Becoming Rick Steves
Behind the scenes of my first big profile.
In case you were wondering, one of the most uncomfortable situations you can put yourself in is surprising someone you don’t know by dressing up like them. You up the awkward level exponentially if there are any extra witnesses.
I’ll explain.
At the beginning of the year, I pitched my bosses a big profile on Rick Steves. Not just a regular interview like I’d done in the past. But a rich, sweeping deep dive on the travel guru, TV personality, and guidebook writer extraordinaire.
Anytime we mention, cover, or publish Rick, our audience goes wild. They love Rick! We love Rick! Plus I grew up on Rick Steves guidebooks. Family lore has it that long ago, teenage me proclaimed I wanted to be Rick Steves one day.
My bosses were in, we just had to get the OK from the Big Guy. I emailed his team, asking to come shadow Rick in his hometown, Edmonds, Wash., for two days and see how he “trains for the off season” — that is, what’s Rick like when he’s not in Europe?
It was a tall order. Steves is very busy. His tour company Rick Steves’ Europe takes ~30,000 travelers abroad every year. Plus he shoots his TV show, writes and updates guidebooks, goes on radio shows and podcasts. Not to mention a proper profile requires a lot of time and vulnerability from the profilee.
But he said yes, so we got to work.
I bought seven of Rick’s books to reference, read his “Travel as a Political Act” cover to cover (and recommend you do the same), combed through old articles, listened to old interviews, scrolled through his blog, watched his show.
We had lots of meetings about the story. We’d be sending my frolleague (friend/colleague) Mo Rodman to shoot/produce accompanying video, and later send a photographer (Daniel Berman) to do portraits.
During one planning Zoom, my boss goes, “what if Natalie dressed up like Rick to meet him?” Everyone laughed. The thing is, every Halloween, lots of people dress up like Rick Steves.
As Zoom laughter rang on, I knew my boss was right. It was a funny idea. But just the thought of executing it made me blush. What if he thought we were making fun of him?? Or that we weren’t serious about this story that we were definitely very serious about? Would he think I was an idiot?
On the morning of my trip out west, I went on a mission to Target to become Rick Steves.
Upon further review, Rick does not really dress like his most popular costume anymore. Lately he wears dark jeans, not the signature khakis. The rest is about the same. I shopped for both looks just in case, went with the dark jeans, and got on a plane to Edmonds.
Mo and I stayed in a quaint Airbnb that shared a parking lot with the Rick Steves’ Europe headquarters. We crammed episodes of Rick’s show and devised a plan for my outfit reveal. I’d meet him as my normal self on day one, and sometime during day two I’d surprise him with my Rick cosplay.
Then it was game time. On Sunday we had lunch with Rick’s comms person who gave us a rundown of the schedule. She made us feel relaxed and welcome; there was no warning that we’d be dealing with a total diva; she confirmed that Rick was a nice, normal guy — a workaholic, yes, but not an egomaniac celebrity. Then she took us to him.
Here’s the thing about interviewing someone who’s a media legend themselves. Rick knows showbiz, what the audience wants. He teed up a nice little TV-friendly scene for our meeting at a nearby pétanque court (the French version of bocce. Their answer to cornhole, if you will).
It had everything: European vibes, eclectic friends, lots of laughing, fierce competition. They pulled me into a game immediately and taught me to play. It was a delight.
After a few rounds, I peeled off with Rick, his girlfriend Shelley and her dog Jackson and went on a walk to the beach (Edmonds sits on Puget Sound). Mo recorded all the while, often walking backwards or sideways through town to get the shot.
It felt comfortable, easy — a far cry from the time I interviewed my other hero, Anthony Bourdain, a lifetime ago. It’s worth a detour to tell you about it.
In 2016 I was in the fledgling days of my writing career, still getting my footing in Los Angeles after living in Bangkok. A PR person emailed me an invitation to the premiere of a new season of Bourdain’s miniseries he did with an alcohol brand. I could meet him if I covered the event, was I interested? I said fucking absolutely and proceeded to become a bigger chaotic wreck than I’d ever been before.
2016 me could barely go on a date without self-sabotaging into a panic attack. How was I going to sit across from my idol? And be normal? And ask him interview questions???
