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Cameron has been running for Rick Steves for quite some time. Everyone wants to go to the same places. Often it's driven by social media, what's trending, the influencers are pushing a place. Yeah, with the extreme weather and how people are doing like and you mentioned shoulder season, the offseasons. Yeah, that's one thing I was recommending like you said. Hey, if you don't have kids in school, you can say challenge yourself to say I want to go beyond the really famous obvious places. Hey fellow travelers, Mark here with Walters World and we're back with another honest travel podcast. My friend Chev say hey.
Hello. We're back again and we haven't been around for a bit because we've both been traveling so much this summer and it's time for fall fun. And we have an extremely special guest, someone that I actually have a number of his books back on my shelves. Cameron Hub for Rich's Publishing and all the fun travel stuff they do. He's going to be on here in a little bit. But Chevs, where have you been the last few months, my friend? Cuz it's been a crazy ride for both of us. Yeah, it's been very busy. I went to Austria and Ssburg anyway and I managed to see the opening of the new museum, The Sound of Music, which was absolutely amazing. And I also hyped up Verin where they filmed the film as well. So that
was really cool. And I also went to Italy as well, went to Pisa, which is really funny because I messaged you saying, "Mark, a video's just come out and I'm heading to Pisa in 5 days." So I watched your video. It was fantastic. Gave me some hints and tips as well. and then went to a place called Vieio, which we've talked about before we came on that. You've been there. It's been a long time since I was there. Not super long in terms of things, but it's been a while. You've also been traveling. You went to New York, the Comic-Con, which I'm quite jealous about. I've wanted to go to that for a long while. So, how was that?
Yeah, New York Comic- Con was fun. I mean, the cosplay there, it's funny, like I was there Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and as the week goes on, the people get a little more crazy and the clothes get a bit a little bit less when it comes to the cosplay as the week goes. But it's really fun. Honestly, compared to San Diego Comic- Con, you have a much people actually it's people think California is super nice and they are. But San Diego Comic- Con people get all huffled and bustled. Whereas in New York, it's funny. You can go down the street and cosplay and it's just another Saturday. Just went to Europe this summer for quite some time. We uh see we're in Italy and France, Spain,
Portugal, where we used to live. We have that. Traveling a lot. Been traveling quite a bit. Actually, back home for I think I'm home. I think it said it's 37 days till the next check-in. So, I have like a month home until the next adventure. So, pretty cool. Pretty good time. But they're not here to listen to us talk about our travels. They're here to talk about our guest Cameron Huitt. Please uh welcome our guest Cameron Hume. Cameron has been writing for Rick Steves for quite some time. If you're not sure, Rick Steves, the definitive kind of made Europe available to Americans and travels around the world. Super respect to Rick Steve's whole the whole crew that they have there. It's a empire of people helping people travel
and making people comfortable to travel. One of the things we've tried to do over the years is empower people to travel and Rick and his entire team like Cameron are the ones that have really like we're trying to follow in their footsteps to help make Europe accessible. And I want to not make fun but I want to share like this is how long I have. I was going through my Rick Ste's books and I found the two best of Eastern Europe 2004. And if I look here on the cover page, I don't know if you can see it, but it says Rickies and Cameron Huitt. So, uh, Cam, welcome to the Honest Travel Podcast. It's great to have you on. Thank you so much, Mark and Chevs. It's great to be here. I can't, my mouth is open. I can't believe you have that.
That's the first edition. We've changed the name now to Central Europe to because that's it's sort of oldfashioned to think of these places, but don't get mad. But yeah, no, that's that's the first edition of the first guide book that I ever wrote from scratch. Uh that was 20 Yeah, 22 years ago. So it's been a while. Thought you would appreciate that cuz I have a Croatia run with you and there's another one back there. But then I found this one. I'm like, "Oh, I think this is one he's going to like." So I had to share that with you, my friend. Oh, that's a classic. Yeah. You just came back from Europe yourself. Tell people where you were and what you're up to.
