transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:01] Hi, I'm Rick Steves, in what just might be the most fascinating and surprising land I've ever visited. We're in Iran, here to learn, to understand, and to make some friends.

Speaker 2:
[00:12] In 2008, the guy who's probably America's most famous travel writer went to Iran. The resulting one-hour TV special covered history, religion, and lots of interactions with Iranian citizens.

Speaker 1:
[00:27] We found that the easiest way to get a smile was to tell people where we're from. I'm from the United States. Okay. I'm Rika.

Speaker 2:
[00:34] No.

Speaker 1:
[00:37] It's true. It's actually true.

Speaker 2:
[00:39] Rick Steves is best known for his dozens of European travel guides and the long-running PBS show called Rick Steves Europe. But more broadly, he's an evangelist for Americans traveling anywhere outside the US. And he makes this call in the most inviting, down-to-earth way. As Sam Anderson wrote in a New York Times Magazine profile in 2019, Steves is so completely American that when you stop to look at his name, you realize it's just the name Rick followed by the plural of Steve. That he's a one-man crowd of absolutely regular, everyday American guys. One Rick, many Steves. Underneath that broad appeal is a radical commitment to principles that have driven Rick Steves' activism for things like marijuana legalization and the end of mass incarceration and his decision back in 2008, when then-president George W. Bush had already declared Iran to be part of an Axis of Evil, to travel there with a film crew and invite us to quote, make some friends. So after America bombed Iran and started a new war, I wanted to talk to Rick about his life's mission to make the unfamiliar more familiar. We talk about his experiences in Iran, a country he first visited as a young man in 1978, and we talk about how travel has shaped his personal and political opinions, particularly when he went to Central America in the 80s, which made him question the Reagan administration's framing of the Civil Wars there, and how experiencing hunger and hardship on the road has led him to donate millions of dollars to help homeless families in the Seattle area, where he was raised and still lives when he's not traveling abroad.

Speaker 1:
[02:34] The most frightened people in our society are the people buried deep in the middle of it with no passports, whose worldview is shaped by fear-mongering commercial TV news. The flip side of fear is understanding, and we gain understanding when we travel.

Speaker 2:
[02:52] This is Death, Sex, and Money. The show from Slate about the things we think about a lot and need to talk about more. I'm Anna Sale.

Speaker 1:
[03:17] Is my frame good for you right now, or should I adjust it anyways?

Speaker 2:
[03:20] It's perfect. I think it feels intimate and like you're in your space. Are you at home?

Speaker 1:
[03:26] I am at home.

Speaker 2:
[03:27] When I logged in to the video call with travel writer and TV personality, Rick Steves, the scene on his end was cozy. He was at home in Edmonds, Washington, north of Seattle, and behind him I could see a globe, a fire crackling in the fireplace, and of course, stacks of his guidebooks. The thing that I want to talk with you about is, I'm struck just marinating in your body of work and the way that you remind us how important travel is for the soul, the way that it can connect us to this deeper well of human connection, and it has, you have almost a missionary zeal about it, but it's the opposite of how a missionary goes out into the world. Instead of thinking you have good news to deliver, it's about going out to discover how you might be humbled, how you might become more clear about your particularities, your own limitations, how you might expand or be different. And I have been thinking about that this month, as we have a new war that has started. One of the things that I have watched of your work is the 2009 episode you made from Iran. What is it like for you when somewhere you have been, had interactions, encounters that were memorable with people, remember faces, remember names. What's it like for you when a new explosion of violence breaks out and what you witnessed has changed? It's not there anymore because war has started.

Speaker 1:
[05:05] It's so pertinent right now. I mean, I woke up this morning thinking I made that show because I was afraid Iran would be bombed like Baghdad was being bombed. I woke up one morning back in the George Bush days and I thought, we got to take our team to Iraq and film the historic wonders and the cultural wonders of Baghdad because I think it might be bombed into oblivion and it'll be lost. And then I did some searching around and I realized it's too late. We can't get a crew in there. And then there's saber rattling going on and I realized, well, I have an affinity for Iran and I'm nervous about Iran. Let's go there to try to humanize a country of 70 million people. I think it's more now. So now I've got this Iran show that we filmed. It's one of my favorite productions that I've ever done. It endeared me to the American Iranian population. And it was the only thing I've seen on American television that doesn't focus on terrorism when they talk about Iran. You know, it's a theocratic dictatorship. It's not a pretty picture politically, but it's as human as our country. And it's filled with love and joy and families and beauty as our country, if we just get to know it. You know, I'm not saying the war is right or wrong. I'm saying it's filled with people and we should know who these people are. My whole theme of going to Iran, people said, why are you going to Iran? And I said, well, I think it's kind of good style to know people before you bomb them. You know, it should hurt. When you bomb a school with 150 girls in it, you can just call it collateral damage and you can shrug that off and say, well, war is not pretty. It's real people. And if 150 little school girls were killed in our country, life would grind to a halt. But if we do it in their country, it's just collateral damage.

