Difference between RS TV Episodes and RS Tours

Another way of saying it: Rick's philosophy is travel, but his business model is tourism.

Well, that's hard to do as a group, though there is some interaction with the locals who do the local walks and such. The tours include more free time than most other companies, so you certainly have the opportunity during those times. I know I have, especially in laundromats.

I’ve had lots of interaction with the locals on my free time during the tours. A group of 28 people would have a hard time doing that, but often there are group meetings with locals-like the Bulgaria tour where you talk with a local about the country, many times during demonstrations of things like the alabaster workshop in Volterra or all the cooking classes or wine tastings or on the little boat in the Swedish archipelago on the Scandinavian tour. Mostly though, it’s just the one on one interactions with shopkeepers or hoteliers.

I always thought the TV show was more for educating independent travelers as opposed to tour participants.

It's much easier to interact with the locals when you can stay in the same area for a couple of days. As LIZinPa said, you'll almost always meet someone at the laundromat. Or frequenting the same bakery, shop or cafe.

I also find I have more opportunity for interaction with locals when I travel alone. Sometimes it's as simple as commiserating over a late bus.

We have been on 12 RS tours and I can’t think of one where there hasn’t been some type of interaction with the locals. For instance, on the Southern Italy tour, as a group we had a dinner, cooked and served by a local family in their home and they sat and ate with us. On the Village Italy tour, we joined in and help prepare our lunch at a family home. On the Portugal tour after a ride around their cork farm, the family served us a home made lunch and sat and joined us. On the Greece tour we sat under an awning and had a special coffee with some of the locals. We’ve had local musicians in Ireland sit down with us and explain their instruments and perform in our B&B living room. We’ve had a sheep farmer in Wales talk to us about his dogs and give us a demonstration. We’ve watched one of the last living craftsmen make a gondola paddle hull as we asked questions and his son interpret.

Hi Tony! So good to hear from you.

On our Best of Spain tour, I loved the lunch that we ate in a small village at an older gal’s apartment that she had cooked herself. We were split into groups of 5 or 6 and luckily a Puerto Rican woman on our tour who spoke fluent Spanish allowed us to communicate with her. To see the home she lived in and her pride in family photographs and talking about her daily life was a true interaction with a local.

One thing to remember I believe Rick has mentioned more than once he pays the guides he is with for his TV shows and you could pay them too for private tours.

I think it also depends what countries you go to and if you speak the language. Yes most speak English but they may be more formal and culturally they might not be so friendly to strangers

. In Ireland last year locals spoke to us everywhere. Cabbies, restaurants, but mostly in pubs. All had a say about our then upcoming election. This year in Spain I honestly thought locals would ask about it, but no one did.

We had amazing local guides on our tour and we did a few other tours in our free time for example a food tour where we interacted with locals but much less than Ireland. Both great tours highly recommended

I respectfully disagree. Interacting with locals is what you're supposed to be doing in your free time, and not just those that speak english. I have heard Rick say on multiple occasions that his mission is to teach people to travel independently (find your own backdoors). The books and the tours do have a focus of teaching travel skills so that you'll come back on your own and know how to: navigate the metro in Paris; basic cultural differences; civilities; how to find a toilet in Italy; buy food at a market; interact with locals, etc. The five tours I've been on have all had a strong component of learning how to interact with locals. Admittedly, many of the tour participants are along just for the ride, but that's okay too.

I would not feel too disappointed. Really, you can't have the type of experience you are talking about as a group of 25 or so. Even then, most of the experiences that have been mentioned above, are a bit contrived for tourists. Not that these experiences are not fun, informative, and maybe give a glimpse into local life, but they are designed as experiences for tourists.

Even if you traveled independently, nearly all the interactions you have are with people who make a living interacting with tourists, (Hotel staff, shopkeepers, waiters, guides, etc.) yes, they are "locals", they are friendly, they chat, you get a feeling of "getting to know the locals", but on a basic level, it is their job to be polite, and interaction with you is part an end to a means, though certainly most all are genuine.

You can certainly have genuine experiences with people who live in the places you visit, but you can't force it, it is somewhat serendipitous. you often don't even know it until it is over.

I’ve always found the ‘meeting the locals’ thing a bit weird. It’s like it’s a feature on a tour travel to do list, visit cathedral-tick, tour museum- tick, meet locals- tick.

Locals are just going about their lives, they are not there to provide ‘local colour’ or entertainment as part of someone else’s trip. Why would a local want to meet you? You are the 100th tour group they have walked past this month. ;-) Don’t get me wrong, I have spent most of my life in tourist towns and I will happily chat to anyone and offer help where I can. But the expectation that as a local I am somehow a ‘learning experience’ is odd.

How would you meet and talk to people when you are at home? It’s not that different when you are on holiday. Obviously there might be language issues but a smile and sign language can get you a long way as a start.

On the RS Best of Turkey tour, our tour leader had us buy something for our tour buddy for 10 Lira or less at a local flee market. This was to get us to interact with the people.

