820 Vietnam; Touring the Mississippi River

With its booming economy, Vietnam has become a place of opportunity for the expats and immigrants that make it their home. A lot of tourists also find that they like the energy there, too. It's very important to Vietnamese people that visitors to Vietnam have a good time and have a good impression of Vietnam. Coming up, travel writer Joshua Zucas shares candid cultural insights. after exploring Vietnam's cities and countryside for the past 20 years. The highlight for me is the craft villages surrounding Hanoi. And Dean Klinkenberg brings us a state-by-state guide to the natural wonders that surround the Mississippi River and what it can show us about the heart of America. You can pretty much find anything related to American history along the Mississippi. If you want a crash course in American history, it's going to be there. Come along as we explore together from Hannibal to Hanoi in the hour ahead. It's Travel with Rick Steves. Parks and trails are replacing the decaying factories that used to line the banks of the Mississippi River. Coming up today on Travel with Rick Steves, Dean Klinkenberg is back with us to recommend more natural places to explore along the river that defines the middle of America. Record tourism levels are not just a feature of Europe lately. Tourism has also been surging in Vietnam, which just posted its busiest year ever in 2025. And thanks to a steady market of visitors from China, they're expecting even bigger numbers this year. To see what's making Vietnam such an attractive destination, we're joined now by travel writer Joshua Zoukas. Joshua has a degree in Southeast Asian studies and a master's in sustainable tourism. And he authors the very comprehensive brand guidebook to Vietnam. He's lived in Hanoi since 2013 and is joining us today from the BBC in London. Thanks, Rick. Thanks for that lovely introduction. How did you end up in Vietnam? So I first arrived in Vietnam almost 20 years ago in a small city called Hoi, which is in central Vietnam. And I was working for a small NGO. I didn't like it straight away, but it grew on me. And I ended up living there on and off before my degree and during my degree. Then when I finished my degree, that was my undergraduate. I wanted to go back to Vietnam and was choosing between the major cities, so Hanoi in the north and Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City in the south, and ultimately opted for Hanoi. And yeah, that was 12, 13 years ago. So Hanoi has been my base ever since. You know, it seems to me there's a lot of expats that choose to live in Vietnam. Why do you think that is? And what's it like as an expat? That is true. There are a lot of expats in Vietnam. I don't actually refer to myself as an expat. I refer to myself as an immigrant. But yes, there's certainly a lot of foreigners living in Vietnam. And I think it's a mixture of things. One is to do with the opportunities. I mean, as you said in your introduction, tourism is booming, but it's booming economically in general. And that brings with it lots of opportunities. But I also think it's an exciting place to live. I would say that out of the foreigners that I know that live in Vietnam, maybe half of them are there for the opportunities, but the other half are there just because they enjoy being there. You said you consider yourself an immigrant. And I was going to ask you, does that mean you're more integrated into the culture? or you want to be more integrated? No, that's a good question. We might be going slightly off topic here, but I refer to myself as an immigrant because I feel like expat is a loaded term in that we use the word expat when we're referring to Westerners or white people moving to a third world country or a country outside of the West. But we refer to people that come from outside of the West moving to the West as immigrants. So I'm not really comfortable with the distinction. Oh, that's a fair take. I hadn't thought of that angle on that. So you're an immigrant either direction. So just a curious thing on my part. It occurs to me, I know so many men who are immigrants in Vietnam. Generally, they've connected or married a local woman. I've never heard of or met an American woman who married a Vietnamese man. Yeah, it's certainly less common. Why that is, I can't say. Okay, come on, Joshua, hazard a guess, because it's not just a coincidence. It's like it only happens one way. Oof, I mean. Okay, we'll all wonder. Yeah, I don't know. I think it might be to do with gender imbalances in Western countries versus gender imbalances in Vietnam. and I think because of that perhaps it's more appealing for men to marry into the culture than for women to marry into the culture. This is fascinating to me really. Is it just the power and the role and the sexual relationship or something? I think it's to do with responsibility. Vietnamese women are expected to do a lot. They're expected to raise a family, to look after the house. And they're probably willing, they're probably more willing to do a lot. Yeah, I mean, I think that the willingness comes from cultural expectations. Vietnamese women work very hard and that's expected of them. I think Vietnamese men work hard too. I mean, I'm generalizing here. Sure, of course. But in my experience, it does seem like women shoulder a greater burden. Yeah. So I suppose for Western women, they