group of people doing an activity, minding their own business and asking what will seem like stupid questions, no. Like when Rick just pulls up to some random festival in a small town, finds five guys throwing things in some sort of sport and just barges in, asks what the sport is, why they play it, and then joins in. On my best day I’d maybe go to the event, akwardly hang out and ask someone who was alone or otherwise not busy what was going on. But that would be bad TV.

I agree. The food/liquor would be the worst part for me as well…unless I could just concentrate on the deserts! LOL

Food would be the best part for me, one of the reasons we love to travel. I would hate having to deal with all the changes he had to make during COVID.

I wouldn't mind the food parts unless I was trying to replicate Andrew Zimmern!

Having to do pledge breaks on PBS Stations.

Having to do pledge breaks on PBS Stations.

I've often wondered if these are live onsite at the local station or prerecorded, or filmed in Seattle.

I wonder how many could follow Rick past the front of the plane and into the coach section? He claims to never fly business or premium economy, or even accumulate miles.

finds five guys throwing things in some sort of sport and just barges
in

I'm determined to do this next time I'm in England and find an informal cricket game going on. The game fascinates me, but I have no idea how to keep score. I really want to give it a try.

Um, interacting with all the people all day, every day? Sounds bad, but, yeah, I would tire pretty quickly of all the making new friends that Rick does.

Many years ago, I was a volunteer for pledge drives at our local PBS station, and Rick came down to Portland for one of the evening pledge drives - live in studio. This was so long ago that I barely knew who he was - I was not traveling yet!!! So though I knew he was a celebrity, I wasn't dying to meet him. Fellow volunteers were big fans of his and did talk to him. He was polite but honestly seemed quite shy, maybe overwhelmed at having several people try to chat him up at once.

The dad jokes ... I know these are scripted for him but I'd find it hard to deliver some of them without wanting to add 'And yes, I know that was bad'.

I'm an ultra introvert and I'm afraid I would fail at just about everything he does - except for the 'travel' part of it of course. I'm not a foodie, not even an adventurous eater, and I would be afraid if I tried something new and I had an aversion to it, I might gag and/or spit it out right there on camera. There would be a lot of editing and cutting going on back in the studio.

You all realize that much of his stuff is rehearsed, including the stops?

And lots of retakes.

And you are not seeing the rejections he gets for his "random" friends. Or refusals to allow filming.

And for every one foot of film you see on television the cutting room floor has 20 feet. (in an analog world)

The patience. Filming a scene can take HOURS if not all day.

Pledge drives - yes, he goes in person, at least some of the time. I don’t know how they found me, but my local PBS station reached out to me some time ago when they heard about our local RS travel group. They were having a pledge drive and wondered if our group would like to participate. About 6 of us showed up for that. A couple of years later Rick was going to be in Sacramento for the pledge drive and they reached out to me again. I think 6-8 of us came for that one. Rick spent a little bit of time with us off camera and he answered some questions, then took a picture with us. We got to watch him do his thing and most of his off camera time was in the green room.

Going up to a group of people doing an activity, minding their own business and asking what will seem like stupid questions, no. Like when Rick just pulls up to some random festival in a small town, finds five guys throwing things in some sort of sport and just barges in, asks what the sport is, why they play it, and then joins in.

Am I wrong in assuming that most of these types of scenes are staged? I'm sure these random people are aware ahead of time that they're being featured on a travel show and it's pre-arranged for Rick to 'barge in.' I mean, there's a camera and none of them ever even looks at it or act surprised.

Living in big cities, I've seen movie and TV series being filmed. I think the biggest headache for me would be how to keep repeating the same dialogue and scene multiple takes. For one 30 second shot in a movie, there are often 10 or more takes that last for an hour or so. I would go stark raving mad.

Also, RS is well-known so I'm sure lots of his takes are ruined by folks running up to him or shouting at him. It looks easy on camera, but there is a lot of work involved. I'd rather just take a vacation.

Several years ago we had a business dinner at the Marine Room in San Diego. A crew was filming for some kind of cable food/travel show. My boss got a 30 second interview. Crew moved on.

I doubt Steves is known much beyond the PBS donor lists. Sure, name recognition is there. But not the face.

As an introvert, I’d find it difficult to interact with strangers in a natural, seemingly unrehearsed mode. But as a lover of all things related to food, I’d be thrilled to do the food takes, over and over again if necessary.

Allan - I had some coworkers once suggest my husband and I apply for Amazing Race Canada - I'm like, that's a big fat no because as much as I'm not an adventurous eater, my husband is even less so, and we'd either fail because he'd get a food challenge he couldn't do, or I'd be stuck eating all the gross stuff.

Nicole, I'd go on Amazing Race in a heartbeat. To my wife's frustration I have the ability to tune things out. This goes for food as well, I could block the food out of my mind and just swallow it. I wouldn't enjoy it, but I could do it.

Ditto Allan, except I wouldn't take my wife (and she wouldn't go anyway) ... I'd take my youngest daughter, she's adventurous, likes to try different food, etc... I'd let her do all the challenges, I'm just the eye candy for tv :-)

I'd dislike blowing up previously little known tourism gems to a mass of overseas tourists. It's a complex issue to be sure - I'm sure some of the people of Gimmelwald for example are over the moon happy that Rick radically increased their tourism. But I have a tiny microphone by comparison and usually keep mum about the great places I've found with few non-European tourists. It would feel weird knowing that what I say would change living conditions for many people I've never met.

I think I would fail at coming across as articulate or intelligent, and lacking charisma. Other than that I'd be fine.

Rick, PM me.

Allan - we'd fail so fast because neither of us can swim, and I have low tolerance for doing something over and over - thinking of the season of regular AR that was just on and them having to turn over hundreds of rocks and one team was there for hours - I woulda lost it.

I could probably eat the gross food, but I also have a bit of a swallowing issue, so I'd prob end up throwing it back up from trying to eat too fast.