Does Rick realize...

Hi Gage - Rick is The "GURU" of travel, particularly in Italy. He is given the distinction of having "DISCOVERED" Le Cinque Terre!!! And Well Deserved!!

I was up at the Piazzale Michelangelo the other day near sunset time - I saw 3 couples with the book in the space of 1 minute! I felt surrounded -

Come up north - I was just in Bologna for 3 days and now sitting in my hotel after a wonderful day in Parma. No Rick Steves books here - if you read his Italy stuff, you'd think Emilia-Romagna doesn't exist :)

Greg: "He is given the distinction of having "DISCOVERED" Le Cinque Terre!!!"

And Civita di Bagnoregio.

It's a double-edged sword, of course. His discoveries boost the tourism income of the hidden treasures, but spoil the original feel of places by sending in the tourist army.

Actually, I'm not sure if Rick can totally take the credit for "discovering" the Cinque Terre. One of my relatives used to live in the U.K. and apparently Europeans have known about it for a long time. However, Rick was probably responsible for bringing it to the attention of North Americans.

Cheers!

It is true, there are Many RS Tour books in Italy. Many shopkeepers will display them in a window. When we visited the Contucci wine cellars in Montepulciano, Adamo proudly flashed his picture with Rick, saying Famousa! Famousa!. The funniest thing I saw regarding a RS groupie, was an older lady in Venice reading a well worn copy of Italy 2009, missing many sections. When we inquired as to the condtion of the book, she told us that she cut out the unneeded sections before she came, and removed each section as she left the location. Hence lightening her load during the trip. That is packing light to the extreme! Jeff

Jeff: "...she cut out the unneeded sections before she came, and removed each section as she left the location. Hence lightening her load during the trip."

Lots of people do this. A few months ago I wrote Rick's company suggesting they release a ring binder version of their most popular books so people could take just the parts of the book they need, and put them back in the book when they get home, so they don't have to tear their books up.

It will never happen, of course. They want you go buy a new book every time you travel! I would too, if I were them.

My wife and I had a bet every morning about how many people would be reading Rick's book at breakfast (Ireland) She won most of the time and it was mostly anywhere from 2-5 people...sometimes more

We aways cover our RS books with a brown cover, hee, hee! http://www.gadtravel.com/

Rick Steves is the best. I saw so many people with Rick's book on my trip to Italy (Venice, Rome, Florence,Milan) , Nice, Monanco and Prague this past Sep 2009.

Instead of tearing up our books, we make xerox copies of the sections we need and take those with us on our trips, throwing them out when we're done with them. That way, we don't destroy our books, which we keep and use for many years.

"For instance the Lunigiana area of Italy is completely overlooked."

Shhhh. We're trying to keep a few places secret just for the few who've discovered them ;-)

You know what the tourist masses can do to a nice place!

I do think Rick is saving a few great places (like most of southern Italy) for future TV episodes and books. Otherwise, the rest of his career would just be updating the current prices for the places he's already told us about.

Rick's books are by far the best. It isn't just his accurate information, as most of his readers know it's a travel philosophy. We've had our best vacations traveling with his advice. However no travel guide is perfect. For instance the Lunigiana area of Italy is completely overlooked. With it's dozens of castles, medieval bridges, and quaint small towns. Beautiful!

Hah! My mom was on the Acropolis a couple of years ago and ran into The Guru himself. Boy was she thrilled. She's got a lovely pic of herself with him. He's an international travel celeb!

I have to agree with the point made that if it is not in the book (Bologna, much of the South, Even parts of Rome) then the books disappear. Of course this is logical since in an area not covered by a guide, why carry the guide, but there is a large segment of the "Rick Steves Army"...did I once hear them called Ricnics? that indeed rarely ever venture off the beaten path. To Rick's credit, he does expouse that the lessons learned in these well covered spots are to be applied to your own "Backdoors"; but that lesson appears to be advanced study. It is one of the great ironies of the situation to have a philosophy to "fade into the fabric of a culture", "to escape the tourist hordes", "to live like a temporary local", to go to that out-of-the-way family restaurant...only to find the place filled with American Tourists with their books.