Top 35 Rick Steves Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “I have a New Year’s tradition. I lay all my travel dreams on the table, sort them out, prioritize, and begin the process of turning those dreams into reality.”

— Rick Steves

Featured in: New Year Quotes

2. “Travel is rich with learning opportunities, and the ultimate sourvenir is a broader perspective.”

— Rick Steves

3. “Be fanatically positive and militantly optimistic. If something is not to your liking, change your liking.”

— Rick Steves

4. “Travel like Ghandi, with simple clothes, open eyes and an uncluttered mind.”

— Rick Steves

5. “I travel around the world in a way that tries to open my mind and give me empathy and inspire me to come home and make this world a better place.”

— Rick Steves

6. “Fear is for people who don’t get out very much.”

— Rick Steves

7. “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood, and age only matters if you’re a cheese.”

— Rick Steves

8. “Ideally, travel broadens our perspectives personally, culturally, and politically. Suddenly, the palette with which we paint the story of our lives has more colors.”

— Rick Steves

9. “Like skiing with bent knees makes the moguls fun, you need to take risks, get out of your comfort zone, have a positive attitude, and enjoy the bumps in the road. I like to say that if things aren’t to your liking, change your liking.”

— Rick Steves

10. “A society has to make a choice: tolerate alternative lifestyles or build more prisons.”

— Rick Steves

11. “I would like travelers, especially American travelers, to travel in a way that broadens their perspective, because I think Americans tend to be some of the most ethnocentric people on the planet. It’s not just Americans, it’s the big countries. It’s the biggest countries that tend to be ethnocentric or ugly. There are ugly Russians, ugly Germans, ugly Japanese and ugly Americans. You don’t find ugly Belgians or ugly Bulgarians, they’re just too small to think the world is their norm.”

— Rick Steves

12. “It seems that the most fearful people in our country are those who don’t travel and are metaphorically barricaded in America. If we all stayed home and built more walls and fewer bridges between us and the rest of the world, eventually we would have something to actually be fearful of.”

— Rick Steves

13. “In Denmark, “social trust” – a general feeling that you trust your fellow citizens and the pillar institutions of government, law courts, police, hospitals, and so on – is generally found to be the highest in the world. A perfect example of Danish “social trust” is the image of babies sleeping in carriages outside a restaurant while the parents eat inside. You might say, “But no one is watching!” A Dane will say, “Everyone is watching.”

— Rick Steves

14. “Globetrotting destroys ethnocentricity, helping us understand and appreciate other cultures. Rather than fear the diversity on this planet, celebrate it. Among your most prized souvenirs will be the strands of different cultures you choose to knit into your own character. The world is a cultural yarn shop, and Back Door travelers are weaving the ultimate tapestry.”

— Rick Steves

15. “To me, understanding people and their lives is what travel is about, no matter where you go.”

— Rick Steves

16. “Regardless of your journey, you can put a little pilgrim in your travels and find your own personal jubilation.”

— Rick Steves

17. “Self-consciousness kills communication.”

— Rick Steves

18. “I shutter to think how many people are underexposed and lacking depth in this field.”

— Rick Steves

19. “Travel challenges truths that we were raised thinking were self-evident and God-given. Leaving home, we learn other people find different truths to be self-evident. We realize that it just makes sense to give everyone a little wiggle room.”

— Rick Steves

20. “I believe if you’re going to bomb someone you should know them first. It should hurt when you kill someone.”

— Rick Steves

21. “I have used cannabis all over the world.”

— Rick Steves

22. “As a traveler, I’ve often found that the more a culture differs from my own, the more I am struck by its essential humanity.”

— Rick Steves

23. “I believe, very strongly, that it is the responsible, adult, recreational, no apologies necessary, ‘it just makes my music more fun,’ recreational use of marijuana is a civil liberty.”

— Rick Steves

24. “I would like travelers, especially American travelers, to travel in a way that broadens their perspective...”

— Rick Steves

25. “Be militantly optimistic.”

— Rick Steves

26. “If you don’t like a place, maybe you don’t know enough about it... Give a culture the benefit of your open mind.”

— Rick Steves

27. “France is Europe’s most diverse, tasty, and exciting country to explore. It’s a cultural bouillabaisse that surprises travelers with its varied, complex flavors.”

— Rick Steves

28. “Travelers recognize that the results of an election here in the US can have a greater impact on poor people half a world away than it does on middle-class American voters. My travels have taught me that, even if motived only by greed, you don’t want to be really rich in a desperately poor world. With this in mind, I think of it not as noble or heroic, but simply pragmatic to bring a compassion for the needy along with me into the voting booth.”

— Rick Steves

29. “I asked my new friend, “Were you born here?” He thought about it, paused, and then said, “No, ’twas ’bout five miles down the road.” Later, I asked him, “Have you lived here all your life?” He winked and said, “Not yet.”

— Rick Steves

30. “Acropolis Loop” pedestrian walkway bordering the base of the Acropolis.”

— Rick Steves

31. “Noticing the twinkling lights strung up in honor of the holy month of Ramadan, I thought “Charming- they’ve draped Christmas lights between their minarets.” But a Turk might come into my house and say, “Charming- he’s draped Ramadan lights on his Christmas tree.”

— Rick Steves

32. “The City: Today’s modern financial district, called simply “The City,” was a walled town in Roman.”

— Rick Steves

33. “Firenze Card when you arrive in Florence.”

— Rick Steves

34. “Vienna’s population has dropped to 1.8 million, with dogs being the preferred “child” and the average Austrian woman having only 1.4 children.”

— Rick Steves

35. “In this global age, the world’s problems are our problems.”

— Rick Steves

36. “Almost everything of importance to tourists is within a few blocks of the Acropolis, in the Plaka, Monastiraki, Syntagma, and Psyrri neighborhoods.”

— Rick Steves

37. “While the traffic is enough to make you scream, people are incredibly good-humored on the road. I never heard angry horns honking. One time, while stalled in a Tehran jam, people in a neighboring car saw me sitting patiently in the back of our van. They rolled down their window and handed Majid a bouquet of flowers, saying, “Give this to your visitor and apologize for our traffic.”

— Rick Steves