Speaker 2:
[07:07] I do wonder, you describe this intention you had of, I need to capture this because it's at risk. Yeah. And you made that in 2009. The weekend the US bombed Iran, I called my close friend who lives in Berkeley, who was born in Iran and now lives here, to check in with her, ask about her family. I imagine you have lots of relationships with people, not just in Iran, but in the whole Middle East. What's it, do you get this sort of influx of emails? Do you reach out to people? What's it like personally with all of these relationships you've formed?

Speaker 1:
[07:46] To be honest, I don't complicate their lives by having them connection with an American. I've got friends who are guides in St. Petersburg in Russia, and I don't want to contact them because it would endanger them. I've got friends in Iran, but I don't really want to have a record of them being in touch with me. I don't want to ask them what's the truth because I don't want to put them on the spot of endangering themselves. I've got friends, very good friends in Palestine, and we're just behind the dark side of the moon for a little while. But one thing that's interesting, when I look at those plumes of ugly, toxic black clouds coming out of cities in Iran, I think of the cultural heritage, the treasures of their culture. When I was in Iran, people were singing, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran, like it was a Beach Boys song, you know. And they were talking about a regime change, like it was a game. We don't know the political baggage. We don't know the mindset of our enemies a lot of times. And I strive to know what is there, what are their 9-11s, you know, what makes them respond to the rest of the world. And in Iran, it's incursions from the West. You know, I went to the Great Museum in Tehran, because I like to go to the National Museum before going out to the sites for antiquities when I'm filming, because the greatest treasures from their excavations are in the big museum in the big city. You go to Mexico City and you see the big museum there before you go out into the pyramids and the countryside and so on. And I was almost, I was traumatized as a TV producer at the great museum in Tehran with how skimpy the artifacts were. Where are all of your treasures? Where's Xerxes, you know, where's Cyrus, where's the great empires of Persia? And they go, all of our finest artifacts are in Europe, in great museums in Europe, so you can go there to see them.

Speaker 2:
[09:59] They've been taken elsewhere.

Speaker 1:
[10:00] They've been taken, and what's going on in Iran right now? They've got a theocratic dictatorship. Well, why was that? Because in 1953, they elected a charismatic local leader, Mosaddegh, to run their country and nationalize their oil. Can you imagine that? They took control of their own oil. And that person was thrown out by the United States and Britain because we needed access to their oil, and we put in a puppet, a guy who played ball with us on our terms, and that was the Shah. And the Shah was great if you're a cosmopolitan big city, Iranian with lots of money and connections with Europe. But that was the worst thing that could happen for a lot of Iranians because he was an affront to their values. They were bragging the miniskirts were shorter in Tehran than they were in Paris. Imagine that. We've got shorter miniskirts in Tehran. We're so Western, we're so hip. What is that? How does that resonate with the small town less educated fundamentalists? The base. The base of Iran is the same of the base in our country right now. They're good people, but they're riddled with fear and they're motivated by love. They've got a worldview and they've got baggage. Their baggage is the Shah and they don't want another Shah. So they've chosen this Muslim revolution, this Islamic lack of democracy, because it's an alternative to the Shah, and we got to understand that. I can't fully understand that, but I know that mothers voted for the religious takeover because they didn't want the alternative. If Americans were putting a person on the throne in Tehran, their girls would be hijacked from a moral point of view. They would be boy toys, crass materialists, and drug addicts. That's what they're worried about. I had a woman, I've talked about it in my writing quite a bit, came up to me and said, are you an American journalist? I said, yes. She said, I want you to go home and tell the truth. We're strong, we're united, and we just don't want our little girls to be raised like Britney Spears. And I thought, whoa, I've hit on something here. They're not worried about the price of oil. They're worried about the ethics and the morality of their children. And they don't want this Western hedonism.

Speaker 2:
[12:30] 2008 was not the first time Rick had visited Iran. In 1978, just after he graduated from college, he and a friend traveled along the so-called Hippie Trail, a now inactive travel route through Europe and Asia. A few years ago, he dug back into his journals that he made back then.

