Rick Steves: As a traveler, I'm both a proud American and a citizen of the world -- and I've got a few thoughts on this..

[BlueMTexpat]

33. Rick Steves is an American

treasure. His upbeat nature reminds me a lot of Kamala My husband and I have visited countries with three of his tours and I highly recommend them all! There are so many places still on my bucket list. Many are not part of his tours though.

Rick concentrates primarily on Europe, but his interpretation of "Europe" includes Turkey, and THAT is a country that everyone should see for its being a literal crossroads of cultures between Europe and Asia. My husband and I visited that country in 2016 and I would go back in a second. The Turkish people deserve MUCH better than Erdogan.

His tours deliberately try keep a balance between touring as a group and interacting individually with the local people. The guides he chooses as leaders literally adore him because he receruits them in person and treats them all so well.

In one serendipital experience on my Turkish tour, our group had paused for a lunch stop in a picinic area. Some took advantage of a short hike with the guide to a lesser-known nearby attraction while hubby & I, along with a couple other older tourers, simply took the opportunity to rest in the shade , collect our thoughts, and/or read, so we were a bit scattered, rather than grouped together.

While I was reading, a Turkish woman who was sweeping the brickwork, dressed in traditional working dress and wearing a headscarf, tentatively approached me. I could see that she wanted to say something, so I looked up and she grew a bit bolder. I was able to speak some basiic Turkish greetings (Rick urges us all to learn at least some of the local greetings) so we exchanged them, then I tried French (no luck), my minimalistic German (some luck), and finally English (no luck).

But with the English, she held up a finger meaning wait, and whipped out a smartphone. She quickly dialed a number, rapidly spoke Turkish, and then handed the smartphone to me. I tentatively said "Hello" and got a reply in perfect English.

It turned out that the person on the other end of the smartphone was the sister of the woman trying to speak with me. She was at work in her office in Istanbul and she told me that her sister wanted to talk to me and that she would translate if I didn't mind.

So we had this lovely three-way conversation. The woman was simply curious about who I was, where I was from, and how I liked her country, of which she personally was very proud. So I asked the woman and her sister about themselves in return and learned somethng about their lives as well. It was an unexpected but human moment among three women wanting to know about each other.

But for me it was also meaningful to see a woman living in traditional style - WITH a smartphone, no less - and her sister living in more or less European style, with all of us more interested in connecting with each other than anything else.

The Turkish people are absolutely lovely.