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Hi from Rick: What's New? Everything!

Dear Traveler,

It's an exciting March for us at Rick Steves' Europe. I'm spending the next two weeks visiting a dozen cities across the eastern half of the USA. In three weeks I'm flying to Egypt. We've just released new audio tours covering Munich and Amsterdam. Our massive new (and massively exciting) DVD box set of all 100 of our TV shows has just arrived. We're cranking-out our "What's New in Europe for 2013" series of articles — featured in this month's Travel News. Even more exciting: my sister, Jan, is three days into her second Iditarod sled dog race in Alaska.

In the spirit of the 20-cities-in-20-days road trip/lecture tour I did from Seattle to Tallahassee last spring, I'm hitting the road this month. After speaking at the Washington DC travel show this weekend, I'll set out with one of my staff on a 12-cities-in-12-days tour, ranging from Charlotte, NC to Rockford, IL to Burlington, VT and a bunch of places in between. If you live somewhere along my route, I hope to see you in one of my classes. I'll be reporting all along the way on my Facebook page.

Once my USA road trip is finished, I'll fly across the Atlantic for 60 days of learning and producing: Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian Territories (to scout new TV shows for filming later this year, insha'Allah); Turkey (where I'll update our Istanbul guidebook and shoot new TV shows on western and central Turkey); and then Rome, Naples, Tuscany, Milano, southern Spain, and Portugal's Algarve (where I'll update our guidebooks) before flying home.

Our free Rick Steves Audio Europe app has had well over a million downloads so far. This has been my pet project over the last couple years, and just this week we uploaded four finely-crafted new audio tours covering Munich and Amsterdam, bringing the number of tours included with our app to 45. It's fun to know that more people than ever are enjoying Europe's great museums and historic walks with me as a tiny tour guide nestled in their ear.

Since the turn of the century, every two years we've been bringing out a new DVD anthology of all our TV shows: first 30 episodes, then 43, 56, 70, 84, 90, and finally...just this week...we have reached the 100 mark with the arrival of our Rick Steves' Europe: All 100 Shows 2000-2014 DVD Box Set. In addition to my TV shows and specials, we've tossed in some quirky extras that many people haven't seen, such as highlights of my "European Affair" concert with the Seattle Men's Chorus, the Martin Luther program I produced with my church — and my very first, very geeky, TV pilot show from way back in 1989. For Blu-ray fans, our first Blu-ray Box Set (all 70 hi-def shows but no quirky stuff) will arrive in April.

And last but certainly not least, my little sister has just set out on her second Iditarod race. Jan's dogs are running great and she has only 800 miles to Nome (you can follow her blog from Alaska). We're all pulling for her, as are her beloved dogs. It's Nome or bust for Jan Steves!

Thanks for being part of our traveling family,

Rick