I just got back a week ago from my third trip this year to Europe. Uh this week, this trip was about a month. So, I was in Croatia, which is in that book you just held up. I was updating our Croatia guide book for a couple weeks. There's the Croatia guide book. Yeah, I was that's the book I was updating. And I uh also went through Bosnia. I had a wonderful road trip through Bosnia. Kind of took a little break from Croatia and drove through Bosnia for a few days, which I just adore. And then at the end of that, that was about 3 weeks altogether. And I'd never been south of about uh Sarrento in Italy. So I just had some extra time at the end of my travel year and I went over to South
Italy and spent some time in Pulya and whatever to Mater. Uh so I just had an absolute blast in South Italy just a week ago. People like they get to like the Amalfi coast they like don't go farther down they go to Sicily but yeah going by Bar Piano Mat Alberto that's such a nice place to be. But I want to ask you so I was in Bosnia too and did you really feel like Bosnia was kind of like traveling 10 20 years ago when you were going around? Oh, I think Bosnia is one of the great undiscovered tourist destinations. Absolutely. It feels like a time travel. The prices feel like time
travel. I just I couldn't get over my first I've been in Croatia for, you know, a week or 10 days. And then my first dinner in Bosnia, I did a double take when I got the bill. I couldn't believe it was like half or less than half what I've been paying. It also just it's it's kind of rugged. It's a little rough around the edges, but not in a unpleasant way. Kind of in a fun, adventurous way. And you know, Bosnians are known for being incredibly hospitable and friendly. So, it's very easy to get around. Um, there's a little bit of an English barrier in a few places, which is kind of fun these days.
I stayed in a B&B one night where the people didn't speak any English, so we communicated with gestures and with uh Google Translate. Uh, it was fun. Yeah, I had a blast. You're right. It felt like kind of a retro travel experience. Yeah, it was like back in the day when you were writing your first book and I was going around. I used to I was living in Eastern Europe at that time. So, like this is one of those things I was using back in the day and uh that was the thing. It's like the prices took you back. I know when we were there with my family um we like stopped and had lunch and then we were leaving later in the evening. I'm like, "No, no, we can stop again. Have another meal." Like, just cuz we're going back
to Croatia, you know, after a few days. And we're like, "Just get all the food now cuz you can eat so well." And you're right. The people are so fun. Like everybody went, they're like, "Should you like a pot of rakia?" I'm like, "No, I'm okay, man. I got a car. I got to drive." Oh, well, maybe you're my father. You're a son. I'm like, he's 15. It's okay. So, it was a great time. You're right. Bosnia was fun. So let's talk about like one thing I did notice like in Bosnia versus you know the Croatia side is this idea of like people been talking about for the last few years over tourism and the over like oversaturation of tourism
and going from Drovon I don't know if you're in Dro but if you're going from Croatia where you have just like piles of tourists then just going a little bit far to Bosnia or Montenegro or Albania like the numbers really change but overall like what have you seen what's been your experience and expertise in cities I mean like the Venes and Amsterdam like what are they kind of doing to kind of combat over tourism and what can we as travelers do as well? Well, first of all, you're exactly right that what I've really noticed there's always been a trend where, you know, certain places have been crowded and busy. It's really gotten to an extreme and what I really noticed is more and
more people are going to a shorter and shorter list of places. Everyone wants to go to the same places. Often it's driven by social media, what's trending, the influencers are pushing a place. And my big theme and our theme at Rick Steve's Europe recently is yeah the famous places are still great but there's so much great undiscovered stuff. You literally get on a train. You mentioned Venice. You get on a train, you ride 20 minutes and you're in Traiso and there's a hundth of the number of tourists and it's not quite as over-the-top romantic as Venice, but it definitely has its own kind of uh personality and has canals and it's got great food and it's got beautiful architecture. And like you said, I was
on the Demian coast. I was in places like Split and De Brvnik that are just completely overrun. And then you drive a couple hours into Bos. You don't have to go even a couple hours, but in this case, a couple hours into Bosnia and you just have these towns entirely to yourself. I mean, I looked around and I was in some smaller towns, uh, Yaita, Travnik, where I looked around and I was like, I think I'm the only American I've seen in this town in the last hour. Uh, and it's a fun feeling. That's one thing I noticed is like we drove from Poland down to Albania and then from Albania up into Montenegro and Croatian and Bosnia and I'll tell you the idea of over tourism didn't really exist because when
we were going around there are very few tourists in general in those spots like the former eastern or we say like central Europe now and I think that's one thing looks to over tourism you're right when it those the influencers and I mean we're we like to consider ourselves like travel educators not travel influencers but we get lumped together and I mean when you go you see they all go to the same places Like I was in Greece a couple years ago and one of our friends they used to run like 20 or 30 apartments in CIT and they were leaving like usually we stay till October. We're leaving the end of August because nobody's coming. I'm like what are you talking about? Greece is getting hit. See all the videos and everything.