Speaker 1:
[12:50] I was just a bon vivant, out there, you know, having fun. But for some reason, I was writing it all down. I was passionate, fanatic, super disciplined about writing this journal. I wrote a 60,000 word journal when the other kids were out there just doing some crazy stuff. And every night, I'd be sure it was right up to date. And I documented it with photos. So, it's fascinating to see how that was a coming of age trip. And it was setting the table for what I would do in my career. And now when I look back, I remember thinking my life was being complicated. I love the quote from Muhammad, that don't tell me how educated you are, tell me what you've traveled. I was doing what he was doing. I was going on a hajj. He says one of the five pillars of Islam is you should all leave home and go to Mecca. My progressive Muslim friends tell me, no, that doesn't mean go to Mecca. That means leave home and get to know the world. That's what Muhammad wanted you to do, celebrate the world and all of its diversity, God's great creation. Back then, the excuse to do that would be to go to Mecca. But I was on a kind of a hajj. I was getting away from my home and learning about it by leaving it. I was recognizing that culture shock is a beautiful thing. It's not something to be avoided. It's the growing pains of a broadening perspective and it needs to be curated.

Speaker 2:
[14:13] Discomfort needs to be curated. Interesting.

Speaker 1:
[14:16] These are the foundations of my teaching. I was clumsy at how do I finesse it. I used to just inflict this stress on people and their travels.

Speaker 2:
[14:26] Wait, how would you inflict it?

Speaker 1:
[14:30] I made money when I was in my 20s by taking eight people on a mini bus around Europe.

Speaker 2:
[14:34] But the infliction of discomfort was just, we're not going to take the nice bus.

Speaker 1:
[14:39] My mission was, you're not going to know if we have a room until four o'clock when I figure out where it is. You're going to get comfortable with the specter of homelessness tonight. You're going to end up in a room with a big tent with 400 roommates. All I have in my first aid kit is Valium. If you need a pill, let me know. I was inflicting culture shock on my people.

Speaker 2:
[15:05] The one antidote is I'll knock you out with Valium. If you need a break.

Speaker 1:
[15:10] My friend said, Rick, this is no way to broaden people's perspective. It's brutal. I remember going to a horrible hotel somewhere in Italy. I checked in on one of the girls and she was kind of shivering there on top of her bed, going, I'm not taking this so very well. She didn't want to disappoint me, but she was really stressed out by the whole situation. I remember she was sort of wrapped up in herself, afraid of all of these dirty, unplanned impositions in her life physically and in her world outlook. And it was, I was just exploring this and having fun with it. And I didn't know how to properly do it. And I've learned over time, you don't hit somebody on the head with a broader perspective. You introduce to them in a comfortable way a broader perspective.

Speaker 2:
[16:01] You guide them to it, maybe.

Speaker 1:
[16:03] But I mean, I've never told that story that I just told you there. And I just thought that I has as a rookie tour producer, guy who makes tours, I was experimenting with how much can you take people out of their comfort zone. I used to take people to a place called Tezay, which is a modern monastic community in Europe, which welcomes people from, it's ecumenical, it's interfaith, but it's all just silence, music, chanting, and staring at icons, and thinking about the meaning of life and God. Pretty trippy. And people didn't sign up for this, but I would say, I've got a treat for you tomorrow night, we're gonna be staying at Tezay. And half the people loved it, and half the people hated it, you can imagine. All we had for dinner was bread and soup. But we had that silence, which Americans cannot handle. We had that chanting music, we had beautiful Byzantine icons to stare at. And it was just my interest in getting people out of their comfort zones in their travels. And if nothing else, to be more happy when they got back to their comfort zone. See, you don't know how good your comfort zone is until you've been out of it.

Speaker 2:
[17:39] This is Death, Sex & Money from Slate. I'm Anna Sale. Before Rick Steves started helping US travelers get out of their comfort zones, he first had to get out of his own comfort zone. And for him, that wasn't just about experiencing physical discomfort, but also intellectual, spiritual, political discomfort.

Speaker 1:
[18:01] The United States is 4% of this planet. And when we get out, we get to know the other 96%. When we get out, we realize the only thing exceptional about Americans is our ability to think that in God's eyes, we could be exceptional.

Speaker 2:
[18:19] I don't know, we're the only ones that think that. I think some other people think that too.

Speaker 1:
[18:23] Well, I'm just talking to my audience. I'm talking to my audience. You guys think you're exceptional? No. And big countries think they're exceptional. Big cultures can be ethnocentric. Little countries, they know. They're just one of a lot of different groups, you see. So this complicates your life. Thomas, I've got these favorite quotes that I like to use. You've probably read them. But Thomas Jefferson really believed that travel makes a person wiser if less happy. You know, it's kind of, I thought about that real carefully before I went down to Central America when I became politicized as a travel writer back in the days of the Contras and the Sandinistas. Travel makes a person wiser if less happy. Do I really want to complicate my life by turning over this log and looking what's under it? You know? Yeah, I do.