might see that because there are plenty of Western women living in Vietnam. And they don't see it as a culture that they are excited about marrying into. It's kind of related to women's lib. Yeah. Yeah. You've been there 12 years. Josh, have you ever fallen in love with a Vietnamese woman? I've fallen in love with a Vietnamese man. Okay. Well, that's a whole different discussion. That's a whole different discussion. What is the gay situation and gay rights and, you know, the acceptance of gay marriage and so on in Vietnam? Yeah, I get this question a lot. And one of the ways that I would describe Vietnamese people is conservative but tolerant. So within Vietnamese law, there's gay marriage and then there's gay weddings. So marriage is the legal relationship and then the wedding is the community party. There used to be a ban on both. So there was no gay marriage, no gay weddings. The ban on gay weddings was lifted quite a long time ago, actually. Like we're talking 10 years ago, I think, which meant that same sex couples could have the wedding celebration, the community party, and it couldn't be stopped. The police couldn't stop it. but gay marriage is still not legal. Joshua, I love that idea, conservative but tolerant, as opposed to conservative and intolerant. Right, and I've got a really good example of this. When they were lifting the ban on gay weddings, I remember seeing somebody on TV, and she was a mother, and she was a gay rights campaigner, saying that she wanted to decriminalize gay marriage, decriminalize gay weddings, because she had a gay son. And her reasoning was that she wanted her gay son to love and marry anybody he wanted. And then she went on, she said, because he still has to have a family and he has to have children. And if he's doing that with a man, then it's fine, but he still has to do it. So for me, that kind of encapsulated Vietnam being conservative but tolerant. Oh, man, that is something really to ponder. And that's one of the beautiful things about travel. we can learn sometimes about our own challenges by seeing how other cultures are dealing with the same challenge. This is Travel with Rick Steves. We're getting a look at Vietnam as a visitor destination today with Joshua Zoukas. Joshua is the author of The Brat Guide to Vietnam, and his travel writing has been featured in Lonely Planet, in The Economist, and in The Michelin Guide. You can find articles and walking tours by Josh at his website. It's joshuazoukas.com. Joshua, you write that Vietnam's capacity to surprise impresses you. It can be inspiring, it can be maddening, it can be friendly. Tell us a bit about that. Yeah, that's the answer I often give when people ask me, why Vietnam? And that's exactly it. It's capacity to surprise. I think that you could probably use any adjective in the world to describe Vietnam. but boring is not one of them. That's so good. You know, I love India, and I would say it's the same thing to me, you know, its capacity to surprise. It kind of shakes up my cultural self-assuredness. Yeah, yeah, exactly. One of the things that I enjoy about Vietnam is that Vietnam is similar in ways that you wouldn't expect, but it's also so different in ways that you also might not expect. That's a beautiful way to describe it. Give me an example. Where's a way that you've been maddened by the culture? Okay, so I am British, as you can tell by my accent. And one thing that I struggle with is the Vietnamese relationship to noise. Vietnam, and maybe like India, is a very noisy place, and it's noisy almost everywhere. Yeah. And something that I find maddening is, yeah, I can accept that in the cities. But what I find difficult is when I'm in the countryside and Vietnamese countryside is the most beautiful earthly landscape that you can imagine with rice terraces and mountains and jungles. And the hotel next door is having a karaoke party. Yeah. It's interesting because I love Italy, and Italy has the same thing. Hotels actually charge more for a room on the front, which is close to all the street noise, because Italians like to open the window and be part of the noise. And all I want to have is some peace and quiet when I go up to my hotel room. It's a cultural difference. Yeah, it's true. I find it quite similar in Spain as well. I sometimes say that Vietnam is like the Spain of Asia. Hey, Joshua, I was just getting to know your guidebook, and I just can't imagine the work and the fun and the travel involved in gathering all this information. You wrote that you traveled the length of Vietnam more times than you can remember by foot, bicycle, scooter, motorbike, car, bus, train, coach, sampan, and ferry. Not one domestic flight was taken. Tell us a little bit about the joys and the challenges of writing your substantial guide covering a fascinating country, Vietnam. So the joys were that it was my book. I was the main author. And writing with Bratt was great because I was basically able to write it how I wanted. I had certain parameters, but still I had a lot of creative freedom. I have a lot of interest in architecture and also a lot in tales, ancient myths and legends. And I think one of the most joyous things about writing this book is that I had an excuse to delve into topics that really interested me. Yeah. And how's the market? Tourism seems to be booming. Is there a good market for guidebooks? Well, hopefully. You don't know