The week before the premier, I was on an assignment for Vice in Las Vegas. At an afterparty, I confided to a well-known butcher about my Bourdain dilemma. He told me he took Beta Blockers — medicine that lowers blood pressure — before his on-stage demos to calm his nerves and asked if I wanted a few for the road.
Sure! I would love some of your unmarked pills, stranger I just met in Las Vegas! So he gave me a Kleenex full of blue pharmaceuticals. At that point I’d try anything to pull off the interview (and if we’re being honest, 2016 Natalie would try anything, period).
The morning of the Bourdain interview, I went on a power sprint around the Silver Lake reservoir, could barely eat. Around 5ish, I got to the press corral at the premiere feeling completely nauseous. Even better for sweaty me, the interview would be taking place outside the theater under a terrace canopy in the balmy September heat. They gave me a dram of whiskey while I waited.
When it was my turn, they motioned to a black leather couch next to Bourdain, who was the most thoroughly tanned man I’d ever seen. I’d worn a sort-of-short dress, and my legs were so sweaty between the heat and anxiety, I was afraid I was going to fall off my seat. I glided around that thing like a slip and slide.
My interview slot was 15 minutes, but I was so frazzled I barreled through my questions in seven, so green I never really asked a follow up. The story turned out mediocre, but I made Anthony Bourdain laugh once and I’ll always have that.
Anyway, Rick Steves.
As we walked and talked, conversation flowed easily. There were so many ways the interview could go. Rick would say one fascinating morsel and ricochet to another, presenting a challenge: do I follow up on that first thing, or let him keep going with this new train of thought? As I listened to my recordings later, I’d kick myself for not pressing him on some compelling nugget. But it had been difficult to make the call at the time.
The resulting profile was long, and so is this post!! So I can’t recap every magic moment. But I do want to share a few fun tidbits that didn’t make the story.
Like when Rick first started giving tours in Europe in the 80s, he said he wanted to give his customers a lesson in empathy for unhoused people so he wouldn’t reserve their hotel rooms until the last minute. He’d let their anxiety build up all day over where they were going to sleep, then eventually give in and find them a hotel.
Or that he was never a dog person until recently. He said he never respected people who had dogs, that they took up too much time and prevented you from being free to travel or work to the fullest. Then he started dating his girlfriend Shelley who had wonderful labradoodles and it changed his world. He feels bad about his old opinion.
We were walking along a coastal path as he told that story. Rick pointed to the water and shared that when he was a kid, his dad — Dick Steves — had accidentally run over the family dog. The family came down to this very waterfront to give “Pookie” a sort of viking funeral. They wrapped the dog in a sack with a brick, threw it into the water on a dark stormy night, cried together and left. “That was the last time I ever loved a dog,” Rick said, then burst into a giant laugh.
Rick! Our entire time together was like that. He’d share some crazy story, laugh, then launch into something else equally interesting.
Our walk ended at his house up on a hill overlooking Edmonds. It looked like the nice home of an orthodontist, not a gaudy McMansion of a business mogul (seriously. He’s the sole owner of a private company that generates $100+ million annually).
There was a sporty charcoal Audi in the driveway. Rick famously drove a clunker for decades. In a fantastic 2019 profile of Steves in the New York Times, reporter Sam Anderson noted: “When I visited [Rick], the back seat of his car was covered with a greenish slime, practically disintegrating, because of a mysterious leak.” Word on the street is his son finally convinced him to upgrade from slime-mobile to a decent ride.
Inside, the house was decorated with travel nicknacks and memorabilia, much of which were gifts. Like I mention in the profile, Rick doesn’t do souvenirs anymore unless it’s taxidermy. He’d have even more stuffed creatures around, apparently, but “the women in my life have forbid it,” he told me.
Rick still has the post cards he sent to his family in his early days of traveling. They are meticulously detailed. Of course this guy would grow up to become a guidebook authority! He has been innately keen on documenting what he saw around him well before he was paid to do so.
He played us some piano, some trumpet, and then it was time for dinner. Shelley heated up leftover chili she’d made the night before. Rick made garlic bread (more on that here) and poured us glasses of wine from a bottle he’d been given at a speaking event.
