Rick Steves on Iran

Iran doesn't sit in the best neighborhood, sandwiched between Iraq and Afghanistan.

When you begin brainstorming possible locations for your next holiday, I'm sure such standards as Maui, Mexico, and the Caribbean top the list.  If you are looking for something a little more exotic, maybe Australia, Thailand, or a few weeks in Europe.  Rarely would anyone even consider going to an often overlooked tourist hotspot called IRAN.  Then again, very few people are like European Travel Guru Rick Steves.

Rick Steves is European Travel.  His best-selling guidebooks (Europe Through the Back Door) and public television shows teach American travelers how to become 'temporary locals' and find hidden gems across the continent.  This past season, Rick was an invaluable guide to us, as George, Christie, and myself used his "2008 Best of Europe" guide to find such places as Cinque Terra, Prague, and Neushwanstein.  He makes a personal connection with readers through his sincerity, which is often tough to find with more commercial publishers.  Along the way we would encounter hundreds of fellow travelers, all clinging to his blue and yellow covered guidebooks as if they were the Bible.     Rick, like myself, comes from the Seattle area, having grown up in the small suburb of Edmonds.  His official bio reads like this:

Rick Steves grew up in Edmonds, Washington and studied at the University of Washington where he received degrees in Business Administration and European History. But his real education came in Europe — since 1973 he's spent 120 days a year in Europe. Spending one third of his adult life living out of a suitcase in Europe has shaped his thinking. Today he employs 80 people at his Europe Through the Back Door headquarters in Edmonds where he produces 30 guidebooks on European travel, the most popular travel series in America on public television, a weekly hour-long national public radio show, and a weekly column syndicated by the Chicago Tribune. Rick and his wife Anne have traveled each of the last 18 years with their two kids, Andy and Jackie.

A capacity crowd of around 300 people listened intently to Rick's hour long presentation on Iran, which included video clips and a photo slideshow from his recent trip.  The hour long special will air on public television in January 2009.

I randomly heard Rick was speaking this past Monday near Seattle so Christie and I decided to check it out.  When we arrived, the Sammamish High School Performing Arts center was packed with excited people ready to hear about his recent trip to Iran.  The event was sponsored by the World Affairs Council, a non-profit organization that provides a forum for speakers representing a diverse point of view.

At first I was a little curious, both to why Rick - the European Travel Specialist - would visit Iran, and secondly, how it is applicable to me.  Like most Americans, I knew next to nothing about Iran, other than they are somewhere in the Middle East and want to blow America up with nuclear weapons.  However, we learned that Rick had gone to Iran on a specific mission to film a television special and to 'humanize' the country that many of us fear.  What we heard left a lasting impression!    

One of the many fascinating Anti-American murals in Tehran, the country's capital.  

Rick's talk on Iran was both eye-opening and perspective changing.  He went to the country without an agenda - merely to travel it like he does any other European country, and to engage with the people.  He found them to be extremely friendly, and actually very fond/curious of Americans.  It seems that the Iranian people are not anti-American, it is more their Theocratic governments position and resentment for American involvement in the region.  Interesting facts I learned included:

1) Iranians are not Arab - they are PERSIAN.  They trace their ancestry back thousands of years before Christ to the Persian Empires.

2) The are not a 'free' people - their government is a Theocracy - meaning that it is driven by religious ideology.  The ironic thing that Rick found is that the methods of their government (strict rules on the dress of women) are done so to ensure morality.  They find Western culture's depiction of women (Bikini-driven advertising, Britney Spears videos) as offensive as Westerners find offense to making women cover up.  (Interesting side note - the fact that Iranian women can only reveal their faces leads to the most nose-jobs per capita in the world!)

3) Iran's traffic = Catania.  (One cab driver would shout out of his window, "Death to Traffic!")

4) At the end of the day, the Iranians are just people like us.  It would do a lot of good for all of us to try to understand each other, and see our similarities rather than our differences!

The man, the myth, the guidebook: posing with our European travel guru Rick Steves!  

(Like George, he's a University of Washington Grad - further proof that Huskies are good people!)

The one-hour special RICK STEVES' IRAN will air this January in every city in America on public television.  For more information on Rick's Iran Special, go to: www.ricksteves.com/iran.

I also recommend looking at his website (www.ricksteves.com) or consulting his guidebooks before planning any of your European travel!

~ J. Twice