yet? It's true that tourism is booming in Vietnam at the moment, and this will likely be Vietnam's most successful year ever in terms of visitor numbers. At the same time, it does seem that guidebook sales are dropping. Yeah, the pie is shrinking a little bit, but there's still a lot of people that rely on a printed guidebook. Yeah, yeah. If you're good at it, this seems like a good book. And Brat, your publisher, B-R-A-D-T, I've known them for 30, 40 years. And they're famous for writing guidebooks that have a tiny market, but just they want to have people to have good information for wherever they travel. If there's a book that Lonely Planet or Fromer or Fodor didn't write because the market was too small, Brat was there. So I think they've got a good philosophy. That's right, yeah. Joshua Zoukas is sharing his insights into Vietnam with us on Travel with Rick Steves after living there full for the past dozen years He the author of The Brat Guide to Vietnam and writes about its sights culture food and architecture for The Economist and The Lonely Planet and Michelin Guides. Josh wrote for Business Insider on the common travel mistakes first-time Vietnam visitors often make. He also hosts a series of audio walking tours on the Voicemap platform. We include links to his work with this week's show at ricksteves.com slash radio. Just ahead, there's more with Josh as we look at the legacy of the war for American visitors and learn about the sites and events he recommends we look at. We're exploring the growing appeal of Vietnam as a tourist destination and its popularity with foreign nationals as a place to live and work. Joshua Zucas is our guide. He explains that his aim for the Brat Vietnam Guidebook is to combine meaningful experiences with responsible travel and to get acquainted with Vietnam's history, traditions, and myths. When you write a book about Vietnam, you're dealing with this, at least in the American market, especially if you're as old as me. I mean, for 20 years, what, 1955 to 1975, it was all about what we call the Vietnam War and, of course, in Vietnam, what they call the American War. If you're visiting a country as an American after a horrible war, and America did some things that were pretty brutal, and so did Vietnamese. What are the challenges for us travelers now? I mean, I suppose it's important to remember that most people you meet have no memory of the war. They weren't even born when the war was being fought, and it's about as close to them as World War I is to us. I mean, it's difficult. I get this question from Americans sometimes, And it's it's it can be difficult to answer because I'm not an American. So as a Brit, I mean, you know, we did terrible things around the world as well, but we didn't do so many of those terrible things in Vietnam, just near Vietnam. But my experience of Vietnamese people is they are hugely patriotic and proud of their history and that they were able to shake off the Americans, but also the French and the Chinese. And this patriotism, I think, also lends itself to a kind of hospitality. It's very important to Vietnamese people that visitors to Vietnam have a good time and have a good impression of Vietnam. So although it's true, most Vietnamese people actually never experienced the war, you'll still meet a lot of older people that did. And yet I've never heard of any serious negativity coming from older Vietnamese people towards American visitors. So in what ways is the war or the scars of the war still there? And in what ways are they no longer there in a way that Americans might think they still would be? I think that physically they're everywhere. I mean, in every city that you go to, you will see evidence of the war. So in Hanoi, for example, there's a lake which I highly recommend visiting called the B-52 Lake. That's what they call it. It has another name, but it's generally known as the B-52 Lake because it's where a B-52 fell after it was shot down. And remnants of the B-52 plane are still in that lake. So although that's become quite a prosperous neighborhood with middle class families and children playing and coffee shops and restaurants, the remnants of that plane are still there as kind of a reminder of what Hanoi went through 50 plus years ago. And in other cities, too, you find things like blockhouses where military equipment would have been stored during the American war. And they crop up in the strangest of places. You might be walking in a park and in the middle of a park, there's this blockhouse. What is the country is unified now? Is there a sense that the North won and the South is subjugated? Or is there a sense that, thank goodness, this war is over and we're all one again? The sense that the war is over and that now the Vietnamese people are one again, I think that overrides everything else. But it's still nuanced. I think in the South, sometimes you do detect sometimes a feeling from local people that they, how can I put this? There is still this feeling like during the war and after the war, the South was dominated by the North in a way that was unfair. So, for example, children of parents that worked in the South Vietnam Army were not allowed certain opportunities. That's understandable in the wake of a war. But 50 years later, I would imagine that's kind of fading away. Yeah, it's certainly fading away. Yeah. This is Travel with Rick Steves. we're talking with