Then we gabbed, unwinding after a very full day of being “on.” I brought up the Halloween costumes. What does he think when people dress up like him? Rick laughed, said he thought it was funny. Boom. There was my golden ticket.
Rick drove us home. We felt like like his kids, Mo in the backseat. I said how much I liked Shelley and he said in a low, silly voice like a cowboy in a Spaghetti Western: “I’m a lucky man.” You could tell he meant it.
At the Airbnb, Mo and I conspired. We were going to meet Rick out for lunch the next day then go to his office to shadow him at work. In between those settings, I’d change and surprise Rick at headquarters.
Part one went off without a hitch. Lunch (at the senior center he donated $4 million to help build) was very endearing. Then Rick dashed off ahead of us, Mo followed to his office, I went to wardrobe.
We told Rick to just start working without me, no need to wait. Mo was supposed to set up so they could capture the moment of surprise.
But as I was changing, Rick kept asking where I was, even calling me to get to the bottom of it. He didn’t want to begin until I got there, now I was holding everybody up.
By this point, I was fully dressed and ready to go, waiting for Mo to give me the green light. I paced around the Airbnb in full Rick regalia wondering if this is the worst move of all time. Then I heard something. It was … my name? Being called by someone? By … Rick Steves?
From the Airbnb I could see a scene reminiscent of Juliet beckoning for Romeo — except it was Rick Steves leaning out of his office window yelling for me to hurry up.
Mo mercifully text me the all-clear. I exploded out of my front door, very Kramer-like. But with Rick still by the window, could he see me? I didn’t want to ruin the surprise so I tried to stay as close as I could to the wall, speed-slinking around to the office. Think Mission Impossible meets Dumb and Dumber.
Another issue: the prop Rick glasses Mo found me were not prop at all. They had MEGA prescription lenses that warped the world into a dizzying blur. I was near-blind in my scramble through the parking lot and could not see a cascade of concrete steps. My foot came down hard expecting sidewalk where no sidewalk existed. I went flying forward, Rick Steves guidebook still in hand.
My life flashed before my deformed eyes. Somehow I didn’t crash down and hit the asphalt with my teeth. Instead I caught my balance and kept running, adrenaline peaking.
I knocked on the office door; an employee answered. I struck a pose like “voila!” and said “it’s Rick!” Get it? She did not seem amused and a wave of doom washed over me. There was no backing out now!!! She whisked me through the office maze to the second floor radio studio where Rick was sitting with another employee, Mo recording.
Everyone turned to see me — the late reporter holding up the show. I had not rehearsed what would say. What came out was: “hey Rick, it’s … Rick!” I smiled and waited.
It took a few devastatingly-long seconds for Rick to process the situation. Then he laughed JUST A LITTLE and got back to the work he’d been waiting to do. All I could do was sit down and overanalyze how bad the joke seemed to go. Did it land at all???? Am I a hack clown?????
For the next few hours we watched him work, did some more interviews. On our way out of the building, I spotted a life-sized Rick cardboard cutout and asked Mo to get my photo standing next to it. The real Rick was tickled by the gesture and got in the shot too. We took a selfie with his phone of the “three” of us — his idea.
My costume and embarrassment were validated. It was worth it. IT WAS ALL WORTH IT!!!!!
Some other things people have asked me about Rick:
Did we smoke weed together? (Rick is a vocal champion for decriminalizing marijuana.) No, but he did tell me he only smokes and does not like edibles.
Has he ever been in a near-death travel experience? Also no, not that he could remember. But he was in a sandstorm with Shelley in Morocco that blew the windows out of their car.
But mostly, people came out of the woodwork to tell me how much Rick Steves meant to them. It’s safe to say he’s had a profound impact on millions of lives, from those he’s inspired to travel to the business owners across Europe and beyond. To spend so much time with him at his house, in his hometown, was not only a career highlight, but a life one. If you haven’t read the story yet, I hope you will soon.
And like Rick says: keep travelin’!
This article was such a fun read! You have a knack for being your true awesome self and it shows in your writing. Great job!
During the pandemic I watched Rick Steves travel videos while walking on a treadmill. It definitely helped during the first few months lived mostly indoors.