Speaker 2:
[19:18] Yeah, exposure. Yeah. It strikes me that it seems like a large, the sort of opening salvo of much of your work is helping Americans who are comfortable in their lives. Or people who could scrap together a discretionary travel budget if they decided to. Helping Americans confront what is making them feel afraid about leaving where they're from. Leaving their community, leaving their country. You hear questions from people about, how do I know I'm going to be safe? And when you hear that from a tentative traveler, do you hear someone who's saying, how do I make sure I stay insulated with the things that make me feel like I'm not going to need something from someone who I don't know?

Speaker 1:
[20:13] Well, people used to say bon voyage. Now they say have a safe trip. I think there's some subconscious intelligence, or what do you call it? Some sort of a synthetic intelligence in our society that's making us all afraid because we're easier to shape and manipulate when we're fearful. I think fear is a real serious problem. Travelers tend to be anxious. I remember in my very first days of teaching, I used to say, I know you're staying at home, standing there in the kitchen thinking, what can I be worried about now?

Speaker 2:
[20:57] What else do I need to photocopy and put in a ziplock bag?

Speaker 1:
[21:00] Exactly. So I said, and this is way back when I was in my 20s, beginning my teaching career, and I would say, so next week, I'd like you to bring on a piece of paper your fears and anxieties, and we'll deal with each of them. And because you just got to overcome your fears and anxieties. Just last week, I was with 25 new guides in Rome and in Orvieto and in Florence. And time and time again, I said, the mark of a good traveler is someone who recognizes the anxieties and proactively tackles them to overcome those anxieties. And this is something that is a very important part of travel. Americans tend to be anxious. So, you know, is the bus driver tipped okay? Yes, the bus driver is tipped okay. You know, can we drink this water? Yes, you can drink the water. What do they think about Americans with the president that we have and so on? We're more interesting now than we've ever been. Just become, you know, be ready to talk. Have a good, tight definition of the electoral college. You know, I'm really scrambling for a silver lining to the whole Trump thing. But Americans are anxiety-stricken. You know, when people tell me, have a safe trip, I'm inclined to say, well, you have a safe stay at home. Because statistically, and I know statistics are optional these days, but statistically, we are safer now than we were back when we said, bon voyage.

Speaker 2:
[22:27] Well, I wonder, I think we say safety and we maybe focus on the catastrophic thoughts of physical harm that could be possible. But I wonder how much of that anxiety is about the fear of being clumsy, you know, or being I remember I studied in Nepal when I was 21. And I remember how visible I felt in my absolute clumsiness, because not only did I not know how to do most things, and I just barely knew the language, but I also was this white girl who was walking around these Nepali villages and everybody was watching to see what a fool I was. And it felt very uncomfortable as an American.

Speaker 1:
[23:12] That's, I think you've hit on something, Anna, because I've got this knack of celebrating my clumsiness. When I walk into a door, because I think it's push instead of pull, and it doesn't, and it just hits me in the nose, I laugh at myself. I'm so happy I'm here. I don't, you know, when I'm in Bulgaria and I shake my head no, that means yes. And when I shake my head yes, that means no, and I love it, you know. When I was in Nepal, I put on that goofy little hat that looks like somebody had a weird hamburger stand, you know, a psychedelic hamburger stand hat.

Speaker 2:
[23:49] Goofy to us, yes.

Speaker 1:
[23:51] Goofy to us, but according to the girls, I wore it well, you know. But get out of your comfort zone. Don't try to be so, be a bumpkin. That's something fundamental to good travel. Let them, it's like going to show and tell. If I remember correctly, when I was in third grade, Monday morning, you'd have show and tell. And that's where kids got to bring something from home and share it. And it's not saying, my family is better than your family. It's saying, my family has these cool egg cups, and you stick the egg in it when your mom soft-boils it or whatever, you know. This is sharing. The British drive on the, not the wrong side of the road, but the other side of the road. And that really helps. Now, when we get back to this fear of traveling, have a safe trip. Lately, I've been wondering about that, just like you were thinking out loud. And when somebody, I've been thinking, maybe, have a safe trip means don't rearrange your political sensibilities.

Speaker 2:
[24:53] You know, don't change.