travel writer Joshua Zucas. He moved from the U.K. to Vietnam back in 2013 after studying linguistics and Southeast Asian studies at the University of London, and he completed a master's degree in sustainable tourism. He's the author of The Brat Guide to Vietnam, and you can find links to Joshua's work in the notes for this week's show at ricksteves.com slash radio. Joshua, there's so much to talk about, and you're inspiring me to want to go to Vietnam in person equipped with your guidebook. I want to talk just about some basic activities and fun you can have in Vietnam. First of all, give us a quick rundown on, in just a couple of sentences, the beach scene. Yeah, so the beach scene is very varied. There are islands and there are urban beaches and there is everything in between. I think one thing to bear in mind is that Vietnam has three coastal regions and three coastal climates. And it's not sunny everywhere all of the time. And, you know, Thailand has all of its hippie havens. What's the hippie haven in Vietnam? So Vietnam, yeah, so that's an interesting question because Vietnam was never part of the hippie trail. Because when the hippie trail developed, Vietnam was at war, first with France and then with the U.S. So it means that unlike, you know, India and Thailand, it never developed a hippie culture. That said, it's still a big backpacker destination. And so there's still plenty of off the beaten track beaches to explore. And I would say that they're all down near cities like Guinyan, Nyachang, not the cities themselves, but nearby Guinyan, Nyachang, Phanthiet. when we're talking about the South Central Coast. Joshua, can you enjoy a kind of a backpacker hedonism on $50 a day in Vietnam? You can, yeah. $50 a day for all of your expenses? Yep. And still do the fun stuff you want to do? Hire a guide on a motorbike? Yeah, yeah, that's all possible. What are highlights for you as far as seeing artisans at work? In terms of seeing artisans at work, the highlight for me is the craft villages surrounding Hanoi. So Hanoi is an ancient city, about 1,000 years old, or it depends when you measure it, but it's about, let's say it's about a thousand years old and has been the capital of Vietnam on and off for many centuries. And because of that, it means that the city is surrounded by these craft villages. Huh. And these are craft villages for real economy, not just tourism? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, that's my memory. Anywhere I've gone in Asia, I just walk and like every 10 strides, there's another craft going on. And it's just a fascinating look at traditional artisan work. I have a friend who wrote a book called Vanishing Asia. And in a lot of ways, Asia is becoming modern and high rise and sterile. But I get a sense that the artisan culture is still alive and well in Vietnam. Yeah, I think that that's true. Tell me about some highlights you have from market scenes in Vietnam. I think that the markets are really exciting. I feel like shopping centers and supermarkets haven't taken over Vietnam. like they have other parts of Southeast Asia. And so, yeah, the markets are really exciting, I think especially in the cities. So for me, the market scene in Hanoi and Saigon, the two bigger cities, are the most exciting ones to explore. Make a point to hit the markets. If you were to build your itinerary around a particular festival, what are the one, two, or three top festivals you'd want to consider as you're planning your trip? Yeah, okay. So my favorite festival is probably Mid-Autumn Festival, and that falls usually in August or September. I like this festival because it's very public. So the biggest festival in Vietnam is Lunar New Year. It's sometimes called Chinese New Year, but obviously we don't call it that in Vietnam. We call it Lunar New Year or Thed. Thed is the Vietnamese word. That's the biggest festival, but that's a little bit like Christmas in that it's quite personal and it's not particularly public. The Mid-Autumn Festival is. that's when you will see lion dancing, dragon dancing, and they also eat mooncakes, which is this very particular kind of pastry, baked filled pastry. Sounds hallucinogenic. No. I haven't tried a hallucinogenic one, but they're probably out there. Food tours? Do they have food tours? Is that a fun thing in Vietnam? Oh, everywhere. I would bet. Every city in Vietnam claims to have the best food. What's your favorite food experience in Vietnam for a tourist? My favorite food experience in Vietnam is the Old Quarter of Hanoi. Nice. The Old Quarter of Hanoi is famous for its craft streets. The Old Quarter of Hanoi kind of developed as a market. So each street, you find different crafts. But also an unsung side of the Old Quarter, I think, is its food culture. Give me a very quick, we're almost out of time. I want to have just a quick response. Fun with animals. Yeah, okay. So two places. In the north, I would say Kuk Phuong National Park. That has a couple of really interesting wildlife centers where they are working to rewild animals. Rewild, I like that. Good. Restore the traditional flora and fauna. Exactly. So these are animals that they've confiscated from people who had them illegally, and then they care for them. And then the idea is eventually to rewild them. And you can go and visit these wildlife centers and learn about their work. So that's Kuk Phuong, which is a couple