They're like no Athens, Santorini and Mkos. That's what's getting hit. And they're right cuz we were in uh Napio which is my favorite city to go to in Greece. And it was like us and the only other tourists that were there were like Greek Americans that were coming back to show their family where they come back every year versus in Athens where you couldn't move. It's amazing how there's like the places that are really hit and then there's everything else. It's like, hey, you're you're on your own. Yeah, I was in Ale May. I know exactly what you mean. Even today, uh, everyone's got the same bucket list. And again, it doesn't mean they're bad places. It just means you're going to expect them to be very crowded, very
expensive. And it's it's I'm really pushing hard the idea of, you know, you can go if you need to go once in your life to the big famous places, go ahead, but add a couple places that sort of balance it out so that you get a more local perspective, a little less crowd, a little lower prices. Um, so that's that's been kind of a theme in my travels recently, for sure. Let me ask you, Cameron, what strategies, practical strategies would you recommend people taking so they don't miss out on these destinations? because obviously they're probably going to be on people's bucket list like Deb Bruffnik or Sicily or wherever people
want to go to that is high on demand. What sort of practical strategies would you recommend? Yeah, I mean the first strategy I think is just an attitude adjustment. Change your expectations like sort of challenge yourself to say I want to go beyond the really famous obvious places. So first it's sort of like being open to the possibility of going beyond these places that everyone else is telling you about. And then I think do a little deeper research. These places are not that hard to find, but they do require a little more effort than just passively, you know, scrolling your social media or looking at the first chapter of the guide book. You know, do a little additional research, figure out what you
like and if there's something that would tick the boxes of what you like. I was part of why I wanted to spend more time in Bosnia is I've done that a few times. Uh, and every time I go and go somewhere different, I've I always love what I find. So, I went to yet another little corner of Bosnia on this trip in addition to going to favorite places. And it's because I know what I like. I know that I like these small towns. I love the kind of obscure Tito era Yugoslav history. I pulled over at some incredible roadside monuments that no one's for 30 years. If only Tito knew. I'm sure you heard that a few times over the years.
Yeah, exactly. No. So, just Yeah. Uh do a little deeper research and again challenge yourself to go beyond the same places that everyone else is going. You have to be okay and be open to just trying new things because once you do that it's easy not just to do Paris but to go other places and I think that's one of the things like if they're I mean if they're reading Rick Steves or they're watching our videos they already are probably there like you know but it's getting the word out to other people like hey here's other things you can do to get more out of your trip. So, like for like a one-on-one like
in-person kind of thing, would you give any advice for travelers? Like, hey, how can you aside from like being open like little habits they could do to help maybe not get overrun by the over tourism in some of the destinations that are the over touristed or not over touristed? I think timing is a big part of it. Um, both the time of the year and the time of the day. So just be aware in places like the Brevnik, places that get a lot of cruise ships, you just want to be out of the old town from about mid early to midm morning through about mid-afternoon because all of the population of the old town doubles or triples depending on how many ships are in town. So all the locals in these towns in Croatia and a lot of places
that get cruises tell you linger, enjoy, spend your time in the old center early and late and just kind of get out of town when all the crowds are there. And then there's the time of year. I mean we're coming into off season right now. Now we're heading into deep into October and not when everyone else is going. For like beachy destinations, that's like July and August. Uh for Americans, a lot of Americans, especially kind of retirees or people who don't have kids in school. Uh September and May are huge months for travel. Um but they're still less crowded than July and August for a lot of places. Uh but it kind of tapers off from July and August and there's a little bump in maybe May and
September. But once you get into October, once you're going in April or March, these places the numbers of tourists drop dramatically. So timing your trip in a smart way can really help. It's funny like I look at our budget cuz we travel a lot. You travel a lot and you probably noticed it's a few more dollars these days to get the same trip we had before. So kind of looking at this um where do you where you I mean I'm seeing the steepest price changes. Actually the flights are somewhat but for me it's been more like accommodation has gone up quite a bit for me the last few years like I'm noticing cuz you know we track all our expenses and everything
and I'm like what used to be the like 7500 hotels are now 150 you know what are you seeing where the biggest like price getting uh like kind of sticking it to us or at least going up not sticking it to us because we're all all prices are going up but just in general absolutely accommodations restaurants especially ones that are aimed at tourists even tourist attractions. You know, I keep talking about Croatia because I was just there. They're kind of the worst case scenario, I think, of prices going up because you have several So, what causes all of this? You have several factors there. One is just they're facing the same uh inflation that we're all facing. There's, you
know, all these geopolitical forces that are driving prices up, the high prices of oil. So, just like in the US, everything is more expensive even for local people. Uh so, that's one layer. Croatia is kind of an interesting case because they got the euro a couple of years ago. And so a lot of business people, a lot of people who ran a hotel or something, they were converting from the old currency, the kuna to the euro. And while they were at it, they legally they had to keep it onetoone for like 6 months. But as soon as that six-month period expired, they kind of jacked up their prices.
