I’m launching a new weekly series each Monday to highlight what I’m reading, watching, listening to, and experiencing in public history. Stay tuned on Mondays for these “Monday Dispatches.”

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Rick Steves wasn’t on my television growing up. Aside from occasional American Experience documentaries, PBS wasn’t really my thing in those days.

Instead, at age 13, I discovered Anthony Bourdain and “No Reservations” on the Travel Channel. His dry wit and willingness to explore the grittier side of the globe fascinated me. His makeshift conflict documentary filmed during Israel’s 2006 bombardment of Beirut and southern Lebanon stunned me and I kept coming back to hear the acerbic, yet poetic Bourdain interpret the events he witnessed and cultures he encountered.

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Anthony Bourdain in an interview describing the impact of that 2006 episode of “No Reservations” in Beirut had on him, his worldview, and the shows he produced.

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Bourdain helped shape my worldview, especially important since I lacked opportunities to travel myself as a young man. I enjoyed all his shows and books and deeply mourned his untimely passing in 2018.

In my late 20s, my own travel adventures began – both through work and personal journeys across the US and internationally. That’s when Rick Steves entered my life.

My wife and I relied on his travel guides and PBS episodes while preparing for our first overseas trip to Italy and then again in France in 2024. His accessible guides and endearing dad jokes quickly made us fans.

When Rick Steves discussed his new memoir, On the Hippie Trail: Istanbul to Kathmandu and the Making of a Travel Writer, on the New York Times “The Interview” podcast, I was intrigued. I recently listened to the audiobook, read by Steves himself, and finished it in less than a day.

The memoir follows a young Steves and his friend Gene on their journey along the “Hippie Trail” from Turkey to Nepal in the summer of 1978. It captures a region on the brink of massive upheaval – within a year, Iran and Afghanistan would descend into conflict and revolution. Based on the pair’s journals, it vividly documents their “highs” and lows on this epic trek.

The book’s postscript and a line from Steves’ podcast interview particularly resonated with me – putting voice to notions I’ve unconsciously carried since my Anthony Bourdain-inspired teen years in Williamstown, Pennsylvania.

Here’s Rick Steves, decades after his transformative journey across Asia:

“I frequently hear from young globetrotters who have ventured beyond ‘tourism’ to become friends with the world, and I’m inspired by their stories.

I believe anyone—even in these ‘have a safe trip’ days—can still stow away on the Reality Express like Gene and I did, get their fingers dirty in other cultures, wallop their ethnocentrism, and come home with the most valuable souvenir: a broader perspective.

I miss the days of ‘bon voyage.’ There’s so much fear these days. But the flip side of fear is understanding, and we gain understanding through travel. Travelers learn that fear is for people who don’t get out much; that culture shock is the growing pains of that broadening perspective; that we’re all children of God—and by traveling, we get to know the family…

Young or old, rich or poor, backpack or rolling suitcase, the best way to understand this is to experience it firsthand. To get out there and get to know our neighbors. To build not walls, but bridges.”

Amen.

I eagerly await future travels inspired by both the late Anthony Bourdain and Rick Steves – two very different approaches with a common goal: better understanding our complex world.

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Read a few of my blog posts inspired by my own globe-trotting in search of history that impacts our world today

A visit to France and the legacies of the Paris Commune of 1871 | Travel

Reflecting on the Holocaust’s impact in Rome | Travel

In the footsteps of the 1848 Vienna Uprising in Austria | Travel

Exploring the history of “The Blitz” that devastated London in 1940-41 | Travel

Alexander Campbell | From the shores of Ireland to a gallows in Pennsylvania’s Coal Region

Memorial to victims of the Irish potato famine of the 1840s | Dublin, Ireland

A somber memorial to one of World War II’s deadliest air raids | Hamburg, Germany

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