of hours south of Hanoi. And then another place I would mention in the south is called Gat Thien, and that's a couple of hours north of Saigon. And that is a similar kind of place. You could probably go to Hanoi and Saigon, our Ho Chi Minh city, and spend a week in each of those places and side trip out and cover a fair amount of territory. Absolutely, yeah. Joshua Zucas is bringing us an insider's look at Vietnam today on Travel with Rick Steves. His Vietnam guidebook in the Brat series is designed to weave responsible travel into meaningful experiences with the people you'll meet, and it's available as a digital guide. Joshua also writes about Vietnam architecture for major design magazines. His website is joshuazukas.com. And, Joshua, I know you are passionate about sustainable tourism, and that's a worldwide thing, and us travelers contribute to climate change, and we contribute to the changing of communities because of the power of tourism. I believe you wrote that in Vietnam, it's a big part of the economy. One out of every 10 people work in tourism. It brings all sorts of benefits to a society, but it also has a cost. We've just got a few minutes left, but you say that sustainability isn't just about the environment. It has three pillars, social, economic, and environment. Tell us what you mean by that, please. So this is the academic definition of sustainability. What I learned during my master's is that most people don't have a good handle on this. But yes, there are three pillars to sustainability. And I think what we tend to do is just focus on one and not consider the others. So social sustainability is about social cohesion, ensuring that communities retain the community's spirit, I suppose you can call it. And then economic sustainability is ensuring that people have access to good jobs jobs that pay reasonable salaries and also that are long term So not talking about short gain but something that is kind of long You know, a good travel writer can make a point with a hard example, with a concrete example. And a good example in your book, I think, is the experience you had exploring a national park by motorbike. It was called Feng Na, something like that. And can you give me, just in that case, how tourism can be a force for good and why you're proud to connect travelers with locals and local environments. Yeah, I think Phom Nha is an excellent example of sustainable tourism done right. So this is a national park in central Vietnam. It's famous for its caves. So it has the biggest caves in the world. Depending on how you measure caves, it has the biggest caves in the world. The problem is, is around these caves, there's a very dense jungle. And in that dense jungle, there's valuable wood and wildlife. So decades ago, the jungles were looted by local people, by hunters and loggers. And then when these caves were kind of discovered, their extraordinary tourism potential was discovered, it was decided that what they could do to develop tourism there is keep it small scale. So not let massive companies come in, keep it relatively small scale, limit numbers, charge quite high prices for the tours, but the caves are so extraordinary that they're worth seeing. And then the magic here is that you include the former looters and hunters in the tourism experience. So many of these former looters and hunters have become guides, they've become chefs, they work in the offices. And now what we're starting to see, this is a relatively new tourism destination developed in the past 15 years or so. Now what we're starting to see is that the wildlife is perhaps returning to the area. So we're actually seeing an example of how generating good jobs, bringing tourists in, increasing conservation can actually have a benefit for everyone. And that's when we're talking about, again, there's social, there's economic and there's environmental sustainability there. Joshua Zoukas is our guest right now on Travel with Rick Steves. He's the author of The Brat Guide to Vietnam. What's your take on climate change and the value of travel, given the fact that when we fly to Vietnam, we put a lot of carbon into the atmosphere? Yeah. My take on it is that ultimately, travel and tourism can be a force for good, but we also need to recognize that it's problematic as well. And the example that you just gave, Rick, is a really good one. When we fly to Vietnam, we pump loads of carbon into the air and that leads to global heating, which leads to the catastrophes that we see across the world, including in Vietnam. But at the same time, travel and tourism provides jobs for, as you said, I mean, globally, yeah, it's about one in 10 jobs and within Vietnam, probably about the same. And imagine, you know, if one in 10 people in Vietnam or one in 10 people globally lost their jobs because we stopped traveling, that would lead to devastating social and economic consequences. So I don't think it's as simple as just not traveling and not flying. My thinking on that, because, you know, we all, anybody that's a travel writer has to think about that if they're ethical. I don't want to be flight shamed out of my travels, but I do want to travel in a way that minimizes my carbon footprint and to recognize that I can actually pay some money smartly to mitigate my carbon and let me go essentially carbon neutral. And then, still, I'm going to not be helping the environment by travel. I