I also think there's a mentality of, you know, people have to make their money, especially in a seasonal destination like Greece or Croatia or parts of Italy, you have a shorter season. So you have to make your money during not you don't 12 months to make a year salary. you have 6 months or 4 months or 5 months. Um, so all of that kind of combines to what you're describing which is I've been traveling in Croatia for 25 30 years I think and the prices have kind of continually been going up but the last 5 10 years since especially since co it's just through the roof. I couldn't believe what some hotels were charging uh because that's what I'm doing when I'm over there. I'm updating
our prices for museums and restaurants and hotels and uh so I think that's that's what I'm doing exactly. So, so this So, you're telling me these 2004 prices aren't good anymore? No, I would not use a 2004. Oh my god. I can't even imagine how much more stuff is. That's one thing is did you have it back in the day where it was like kind of have Yeah, they you'd have like the three Here's one thing. If you get old guy books with Rick Ste's, what's nice is they would have like dollar signs next to it. So, it's a three like if it's got three dollar signs next, you know it's expensive. It has one, it's it's a budget. And that's one
thing is like you have to understand is like how prices change so much. I mean, it's got to be tough for guide book writers to keep up on the prices kind of stuff. I mean, I guess you go online and check things, but like what is budget? What isn't? I mean, that's one thing I liked about the guide books you guys have is even if I read an older one, it gets me it's going to be expensive. So, I have that mentality going forward. But like for you, I mean, that's got to be a tough part of the job is just kind of keeping up with those things. Every time we update the book, we update the prices of the hotels, but we also look at what we define as the $1 sign, the $2 sign, the $3 sign. And in the
last 5 years again, especially with all this inflation that we're all dealing with, uh, we've had to nudge those up. So what used to be a top, you know, a $4 sign hotel used to be €150 and now it's anything above €250 because we just have to acknowledge the reality that the baseline is going up. And this, by the way, the same goes for restaurants, especially tourist oriented restaurants. I was in Debnik. I had a couple of dinners there that were nice. Kind of not high-end, but they were kind of upper mid-range upscale, you know.
I think they were like 60 euros just for me, you know, to have a nice dinner with a appetizer and a mane and a drink and a dessert maybe. And then I went to South Italy and I barely spent out of I don't know 10 different meals, I probably spent no more than 35 on average. Um, so it's a lot of it's very destination sensitive as well. Food expenses. to not lose the authentic experience. So there are places where I've been to around the world where you have to go into the middle where to get those experiences. So what would be your tips then to sort not sacrifice those experiences and would you have to accommodate by sort of maybe going for a cheaper hotel or what would your tips be on that then?
Well the same advice is the same that's always been true. Rick's been preaching about this for you know 40 or 50 years. Uh, you want to find a restaurant that has, for example, a short handwritten menu in one language. And this is kind of his little code. It's short because it's based on what's fresh today at the market. It's in one language, the local language, because it's catering to locals rather than tourists. You want something that is really catering to locals, that's really fresh, and that is affordable. Usually that it means getting off the main drag. So I was uh in Dubnik for example and there's a restaurant row called Prico where there's all these kind of flashy restaurants that have these
fancy meals talking about you've been there and I've been up and down that street a million times over the last 25 30 years and it's just everything there is 10 20 30% more than restaurants you find if you kind of go off in the back street. So I think the main thing is get away. If you're in Italy, if you're on this beautiful Grand Piaza and there's a restaurant that has a menu with pictures that's in four different languages and it's like got 50 items on it, they are catering entirely to tourists and they're charging tourist prices. And if you have a good guide book, if you do your research, if you know where to go, you can literally often walk a block or two away and you find a little hole-in-the-wall mom and
pop place and they've got half the price, much friendlier, much better quality food. And so that those are practical tips that have been true forever and they're still as true as ever. I think adding social media and kind of these places that go viral either because they're heavily reviewed on Trip Adviser or because they've been picked up by influencers that adds another wrinkle because a lot of places that have a long line out front are trendy and they're trending and they're viral. But that doesn't necessarily mean they're good. It doesn't necessarily mean they're better than other places. And so that's the other thing I would regard with suspicion places that are too busy, too crowded because sometimes
that kind of this sort of uh vortex of self-promotion and influencers copycatting each other turns into a situation where a place that's good gets treated like it's the best place in town. And there's really good places sometimes just a few steps away that are just as good that people miss because they haven't seen it on their social media feed. When I was in Pisa, I was texting Mark. I said, "Mark, you've been there. Shall I eat right next to the Pis Leading Tower?" And you went, "No, no, no, no. Keep walking. Just keep walking.