I wanted to buy him a handkerchief. There wasn't one in the flea market, so I thought a souvenir shop might have one. But there wasn't a souvenir shop in sight in this town.

So I then went to a department store. There was one clerk who spoke some English. The closest I could get to was a woman's head scarf. After some haggling, I got 3 for the price of one. My buddy got 3 do-rags that day. It was not much different than the daily haggling encountered in Greece or Türkiye.

I agree with Emma. Do people visiting London really want to interact with me? Maybe to ask for directions but that's normally it. Though that said I did have a very nice conversation with a Canadian couple sat next to me in a pub reading a Rick Steves guide book a few weeks ago.

I’ve always found the ‘meeting the locals’ thing a bit weird. It’s
like it’s a feature on a tour travel to do list, visit cathedral-tick,
tour museum- tick, meet locals- tick.

I understand. But I discovered if you take a walnut and tap it against the sidewalk that the locals will come for it and eat it.

The other thing that I enjoy is looking for excuses to interact with people where I go. Thats one reason I like guides as meeting and talking to them is facinating. But even simple things like shopping in a market can teach me a lot about the culture. But you have to be careful. Many years ago I got to talking to my hotel manager in a Central American city. One thing led to another including 30 years of marriage and 3 kids.

Ive been blessed as a number of the people that I have met have remained in my life for decades. Next week two guides that i have met over the years will be here visiting. What makes this odd is that I really dont like people. But still, I rarely travel without a couple of walnuts in my pocket. You never know what opportunities might come up.

Genuine curiosity and question, what is it that people are expecting from ‘meeting locals’? What do you think you will learn?

When I travel it’s not something that is on a to do list because I just expect to interact with people as part of my trip, as I do in all areas of my life.

You can take a tour with a European company and your group will include Europeans. I travel with England-based HF Holidays a lot, both in the UK and in Europe, and have met many lovely people, mostly Brits. I won't see most of them again but I have kept in touch with and met with a few of them again.

Sure the tours’ dinners, etc. are “contrived for tourists” but they do offer interactions with local people making a living by inviting tourists into their home. I think this discussion has been done numerous times and no, you’re not going to bop into town and suddenly someone stops you on the street, invites you for coffee and a heart to heart discussion. I don’t expect this scenario at home, why would I in another country. We were in Evian last year with our grandkids and had a lovely conversation on a tram with a man who had his grandchildren with him. The kids were the commonality. I don’t expect anything other than something spontaneous as this, something that could have happened riding the ski lift at our local mountain or at a park.

There's a point at which it's up to you to seek the experience, not to have it handed to you. Not everyone wants to do that.

I have done 10 Rick Steves tours and I love them. I just did 2 OAT tours. I have friends that rave about them as they are only 16 people, 12 less than Rick's tours. They have big sales with no single supplements so thought I'd try 2 to compare.
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Yes, I liked the small group of 16 but the tours do not compare in quality, Ricks are so much better in many ways.

OAT do something called 'A Day in the Life' where you spend your time on a farm usually with the farmer. They also do something called the 'Home Hosted Dinner' where they split the group up and 5/6 of you have dinner at a locals house. Of course both the farms and the dinner hosts are paid...it's a job for them. For me, both experiences felt very forced and weird, not natural at all. I opted out of the Home Hosted Dinner for the 2nd trip.

In my opinion Rick's philosophy is to encourage you to get out and mingle with locals whether it be in restaurants/bars/hotels/shops/public transport etc. It's a much more natural experience and one I much prefer!

There are going to be huge differences between how Rick travels and how the rest of us travelling independently travel. In fact, the irony is that his travel style mimics travel on one of his organized tours much more than it does independent travel.

First, like every other television travel-show host, Rick does not travel solo or just with an American friend or family member. He travels with a crew.

Second, the presence of a film crew with a camera rolling automatically means that any interaction captured on film will be staged rather than fully authentic.

Third--and most important--Rick is usually accompanied by local tour guides whom he uses in his tours or at least recommends in his books. And certainly for the most part, his trips are exhaustively planned. We don't see Rick on his own calling a Paris restaurant for reservations or showing up at a Paris restaurant asking for a table or sitting alone trying to deal with a challenging Parisian waiter. We don't see him in a huge train station constantly scanning the station's train monitor to see what his gate his train leaving in 20 or 15 minutes will be boarding at.

He may visit the same museums he recommends, and stay in the hotels and eat in the restaurants he recommends. But wherever he goes, with his visibility and camera crew in tow, he is like an influential food critic who is recognized immediately as soon as he steps in a restaurant.

His shows have inspired a generation of Americans to travel to Europe. But his philosophy is simply that you can travel to Europe on your own (though he has tours for one wanting a tour), that you don't need to stay in expensive hotels to have a great time, and that interacting with people in the foreign countries we visit can be educational and rewarding, though this means for most of us a venue in the UK or Ireland or by happenstance the proximity of those who speak English well.