Speaker 1:
[24:54] Don't change. You're going to be all messed up. I remember my dad always took me to the airport when I was a kid. And he'd say, have a great trip, son. See you when we're done. Write postcards. When I went to El Salvador during that fraught time.

Speaker 2:
[25:08] Yeah. This is in the 80s?

Speaker 1:
[25:10] In the 80s. My dad did not say, have a great trip. He said, don't be duped. What is don't be duped? That means I'm comfortable having consumed the propaganda I've consumed. This is my worldview. Don't make your life difficult by screwing it up with a little bit of reality. Now, I went down there and my eyes were opened. Call that duped if you like. I voted for Ronald Reagan. It was always pith through strength. I trusted my government blindly. They know more about it than I do, and they're public servants. Then I became a little more soured on that idealism when I learned the reality of Central American and the impact of American greed and economic policy, and military policy, and colonialism there. But I did not assess the place from the rooftop garden of an intercontinental hotel. I assessed it by getting out in the barrio.

Speaker 2:
[26:20] You've spent your entire adult life coming back to where you grew up in Edmonds, Washington, and then going away, going away a lot, being away a lot. In your experience of, you're describing these profound encounters that you help produce for people, for other people. How much have you struggled with loneliness on the road, being away, continually uprooting yourself from where you're based?

Speaker 1:
[27:00] It's interesting. I'm really good at saying goodbye. When you travel, you have to get good at saying goodbye. I love to say goodbye. It's a blessing to have a heartfelt goodbye. I love leaving home because I love my home. And when I come back, I feel, yes, I'm home. Right now, I can look out my window and see my junior high school, where I went to school when I was 12 years old. I haven't traveled very far, but I come back. Am I lonely? It's a selfish thing to have me time. A lot of people don't have me time. I've got lots of me time, and I just embrace it, and I love it. My birthday is in May, and I think almost every May 10th in the last 30 years, I've been overseas alone.

Speaker 2:
[27:54] Alone?

Speaker 1:
[27:55] Alone, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[27:56] Or with coworkers, or alone?

Speaker 1:
[27:57] Alone. I mean, I'm working with guides, but I'm the only guy who booked this hotel room tonight, and that's where I'm sleeping, that's where I'm going to have breakfast. I'm going to have breakfast alone. But I get that stimulation, because I'm hiring people to be my friends. I mean, remember, every time you look at my TV show, you see me put my arm around this local guide and say, here's my friend and fellow tour guide, Alfeo. Here's my friend and fellow tour guide. I'm just paying them to be my friends. Anybody can do that. I just skipped in a couple of times, you can afford a guide for half a day. But on the other hand, it's really nice to travel with the right travel partner. But when I'm traveling, I'm not on vacation, I'm working. So I'm having to immerse myself in these cultures. I've often struggled with if I was ever going to take the Camino de Santiago, would I do it alone or would I do it with friends? And it's very clear to me, doing it with friends would cut the experience in half.

Speaker 2:
[28:59] Oh, you would want me to do it alone?

Speaker 1:
[29:00] I would do it alone. I would absolutely do it alone. I've been alone a lot and I've noticed I'm a Christian, so I've got a friendly relationship with God. He's always there and I cannot be alone. I've got a friend in Jesus. I can walk through a teeming hive of people in Istanbul, and I'm not alone. I can walk on a ridge high in the Alps with lakes stretching. It's like tightroping on a ridge. On one side, I got lakes stretching all the way to Germany. On the other side, I got cut glass peaks, the Aigermonk and Jungfrau. And I'm a Lutheran, and Lutherans generally just sit on their hands when they're at church, but I can find my hands going up to the heavens and doing that evangelical thing.

Speaker 2:
[29:51] An expressive Lutheran.

Speaker 1:
[29:53] Expressive, yeah. And it's because it's clear when I'm on the road. To me, the road can be school, the road can be a playground, or the road can be church, or synagogue or mosque. And I love to make the road church once in a while.

Speaker 2:
[30:09] Have you always had a close relationship to your faith, or was there a time or a travel experience where it kind of came back closer to you as an adult?

Speaker 1:
[30:22] I think I do the sort of evolution in a lot of people. You're raised going to church because your parents are promised to do that and so on, if they're church-going people. And then, when you're in your 20s, you say, OK, enough of that. I'm independent and I don't buy that.

Speaker 2:
[30:35] Hippie trail.

Speaker 1:
[30:36] Hippie trail, yeah. And then, you become more of a parent and a citizen and a thoughtful being. And then you decide, do you want to have God in your life? You know, it's a choice you make. And my travels, I see God a lot in my travels. I see God in laughter. I see God in tears. I see God in nature. I see God in art. I taste God in beautiful food and wine. It just, it's a beautiful thing for me to have that dimension in my life.