You'll probably find better. Keep walking. You'll find better restaurant." And he was absolutely right. I went further down 5 minutes away. Amazing restaurants. And they were a lot more cheaper as well. And they were really authentic as well cuz a lot the locals were eating there. So you're absolutely right. The tip is just And they And you're absolutely right now that you mentioned that there was like few I noticed there was English, there was Italian, there was Spanish, there was German I think as well. So I didn't really clock on to that, but now that you've mentioned it, it makes sense. they're probably going to be really expensive because of the fact that they're in different languages as well.
And you know, one of the problems with the Brevnneck that I mentioned, uh, why I was paying so much there, certain destinations like that, there really aren't tourist places in the old town, sorry, local places in the old town. Virtually every restaurant in the old town caters to tourists, and there's there are a lot of towns like that around Europe. So there, if I, you know, I decided, oh, I'd rather have the nice atmosphere and pay a little extra. Um, but it becomes harder when you're in like a small town that has a lot of tourists because local when I ask locals where do you eat in Deb Brevnik, they say we drive or take the bus 15 minutes out of town because there really isn't anything catering to locals
in the old town. And so that's the other thing you have to kind of be able to discern places where you can actually find those local places. Like you said, sometimes you're willing just for the atmosphere. I'm going to pay it because the atmosphere I mean it's it's like you know what you are going to pay more for that beer in the you know the historic square in Prague but you get that view so you're like willing to pay that for it and I think you know it was when I was in New York and one of the biggest thing the locals tell me there was like Mark please put in there that tick tock trend
does not equal tastiness and it's true I always tell it's like look if it was really good it would already be a New York tradition if it's trending and you see a huge line notice that nobody there is actually from New York City it's all people coming and after 6 months it's going to be gone. I always feel like the cheese pull, the better the cheese pull, probably the less taste of the cheese is that's one of those things that like I'm like, "Yeah, I mean that's one thing. It's like people just see the trees and that's one thing. Social media's got given people ideas which is fantastic." But you're right, it rehashes the same one and they kind of have a little, you know, like snowball effect of making it more and they go to that one
place. Rick Steve's guide books are fantastic for that because you're going to find the places to go and then the food that you should try and if you don't get that restaurant you're you have an idea what to look for and I think that's one thing people can really beat the tourist like hoarde trend kind of stuff sometimes is really nice. So I want to say thank you for that and my mom wants to say she loves Rick and uh she does not listen to me she listens to him. Well thanks for saying that. Yeah and you know what I like about uh how we approach it and Rick's been doing this uh from when he first wrote the books.
We have a whole team working on them now. But we just we tell it like we call it. We're very honest. We're very candid. Like you said, sometimes it's worth paying extra for less good food to sit in a beautiful place. But in our book, we'll say that. We'll say, you know, this isn't High Cuisine, but it's an amazing view, worth paying for. But we kind of give you the information. If you want that, you can find it. If you want something that's a little more local down the side street, we'll help you find that as well. Now, the big thing this summer, we're going to changing topics though it'll come back again. Extreme weather. Like this summer in Europe and last summer in Europe, the year before, the summers
have been really brutal. Like we had friends of ours, they were doing a Germany trip, and they were going to Reva, which is the equivalent of like a Best Buy or Home Depot, and they were in line to buy box fans to take them where they were going cuz there was no AC, nothing like that. Your experience is when these unexpected like heat waves hit or anything like the transit disruption, these weather delays, you know, what's your best advice for like pivoting an itinerary or kind of dealing with these surprise kind of things? Well, unfortunately, you're right. That's just the way things are. It's going to, I think, get worse. This summer, I was in the Alps. I was in the
Austrian, Italian, German Alps. I was in Beriscotten one night, and I think it was the they were a degree or two off of their all-time high. It was 98 degrees. And of course, I was staying in this big German style chalet with no air conditioning. Uh, and so I got back from dinner after dark and I opened the window and it was hotter outside than it was inside. And so, you just, like you said, I one Here's one tip. Ask for a fan as soon as you check in because a lot of uh hotels in Europe don't necessarily have a fan for every room. A lot of them aren't very well air conditioned or air conditioned at all. So, kind of anticipate your needs because if you go down to the desk at 11:00 at night, they might say, "Yeah,
