We're Lindsey and James. Welcome to our Rick Steves tour digital diary!
19 days, 8 cities, 4 countries, and countless memories
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Join us as we travel through Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, and Slovakia! In May 2023, we took our first Rick Steves tour, "Best of Berlin, Prague, and Vienna in 12 Days". Our total trip was 19 days, as we planned extra activities before and after the tour, including a day-trip to Bratislava, Slovakia. With a good mix of structured tour time and free time, we were able to cover a lot of ground (literally: we walked over 100 miles!).
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Please enjoy our scrapbook, which highlights both our Rick Steves tour and our free time. We hope you'll find inspiration, education, and joy here. We also include some practical travel tips (some of which we followed and others we wish we had followed) that will, we hope, make your own travels as effortless and memorable as ours.
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As an academic, Lindsey couldn't help but make the site educational, but you are welcome to just enjoy the pretty pictures if you aren't in the mood to learn.
Guten Tag, Dobry den, and Grüss Gott!
Now you know how to say "hello" in Germany, the Czech Republic, and Austria! I'm Lindsey, a North Carolina sociologist who loves learning about new cultures. I wanted to visit Germany and Austria because I've been studying German for over a year and was eager to put my skills to the test. As for the Czech Republic, I've been to Prague before for an academic conference. I was excited to return as a tourist.
Hello, I'm James.
I am an IT professional and I make visual art instruments. I had been planning on attending the synthesizer convention Superbooth in Berlin a few years ago, but the pandemic put all travel plans on hold. When we saw the timing of a Rick Steves tour, which started right after Superbooth and ended a few days before my favorite band was playing an hour from Vienna, we decided to go big and have an epic adventure.
Why we chose a Rick Steves guided tour
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I'm a fan! I (Lindsey) have been a Rick Steves fan since high school, when I would watch "Travels in Europe with Rick Steves" on PBS. I like his "be adventurous, cheerful, and respectful" approach to travel.
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We love the guidebooks. His Prague guidebook was indispensable during our 2015 trip to the Czech Republic. We were excited to try a guided tour that would give us the Rick Steves experience, but with someone else doing the planning.
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Rick Steves offers a variety of interesting itineraries. We were able to choose a tour that fit perfectly between other things we wanted to do in Europe. The timing could not have been better.
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The tours include a lot! We reviewed several potential itineraries and were amazed at the amount of sightseeing included in each one.
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The tour fit with our interests. We already knew we wanted to visit Germany for the culture; we had already been to Prague and loved it; and Vienna's world-class museums and architecture were enticing.
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The price was right. While the tour was a big one-time cost, it was much less expensive than trying to put together a similar tour by ourselves.
Why we enthusiastically recommend a Rick Steves tour to you.
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The guides are first-rate. The tour guides made each city come to life with historical details and personal anecdotes. Our guides were organized, friendly, knowledgeable, and helpful. While Rick Steves’ guidebooks are fantastic, a guided tour is even better.
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The tour is a good mix of planned and free time. Most of the major sights were covered on the tour, but we had plenty of time to explore on our own.
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It's educational. We didn't just see the sights, we learned about them.
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No lines. With a tour group, the guides get tickets for all the attractions. Tour groups can also often bypass lines that ensnare individual travelers.
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You'll see sights you probably wouldn't on your own. If we had planned our own tour, we would have stuck with the big cities. We would have missed out on the charms of smaller cities and towns, which gave us a well-rounded experience.
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The hotels are well-chosen. Our hotels were all centrally located, close to the major sights and public transportation. During our free time, we could easily get back to our home base.