Speaker 2:
[31:23] Coming up, how Rick Steves' political conscience has led to some big donations.

Speaker 1:
[31:30] I'm a privileged white guy who owns a business and has more money than I know what to do with. Why wouldn't I just buy a yacht? For $2 million, you can buy a great yacht.

Speaker 2:
[31:53] Rick Steves is now 70 years old. He lives in the town where he grew up. His two kids are grown. He's divorced from his first wife. His girlfriend is a bishop at his church. And Rick likes to stay involved in his community. In fact, late last year, Death, Sex & Money producer Cameron Drews happened to catch this story on NPR.

Speaker 3:
[32:14] A Seattle area community center is getting a second life. And that's a big deal for more than 700 people to go there for a hot meal or a shower. The center said in November it would have to close. And then a very well-traveled TV host stepped in.

Speaker 2:
[32:30] I was checking my email, and it came through the website, and it was from Rick Steves. That's Sandra Mears, executive director of a group that runs the Linwood Hygiene Center, north of Seattle. It's a place where people in need go to get cleaned up, get a haircut, maybe grab a sandwich. And when Rick Steves heard this one was closing, he decided to buy the center for more than $2 million to keep it open. Rick does stuff like this pretty frequently. Over the years, he's donated more money than most of us will ever have, a lot of it going to services for homeless women and children.

Speaker 1:
[33:07] I have not suffered, but I know what it's like not to have a shower. I know what it's like not to have a bed. I know what it's like to take a 24-hour bus across Yugoslavia and have to jump on that bus before I had time to change money. Therefore, I had no money and I was starving in a backpacker's way. Everybody around me was eating and I was walking through the rest stop looking at other people who were supposed to be poorer than me because they're Yugoslavians and I'm a rich American, but I didn't have any of the local cash. My eyes were fogged up, my glasses were fogged up with the conviviality of the situation around me. Everybody was having a great time, clinking glasses, eating hearty meat and potatoes. I was to the point where I literally had to beg some strange Serbian for just a piece of bread and a piece of meat.

Speaker 2:
[33:57] Did you just make hand gestures? How did you communicate?

Speaker 1:
[33:59] Yeah, that's what I did. I walked through. I looked at that and I was an urchin. I'll never know what it's like to really be destitute. But I have had an appetite for experiencing that in my travels. My most impactful travels, I think, in a lot of ways were going down to El Salvador and Nicaragua during the civil wars down there. And I would sleep in villages that were housing other communities that were now homeless. And they were nomadic now. And they would come into the town that was already very poor and they would be put up. They would be given a place to sleep in the barn. And then I would be sleeping. I didn't want to take their place, so I'd be sleeping outside the barn. And then it was still dark in the morning. And I wake up and I see a man and his father listening to Radio Free El Salvador or the equivalent. And it was like, this is a mobile radio station that moves from place to place in the mountains so they won't be discovered and killed by the government troops to give the people a voice together. And it taught me so much. And that's another reason why I'm very enthusiastic about building community centers. I've helped build two community centers where I live. And I know that for $10,000 and a bunch of cinderblock, you can build a downtrodden community center where they can actually house a visiting doctor or a visitor from the government, or some NGO that's going to come in and empower them. But they need that community center in order to facilitate that. So these are the souvenirs that I get from my travels. And I'm really thankful for it.

Speaker 2:
[35:47] You mentioned already a bit about some of the choices you've made, about the investments you've made in your home community. Can you tell me about how you sort of thought about, I have all this money, I've had a successful business, moving around the world, getting people out traveling. What am I going to do with it? How did you make the choice to make real investments in your home community, not to focus your philanthropy giving away money in other countries? Why where you live?

Speaker 1:
[36:21] Well, I try to do a balance. First of all, I own a business, I'm the sole proprietor, so the profit does not go to stockholders. The profit, I own all the stocks. So that's a lot of money if you have a successful business.