we already gave away all our fans for tonight." So, I traveled through that heat wave. I was in Insbrook and I was in Verona and I was in Bzano when it was almost 100°. Places are not set up for air for heat. Uh my wife was with me. We were looking for one time in Insbrook. We were really hot cuz we went out and about and we were looking for a restaurant with air conditioning and we the internet was no help. AI nothing we looked at could tell us which restaurants were actually air conditioned. So we just kind of walked around until we found a place uh it was probably the 10th place we checked actually that had air conditioning inside just to get a break. So that's another I think tip if you're there in a
heat wave kind of anticipate your need to cool off from time to time. Figure out a way to look for uh AC. When I was in London with my wife several years ago, they had the hottest day on record. And I remember we just got to have the same time. I was at the same time. I was having fun. It's And I remember when we were there, here's what I remember. We were on the tube and we couldn't believe how hot it was. And we saw it later that day on the news that the temperature of the tube was hotter than the temperature legally required to transport cattle and trains. In other words, you couldn't put cows on the tube. It would have been illegal. But they were passengers. So what we did was we figured out Starbucks we would never we're from
Seattle. We would never go to a Starbucks traveling, but we figured out Starbucks reliably had strong air conditioning. So we would kind of honestly we plan our sightseeing and say, "Okay, there's a Starbucks. We can go here and then there's a Starbucks." So we could go and sit in the AC for 15 minutes before we went back out. So you have to kind of triangulate around the fact that Europe isn't really set up for the hot weather, which is absolutely true because if you looked at the UK this year, we had no rain for about two and a half months. I remember sending a picture to Mark saying, "Mark, this is our field.
It's actually completely brown. There's no greenness to it whatsoever." And Mark was like, "Are you sure that's not sand?" I was like, "I'm 100% sure this is grass." We did an episode actually recently about caucasation. there's it's a big trend at the moment and publications are writing about it and destinations that many people wouldn't go to necessarily are people are starting to think about those for the next year. So places like in Scandinavia, the Baltics. So in your opinion, is this going to be a trend going forward? Is that something that you guys are looking at for the next year and the year after that?
Absolutely. I mean I think this isn't going to change. Extreme weather is just going to be getting worse. And we talk we're talking about heat waves. You can also get flooding. You can get all sorts of problems. So I think first of all there's a philosophical adjustment you have to make. It's a again it's sort of an attitude adjustment when you plan travel. I think sometimes we forget that anytime you plan a trip you have to be flexible. You never know what's going to happen. I think now more than ever especially with weather you have to be ready to pivot if something w happens. I my wife and I are used to that cuz we travel so much but I encounter people who haven't traveled as much and
they kind of say well we have to go to this place because we have a reservation. And a few years ago, we were going to New Zealand. Uh, and we were supposed to land exactly when this horrible cyclone was about to hit. And so we changed our plans to go to Sydney instead. And we waited out the storm in Sydney for 2 days. And then we went to New Zealand to resume our trip. And some of our friends and relatives were thought it was crazy like you're going that far. How could you change plans at the last minute? We said we don't want to be arriving in the middle of a cyclone. You know, you have to make change your plans. But what you're asking too is another good strategy is you can never predict all of it, but
trying to time your trip to avoid it. Uh either going offseason or going to cooler places when it's hot. When I was in Norway a couple years ago, I kept noticing there were so many Italian and Spanish tourists. And it's because they were on coolations. They were taking they were escaping Spain and Italy in August to go to Norway. And it was pretty cool in Norway. It was very nice. In terms of the timing, offseason is great, but it's really delicate. We are looking at our tours at my company because we have guide books. We also have guided tours and we've for many years already been looking carefully at our tours and some tours it's possible to push into the shoulder season into the off season and we find some people actually prefer