want to travel in a way that I bring home a broader perspective, and in other words, making me as much a citizen of the planet as a citizen of one country. I'd like to close our conversation, I'd like to close it with, if you are evangelical about sustainability, what's your mission? And what would you like people to take with them as part of their approach to sustainability when they travel to a place like Vietnam? I think that my mission, if I can call it that, is to encourage people to travel to Vietnam meaningfully and at the same time minimize their carbon footprint in the country. That's why when I researched the guide, I didn't fly once because I wanted to practice what I was preaching. and in that way I minimized my own carbon footprint but I also I feel got to see the country in a way that I wouldn't have otherwise when you fly from place to place you know you're just disappearing from one part of the country and then reappearing somewhere else and I think actually the beauty of Vietnam is understanding how it changes how the food changes how the culture changes how the geography changes and you can only really do that by traveling on land by train by bus. So that's where I circle back to talking about traveling meaningfully in the country. I think that by not flying, not only is that probably the best way that you can minimize your carbon footprint once you're in the country, but it also means that you can have a better understanding of Vietnam and like what you say, bring the intangible benefits of travel. Well said. Joshua Zoukas, thank you so much for joining us and congratulations on your guidebook, Vietnam, published by Brad. Thanks, Rick. And if you're ever in Vietnam, I look forward to welcoming you. There's a good chance I'm going to be seeing you in the next year. Thanks so much, Joshua, and best wishes with your work. Thank you. Our next adventure takes us into the heart of America. Dean Klinkenberg joins us next for a deeper look at the fun getaways into nature that you can find along the banks of the Mississippi River. Dean points out what you should look for in each of the states that border the river from its Minnesota headwaters to the Delta and the Gulf of Mexico. It's Travel with Rick Steves. As important rivers go, the Mississippi is really the heart and soul of the United States, and it's a big part of tourism in 10 states. It stretches more than 2,000 miles from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico, and it offers plenty of reasons to stop and take a look or a paddle. Author and river enthusiast Dean Klinkenberg is no stranger to the mighty Mississippi. He's traveled up and down many times, and he wrote a book. It's called The Wild Mississippi, a state-by-state guide to the river's natural wonders. Dean joins us now to be our guide for a grand blitz tour of the Mississippi. Dean, thanks for joining us. Pleasure to be here, Rick. Let's get going. Let's get going. Thank you so much. And, you know, the Mississippi really is the defining river of the United States, I think. Just in a nutshell, why is it so important to the story of our nation. You can pretty much find anything related to American history along the Mississippi. If you want a crash course in American history, it's going to be there. But it's also an incredible site for recreation, for paddling, for hiking, or just to sit and enjoy a beer and a hamburger next to the river. So it offers a lot of different experiences. Now, in your book, I read that it's worth knowing about the elevation and how the river drops. You mentioned the river starts at 1,500 feet above sea level. It drops half that amount, 800 feet, in the first 600 miles. And then it only drops 300 feet in the next 1,000 miles. So what? Well, I think most people probably imagine rivers starting in mountains, right? So they imagine this water flowing from snowmelt. So the Mississippi is very different. It starts in the middle of the woods, and it sort of oozes from a lake, and it becomes this monstrosity as all these other rivers feed it. That's right. More and more rivers do, major rivers come in as tributaries. Now, the first half of your book is general stuff on flora and fauna and context, which is important. And the last half, you take people on a blitz tour of the Mississippi from Minnesota all the way down to New Orleans. And I'd like to do that right now. First of all, the river starts in Minnesota, 2,300 miles from the mouth of the river. Tell us about the Mississippi in Minnesota. So it begins from Lake Itasca, and it just kind of trickles out. It's a very narrow stream. You can walk across it and not get your knees wet where it emerges from Lake Itasca. And then it grows relatively quickly. So wait a minute. You can walk across the Mississippi? I can just picture this. So you're not on a glacier somewhere where you can dam it with your hand. I've done that for the Columbia River. At least that's what my guide told me. But you can walk across it as it leaves a little lake, huh? Absolutely, yeah. It was an area that was marshy initially, and it's been engineered to look prettier. So it's not exactly the way the river looked 100 years ago when it began, but all kinds of people go there and they tell people they walked across the Mississippi. So there's one spot. I mean, you can identify it right down to the point. You could drive a stake into the spot that is