Hi from Rick: Lessons from the Road

I just returned from two perspective-broadening weeks in Guatemala and El Salvador — my final international trip of the year. Now, after 50 intense days of research in Europe and my time in Central America, I'm settled back in my home, reflecting on my 2026 travels. The lessons I've learned from the road are many, but three stand out.

#1: Americans are enthusiastically welcome abroad. When I set off for Europe back in spring, this was the concern I kept hearing: Are we Americans still welcome?

After nearly two months in Greece, Italy, Germany, and Switzerland, I learned that — despite political turbulence and changing policies coming from Washington — American travelers are still warmly received. And that's the feeling the 35,000 Americans who took a Rick Steves' Europe tour in 2026 came home with too. In fact, we Americans are finding that we're more interesting than ever: While our European friends may be confused and curious…they're eager to talk. I like to think that each of us can be individual ambassadors for our country…and when it comes to people-to-people diplomacy, I like to be on the front lines. With America's changing image in the world, how we travel — and THAT we travel — matters.

#2: Travel remains the best classroom imaginable. Just this month, I filled up my little black notebook with new understandings gained just a three-hour flight south of our border. Here's a sample:

It never occurred to me that in a world where land ownership is power, indigenous people — whose worldview doesn't include land ownership — are more likely to be powerless. This made me think: In a reality where the plantation realtor tells the farmer whose land he wants to buy, "We can negotiate with you or we can negotiate with your widow," why is it that when people organize for land reform, they're condemned by our government as communists?
Christian Nationalism — prominent in our own country — is nothing new in Central America. Five hundred years ago, conquistadors arrived with both a new flag and a cross. But the Mayan religion still survives in syncretism (a smoke-filled mixing of Mayan rituals and Christianity).
The cost of gas is also an issue south of the border. In fact, gas actually costs more here — where a worker may be happy to work for $2 an hour — than it does in the USA. To do something as simple as fill up the tank, many locals rely on remittances sent home — mostly from sons to mothers, from workers in the USA. These amount to roughly 20 percent of Guatemala's GDP and more than a quarter of El Salvador's.
El Salvador is actually hosting a new kind of tourism: "dictator tourism," as more and more people are visiting to experience a land that has traded many civil liberties for law and order. A dazzling new library on the main square of the capital of El Salvador — paid for by China — stands as a symbol of the country's dramatic transformation under President Bukele.
Cross-border perceptions vary drastically. I asked a friend in Guatemala to give me, in sweeping generalizations, what makes the countries there distinct. Listing five countries and five attributes — El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Costa Rica…lazy, elite, workhorse, Indian, party animal — she then said, "Now draw lines to connect."

These new understandings are why I travel to places like Guatemala and El Salvador, which I've been visiting periodically since 1989 (you can read my journal from that life-changing experience). I go there to better understand the challenges of economic justice. While I want to better understand what helps people in these countries build better lives for themselves and their communities — I generally come home without simple answers…but inspired nevertheless. This year I spoke with, listened to, and learned from farmers, women leaders, local organizations, and communities of faith…and was left with the clear understanding that yes, poverty is very real here — but so too is ingenuity and determination. Nobody I met in Central America was asking someone else to build them a better future. They want a fair chance to work hard and build it for themselves.

#3: The best souvenir of travel is a broader perspective. And what's important is what we do with that perspective once we're home.

The more I've traveled, the more I've come to appreciate that joy and suffering are just as real across an ocean as they are across the street. In other words, "love thy neighbor" has nothing to do with proximity. As humans — whether rich or poor, north or south, black or white, left or right — we want the same things: the chance to live with dignity, provide for our families, and build a better future for our kids.

That perspective helps shape the Rick Steves Fund, which supports organizations and causes that, through the lens of a traveler, make our world a more just, cultured, and happy place.

Our fund supports organizations — both at home and abroad — working to strengthen communities, protect civil rights, nurture democratic values, and address the root causes of poverty and injustice. To me, it's more than compassionate — it's also common sense. Because when people can create a secure life in their own community, our world becomes more stable, more prosperous, and more hopeful…and that's a good thing for all of us.

In this month's Travel News, we're sharing tips on embracing winter travel in Europe, peeking behind the picturesque beauty of Santorini, and inviting you to a few virtual events. And Cameron Hewitt digs into Democratic Socialism through a European lens.

Travel can be so many things. You can see the road as playground, school, or church. You can see Europe as the wading pool for world exploration. And you can dive into the deep end. Wherever you travel, travel with curiosity. Listen. Reflect on your own lessons from the road. You'll see the world — and your place in it — a little differently. And yes, travel can be transformational…especially if we come home and put our new, broader perspective to work.

Happy travels — and bring the lessons home,

Rick