Speaker 2:
[36:36] Company does well, you do well. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[36:38] If there's COVID and there's two years of no income, I do poorly. So you ride the boat. But I'm a pipsqueak compared to the people we read about, who have a lot of money. But I'm a thoughtful consumer. I'm an enlightened consumer. I'm not any saint or anything like that. I just take care of my needs. And I know when consuming more does not give me more. Other people are just intoxicated by getting more in their wealth. And they just consume more in very creative ways in order to be happier. But it doesn't make them happier. So in my mind, I look at it analytically. I've got a, I see a curve. There's a diminishing curve of returns for the more you consume. At first, of course, you're steep on that ladder. Every thousand dollars makes a difference. And then as you get more and more, it flattens out. And pretty soon you reach a point where consuming more does not make you happier. But you're a good capitalist and you keep making money. So there's the quandary. You're making more money than you really need. What are you going to do with it? You can give it to your kids. You can find a way to consume it yourself. Or you can consume it vicariously. That's what I do. I can, I am a vicarious consumption person. Recognizing if I buy a bigger yacht, for me it does not make me happier. It complicates my world. If I invest that in people who are steep on that diminishing curve of returns for the more they consume, a classic example would be buy a hygiene center for 800 homeless people so they can get a shower. They're on that very steep curve where just a shower makes the world to them. That is a smart way to consume. This is what I just love. It's a fascinating thing. And I try to be an inspiration that way, a model. So for me, I like to make money. And I have a, as a person of faith, I believe in this idea of stewardship. What's a good way to steward that money? And for me, a good way to steward it is to love your neighbor.

Speaker 2:
[38:37] When did you, can you just tell me when you're, when you think about that graph in your life, when you started to see, right, I can become a vicarious consumer. Like what phase of life were you in when you started to think about what you had and how you could share when that, when you hit that point?

Speaker 1:
[38:55] I reached a, for many years, I deficit financed all my trips. I just had to borrow money for the plane ticket, you know, and I came home and I'd figure how am I going to get out of this hole now. And then I started, my business eventually caught on. And I had, I actually had a little bit of money for my retirement. And it occurred to me, I've got, you know, let's say, I don't know what it was, $100,000 sitting in the bank. It was a long time ago. That's my retirement, my nest egg. I thought, well, it's earning interest, that's good. And I can be a hippie entrepreneur, travel guy, and not be reckless and have that long-term economic security of this money in the bank. And then I thought, but it's just sitting there, it's not doing anything. And I thought, I could buy a duplex and house two families that way who are homeless. And then I would still own the property, but the interest would not be dollars, it would be housing people who were otherwise homeless. And eventually I got enough money where I got a 25 unit apartment building. And I don't have the bandwidth to run it, but I gave the management of it to the YWCA. And they filled it with 25 women who had been beat up and abandoned by their husbands and were left with children and no money. And they were in difficult streets. And it was not fair. And I took what was my retirement money and I put it in this 25 unit apartment building. I didn't give anything away. I still own it. When I need it, I can kick those people out and take it and retire on it. But after 10 years, I realized I'm never going to really need this apartment building. So I ended up just giving it to the YWCA. But when I did it originally, I thought this is an innovative way to challenge other people like me who had a modest nest egg in the bank, to put that nest egg into affordable housing and empower a local non-profit to use that to house people. But you still own it. And then eventually you can take it back and retire on it like you want to. It's just a very clever way to sock away that retirement income instead of putting it in the bank where it does nothing but earn interest. I just love that. And the Rotary Club embraced it. And we wrote up a paper and spread it around in their magazine. And it was sort of the first, I think of it as entrepreneurial philanthropy. I love to do a creative philanthropy like that. And I do a lot of different projects like that, that I find to be kind of guerrilla philanthropy.

Speaker 2:
[41:39] Well, I thank you for explaining that because it seems so consistent with the way that you've built your work around travel, which is, let me suggest another way of doing this that might have other rewards that you just haven't thought of if we rethink the system. And so it makes me, I would be game for some Rick Steves financial advice guides if you want to.

Speaker 1:
[42:03] It's interesting Anna, because I'm 70 years old now, and I've been talking to a lot of people that are into philanthropy. And now, just this last couple of months, I've hired a woman who is brilliant at organizing a philanthropic initiative. And we're just going to coordinate my philanthropy, which has been kind of haphazard until now. And basically, I'm going to keep making money, but we're just going to have fun giving it away. And there is what, as she studies this, we're finding that after 30 years of sort of impromptu philanthropy, there's a consistency in what I've done. There's a thread there, and it all makes sense.

Speaker 2:
[42:47] Uh-huh. What do you think the thread is, if you could just begin to describe it? What's been consistent after your haphazard giving?

