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In 1978, Rick Steves decided to make his way overland from Europe to Central Asia. This route was widely known as the Hippie Trail, and a long-haired, 23-year-old college grad was eager for the challenge. He chronicled this journey to Kathmandu in a handwritten diary; even then, Steves wrote in an upbeat and perceptive style, absorbing all the sights and sounds of these unfamiliar lands. In 2025, these entries were collected and published — with modest edits — as the book “On the Hippie Trail,” which became a New York Times bestseller. Since then, Steves has written hundreds of books, hosted 13 seasons of the PBS series “Rick Steves’ Europe,” and sealed his reputation as the foremost American authority on European travel. Yet Steves has never lived in Europe, Nepal, or any country outside of the United States.
Indeed, Steves has only ever kept a permanent address in his native Washington State. He does spend about four months out of every year traveling in Europe, researching books, or leading small tour groups, but Steves has never signed a year-long lease or built an overseas cottage. Europe isn’t home for Steves, the way Paris became a second home for Ernest Hemingway or Tuscany did for Frances Mayes. As many Americans start to fantasize about where to retire as expats, Steves is just fine living in his hometown of Edmonds. In a profile for the New York Times, journalist Sam Anderson put it this way: “Although Steves spends nearly half his life traveling, he insists, passionately, that he would never live anywhere but the United States… He built his business in America, raised his kids in America, and gives frequent loving paeans to the glories of American life.”
Read more: Rick Steves’ Most And Least Favorite Places In Europe
Expat vs. traveling — ‘Leave wanting more’
A close-up of Rick Steves’ guidebook to Spain in a bookstore – The Image Party/Shutterstock
Some fans might think this is surprising. Surely, such a well-traveled man would have relocated — at least for a couple of years — in a London flat or Spanish casita. Rick Steves’ exact net worth is unknown, but it’s estimated in the millions, which would make sense for a budget-conscious celebrity with his own TV show and scores of widely read books. Has Steves never purchased foreign real estate? When he also spots the best Greek islands for retiring in the sunshine, how could he resist the siren song of a European double-life?
Yet, as Sam Anderson implies in his Times article, Steves needs a stable home so he can travel; if he lived in another place, he wouldn’t be traveling there, and it would simply become ordinary life. Visiting Europe, in particular, has become his enrichment program, an experience to be cherished but, eventually, return from. “Rick Steves desperately wants you to leave America,” writes Anderson. “The tiniest exposure to the outside world, he believes, will change your entire life… Like sealed windows on a hot day, a nation’s borders can be stultifying. Steves wants to crack them open, to let humanity’s breezes circulate. The more rootedly American you are, the more Rick Steves wants this for you.”
Steves is even critical of slow travel, preferring shorter visits to weeks-long sojourns. “I do love to linger,” writes his protégée Cameron Hewitt in a post on Steves’ website. “But in my recent travels, I’m surprised to find myself cultivating a new appreciation for ‘fast travel.’ When you get a quick look at a place, then move on, you travel like an Impressionist… and leave wanting more.” You could easily add this to a list of the best Rick Steves travel tips we’ve learned.
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Read the original article on Islands.