that. Now there's the problem is there's pros and cons when you're going offse hours well daylight hours are shorter the weather is more iffy or sometimes much colder. Uh, you have to kind of expect some sites are going to be shorter hours are closed, especially in very seasonal destinations. I keep talking about Croatian, Greece. If you're on a little Greek island or a Croatian island in November, you might find almost everything is closed. Uh, the weather's great, but don't expect to have your pick of restaurants. So, we're always trying to adjust kind of where are the places that we can realistically stretch the season for those who want to have a higher chance of avoiding the
worst of the heat. And in a few places, we've actually adjusted for the ones that are at the fringes of the season, we will change one of the destinations. So instead of going to a remote island where the fairies aren't going to be running as much, we'll find a place on the mainland that's a little bigger that's more likely to actually be open and easier to get to. So yeah, we that's just part of our thinking now that with this extreme weather, we're all going to have to kind of shift the way we plan our trips. Yeah, with the extreme weather and how people are doing like and you mentioned shoulder season, the offseasons. Yeah, that's one thing I was recommending like you said, hey, if you don't have
kids in school, you can save I mean you can save quite a bit of money just going a few weeks off because I mean we usually do like a 10day trip in October to Ireland or France and from Chicago with tickets for $450 which in the sum I mean this is a few years a couple years ago but we're in the summer those same tickets were like 1,500. I mean, that's where you make those adjustments because a lot of that changes mentality. It's like, look, your summer vacation doesn't have to be in July. Like, you can take it at other times. And I think once people kind of accept that, like I'm a college professor in my day job. And so, I tell my students like, look, when you go to work, take your vacation in
October, late September or late April, early May if you want to go to Europe because you get great weather, great stuff, and you can save yourself a grand just on your flight, let alone the hotels. And they're like, "But we're supposed to take summer vacation summer." I'm like, "No, no, you're taking vacation and you want to go when you can and enjoy that and enjoy the AC in of the US that all those tourists that came here for the World Cup this summer ended up falling in love with." But like, last thing, anything else you want to put on in there about shoulder season versus offseason travel because you kind of hit most of the main stuff we want to talk about with, you know, when you go and these kind of
things. Is there anything else you want to add about that the kind of shoulder season advice? Yeah, again, I would just say like you said, exactly right. Uh if you have flexibility, consider going to Italy instead of in July or in even September. Sep in October, November. My wife and I and her family several years ago, one of our favorite trips, we went to Tuscanyany. We have a favorite agurismo in uh outside of Pienza and they had a special program knowing that Americans love Thanksgiving. So even though Italy doesn't have Thanksgiving, they did a Thanksgiving week thing for all of their American guests. Oh my god, Thanksgiving was a perfect time to be in Tuscanyany.
Now, it wasn't balmy. It's not tropical, but it was much milder. We had relatives coming in from Seattle and from Ohio and from Boston. Compared to those places in November, Italy felt very uh very pleasant. It was summer. It was gorgeous. And in Ohio, I guarantee they had shorts on. That's right. And it was um you know, like the wheat fields, we thought everything would be brown and kind of dead, but they had winter wheat. They had crops of winter wheat. So actually the fields were greener than when you go in September because in September everything's kind of burned out but there's a new crop coming in the winter and everything was empty and the like you said the prices and I think that's the other
thing to keep in mind. Airfares are cheaper, accommodations are much cheaper because it tells you that some of the prices that are going up are sort of accommodations choosing to price a little higher for the high season. But again, especially in a more seasonal place like Italy or Greece or Croatia, if they'll they'll hand me the price list sometimes when I'm updating the book and it's like this room is €500 in July and August, it's €400 in September and it's €100 in November if they're open for the winter. Uh, literally it can be a fraction the cost if you go offseason. Again, you have shorter days, it might be a little chilly, you might get more rain, but you also avoid the crowds and the heat of
the peak of summer. So, I think just uh being a little bit more savvy about that when you're planning trips and not just assuming you have to go when everyone else go goes and that you have to go to the same places that everyone else goes. Well, thank you so much, Cameron. This has been amazing. It's so nice to hear you and see you and put a face with the name. I'm sure you look the same as when you wrote this back in the day, just like I used when I used it 20ome years ago. But I really appreciate being on here. So, I mean, everyone knows Rick Ste, but can you tell them where they can find you and they can find some of your guide books and some of the ones you wrote, so then they can know, hey, I got that guy's book.