Speaker 1:
[42:54] You want to take the souvenir of travel, which is a broader perspective. You want to take that home with you and incorporate it into how you're going to be a good steward of your wealth. You want to take the eurekas you had in your travels and come home, and then find a way to invest in things that make sense to your new sensibility. You know, I went to Europe and I found that they don't have mass incarceration, and a joint of marijuana is as exciting as a can of beer. They just don't lock people up for marijuana. It's a health problem. It's an educational challenge. It's not a criminal thing. You know, here in our society, it's like criminal. You need judges, and you need lawyers, and you need prison, cops. And in Europe, you need doctors, you need counselors, you need a helping hand. So there's that different approach to the problem we're both struggling with that I've gained a sensibility with after traveling. And so I came home and it was just the right thing to do. I could help legalize marijuana. So I spent about a million dollars working to legalize marijuana. And I became active in it. Why? Because I could blame my European sensibilities for this. I'm not pro drugs. I just recognize that our prohibition against marijuana is counterproductive. It's racist. It's empowering gangs and organized crime by creating a thriving black market. And in Europe, they treat it differently. And they get more credibility with dealing with the real problem, which is hard drug addiction. But there's a civil liberties issue here. There's a racism issue. There's a pragmatic harm reduction issue. There's so many ways you can frame it. So I could take my celebrity, my European experience and my money, and then channel it into a philanthropic cause that I thought was a million dollars, very well spent. That's just one example of creative philanthropy, I think.

Speaker 2:
[45:00] Yeah. And the idea of putting it on your ricksteves.com travel website, you are showing consumers of travel, this is a way to honor what you have taken from this experience and continue to activate it by helping them see how to pay it forward.

Speaker 1:
[45:18] It's an example of, don't be dishonest about your values in order to have a better bottom line. A lot of people, when they learn what I think of politically, they wonder, what an idiot, you're saying this, you're going to lose money. I don't factor in if I'm going to lose money when it comes to being a good citizen and truthful. And it's never been a problem for me. I mean, I've had people say, Rick Steves, we know what you think about marijuana, and we're never going to take your tours, and we're never going to use your guidebooks. And all I can think is Europe's going to be more fun without you.

Speaker 2:
[45:59] And I bet they still sneak a peek. Because they want to know about that place they should stay in the Swiss Alps.

Speaker 1:
[46:04] That's very interesting.

Speaker 2:
[46:07] We have come to the end of our time, but I have one more question for you. And that is, I have a nine-year-old and a seven-year-old and a husband, who are preparing for a trip to Costa Rica. Just give me one piece of advice that I haven't thought of for helping us thrive while we travel together as a family.

Speaker 1:
[46:27] I had a family vacation in Costa Rica. It was absolutely wonderful. And I'll tell you, the more understanding you bring to your sightseeing, whether it's art, cuisine, nature, monkeys in the trees, the more understanding you bring to your sightseeing, the more you get out of it, especially if you're traveling as a parent.

Speaker 2:
[46:49] I mean, it's a little sponges.

Speaker 1:
[46:50] It's a good parenting. You can just go there tomorrow and have a great time. But if you design your movie going and your reading and your preparation to understand all the options you have and understand the context of that, you'll have a much richer experience whether you're going with kids or without. But that sounds very exciting. I'm happy for you and your family.

Speaker 2:
[47:20] That is Rick Steves, traveler, teacher, philanthropist, and author. His book, On the Hippie Trail, Istanbul, to Kathmandu and the Making of a Travel Writer is just out in paperback. And in our show notes, we put a link to Rick Steves' 2009 episode about his trip to Iran and to the NPR story by Rebecca Rosman about his investment in the local hygiene center. This episode was produced by Cameron Drews, the rest of the Death, Sex & Money show team includes Zoe Ajule and Andrew Dunn. Daisy Rosario is our senior supervising producer. Mia Lobel is executive producer of Slate Podcasts and Hillary Fry is Slate's editor-in-chief. If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining Slate Plus. It's our membership program that offers you ad-free episodes and bonus episodes and you'll get to be like Rick Steves and contributing to something you care about that is needed. This show would not exist without Slate Plus contributions. So please sign up today at slate.com/dsmplus, or you can sign up in Apple Podcasts or Spotify right there on the Death, Sex and Money landing page. If you are already a Slate Plus member, thank you so much. Our theme music is by the Reverend John Delore and Steve Lewis. If you are new to our show, welcome. We're glad you're here. You can find us and follow us on Instagram at Death, Sex, Money. I write a weekly newsletter. You can subscribe at annasale.substack.com. And you can reach us at the show anytime by email at deathsexmoneyatslate.com. We love hearing from you. You'll recall that Rick mentioned spending a lot of his birthdays alone. Well, in 2008, when he was in Iran filming his special, the family welcomed him to their home for dinner and surprised him with a cake.

Speaker 3:
[49:13] Hey, look at this.

Speaker 1:
[49:20] Oh, you guys.

Speaker 2:
[49:23] I'm Anna Sale, and this is Death, Sex and Money from Slate.