Yeah, I work with a hundred wonderful travelers in the Seattle area. Uh, the company's called Rick Steves Europe. A lot of us know us from Rick's national public television show and radio show, but we also do these bestselling guide books. We also have guided tours. And boy, I love working you get to do this as well. I love working with uh other travelers because boy, the water cooler conversations are really fun, really inspiring. And I think you said it best at the beginning. We have the I love your content too. I've been a fan for years and we have the same mission. Yeah. But we have the same mission which is demystifying travel, making travel accessible, making it affordable, helping people know what to believe and
what not to believe that there's so much travel content out there. And some of it's good and some of it's terrible. And it's really hard to judge. And so our job is to help curate all of that information, help people navigate it, understand how to be a smarter traveler, how to have fun, how to be strategic, and uh I think we're we're right in sync on that. So that's and the website, you can just look up Rick Steves, but our website is ricksteves.com to learn more about what we do. Brilliant. Yeah. And they have fantastic stuff. I mean, I've got a whole shelf of them that legit stuff. My mom has probably three shelves of them. Uh so she lo the whole team does a great job. And I always tell people if you're
ever going to a destination and you're not sure if you want to get a local guide, their guides I recommend every time. Best guides, local guides you can get. I reckon them every time. Look, get the book. Look in the back. They have suggestions there. But again, Cameron, thank you so much. Hopefully I can see you again one day. And absolutely, anytime. Thank you, Mark and Chevs. Yeah, appreciate your time. Thank you so much. So that was awesome. I mean, it's funny that I didn't know this was Cameron's like first like big book like cuz I'm like, "Wow, his name's in here." And then he's like, I mean, you can see the smile that just made my that made my day. Cameron, you watch this on the replay. Made my
day and know I made your day to show you this old school one here. So that was awesome. So thank you much. Appreciate it. So chefs, what else we have? Cameron, thank you for coming on. The vast knowledge experience as well. It's it's great to have someone like him on the show. But just before we finish, yeah, we always finish off on our viewers questions or viewers thoughts. So, we did an episode and as we've obviously alluded to, it's been a couple of months that we've been on the road, etc., which is good cuz we have more information to give you whilst we've been on the road. Yeah. But
so, we did have a couple of things from the last episode which was about the Caucasian and we had something from [snorts] Pickle Bellow 99. And as we did talk about the extreme weather, we did talk about the extreme weather with Cameron. I can't believe he didn't mention Canada as a cool destination even once. Central Canada can get quite hot too, but the coasts are great. I've been [snorts] to the Maritimes in the summer eight times for multiple weeks at time last in 2023 and the weather is perfect every single time. So, yes, we I think that did elude us, didn't it, Mark? And we were talking about also stuff, but we did lose it.
Yeah, cuz we were talking about cool cations. We were f focusing mostly on Europe and then I had just done on coolations in the United States. Like I just did an interview with that. So, that's what I was kind of thinking of. Obviously, Canada makes a fantastic option. If you're like Prince Edward Island, really nice up there. If you go to Nova Scotia, you have a good time there. Um, and the coolness is true. So, Pico Bella 99, you were right. We were wrong that we did not mention it. So, it is definitely one that I would definitely highly highlight, highly highlight since we I think we mentioned Maine and it's just right there.
Stephen R is one of your one of our members as well. So, thank you for subscribing to the channel and also being a Patreon or a member of the YouTube channel itself. So really do appreciate your you being there. But he's put down here that so Stephen R 115 has said and I didn't even think about this as an option at all because I think of Hawaii and I think it's hot but he's actually put down here. Hawaii is a great option warm to cool depending on the island and where you are up the mountains along the shore desire rain on Oahu. drive across the island, 8 miles, feel rain and cool beaches, and as it gets towards sunset, the perfect Hawaiian dusk.
It work for Hawaiian tourism because that was smooth. Stephen, Hawaii on your list. Hawaii was not on my list. Like that was one of the things cuz I think when people think cool and automatically they're thinking of like cooler destinations in terms of temperature anyway. So telling people like, "Hey, Hawaii could be one." I mean, I don't know. It could be like that for your mind like what like I'm trying I'm putting together a thing on like winter travel and good winter destinations and there's good winter destinations for like enjoying winter stuff but there's also good winter destinations if you don't want to freeze your beehind off to go to you know so it's like figuring
those things out and sometimes your marine has to think I think winter destination I think snow and it's got to be cold wait no sometimes winter destination means I don't want to be that and therefore your mind doesn't think that way so Stephen thank you for the input uh for Hawaii for school occasion. So, uh, maybe we'll have to do that next summer. We do appreciate you putting in those questions and thoughts. And please do leave comments for this episode cuz we've just had Cameron on the show and I'm sure you've all got comments and you've got questions cuz what we'll do, we'll try and bring Cameron back if he would like to come back and do me a favor. If you have had Rick Ste's book, look and see if Cameron is one of the
authors in there and put it down in there. Is did you have the Croatia Rick Steves book or the Central Europe or Eastern Europe back in the day? put it down in the comments below so he'll know that hey he got he impacted a lot of people with his writing. So I think it's really cool because I mean literally those are books those are these are literally books from my shelf. You can go back for decade I mean two decades on this one. It's been there we've been using them. So a lot of good stuff in here and uh good times. So uh thanks to Cameron thanks to every chev good to see you again my friend. any cool trips for you coming up or think I might have a couple of things before the year is up but I
like to keep it quiet so people follow me on socials will be able to see exactly where I am. So do follow me on social media which is @ shbs the wanderer and for you Mark it is waltersworld pretty much everywhere across the board. So wish you all fantastic next uh month until next podcast next podcast we won't tell you what it is but it will bring music to your ears and all kinds of fun stuff. So, we'll say bye from this month's honest travel podcast. Bye.