the start of the Mississippi River. Well, that's what the engineers tell us. I don't completely buy that. For me, the river starts anywhere any of the tributaries start as well. But we've picked this as the beginning of the river, and there's a big sign that makes it official, so it's got to be true. Nice. Now, what about enjoying it from Minneapolis and St. Paul? Because that's where most people in Minnesota would use it as a springboard, maybe. So there's an unusual national park that runs through the Twin Cities. It's the National Mississippi River and Recreation Area. So it's 72 miles, I think. So it comes in as essentially a prairie stream. It reaches the only waterfall in the Mississippi, which is now just a big concrete apron, and then enters a gorge and then leaves there, entering the big limestone-framed valley. So it changes a lot through that area. I would imagine that's a park the people of Twin Cities enjoy. Yeah, and there are lots of different places to enjoy it. You know, there are city parks that are part of that. They have a kayak share program. So if you didn't bring a kayak with you, you can rent one and paddle a few miles downriver. Can you pick it up at one spot and drop it at another spot? Yep, absolutely. And then they're connected to bike share stations, too. So then you can hop on a bike and go back to where you started. I love it. Oh, now the river flows a little more than 200 miles through Wisconsin. And in your book, you say you'll get some natural wonders there without the crowds. Yeah. So there are a couple of places that I think are really special. There's a natural whiting in the Mississippi called Lake Pepin, just south of the Twin Cities. Small towns, artist communities line that lake, and half of that is in Wisconsin. That's a great place to tour. Near the town of Stockholm, Wisconsin, there's a place called Maiden Rock Bluff, which provides a really dramatic view of the Mississippi from the top. And it's a pretty easy 10 or 15-minute walk from a parking lot. All right. Well, next up is Iowa. And you write about hunters, fishing, canoeing, kayaking. Sounds like you can have some fun on the Iowa shores of the Mississippi. Absolutely. There's a lot to do around Dubuque. Mines of Spain State Park has a lot of trails that go through the bluffs and get near the river. South of there, there's an area called Green Island that is a pretty lush wetlands area that attracts a lot of birds. And it's a great spot if you're a birder and you can paddle around there easily, too. Next up, Illinois. So Illinois, things start to change a little bit. There's not as much easy access because of the levees and the agricultural fields tend to run right up to the river. I like there's a spot in deep southern Illinois that's Horseshoe State Wildlife Area, I think is the official name. And it's an old meander bend, an oxbow lake, left behind when the Mississippi changed channels. And it's got cypress trees. It's a little cypress swamp around there. That's a good site to visit. Nice. This is Travel with Rick Steves. We're talking with Dean Klinkenberg, and he's taken us on a tour of the Mississippi from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. Dean's latest book is The Wild Mississippi, a state-by-state guide to the river's natural wonders. So far, we've canoed or paddled or hiked or biked along the banks of the Mississippi through Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois. Up next, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Okay, Dean, let's go to Missouri. What are we going to find in the Mississippi and Missouri? So probably the one site you have to get to in Missouri would be Trail of Tears State Park, an hour and a half south of St. Louis. And the park is deep woods, but it's on top of bluffs for the most part, next to the Mississippi. Dramatic views of the river again. But also it's a cultural site commemorating one of the spots where Native Americans were forced to cross the Mississippi as part of their migration from the southeast to Oklahoma Now Missouri is where we have Mark Twain Mississippi right We do He was born or he wasn born there he was raised in Hannibal Missouri So you should see Hannibal for sure The Mark Twain Museum is definitely worth visiting The rest of the town probably won't require much time to visit. Okay, good. And now the Mississippi changes personality or physical character at this point in the river. I understand the dams end at St. Louis and big tributaries start to come in, And now the Mississippi becomes like this big, giant, commercial navigation sort of thoroughfare. It's a big, wild river. You know, it's free-flowing, and it carries a lot of water, so you won't see nearly as much recreational boat traffic out there. But there will still be some people fishing and occasional paddlers. You know, we're going next to Kentucky, and that's just a little bit of the Mississippi, isn't it? It is. It's got the least amount of Mississippi shorelines, so I think probably the best place to go there. I would say go to Hickman, Kentucky and ride the ferry across the Mississippi. There aren't a lot of river ferries left, and that's a good ride. It gets you right on the river. That dumps you off on rural Missouri, but it's a good ride. I would do that. That's a good idea. I noticed in your book you talked about there's some kind of a Mississippi road or something like that, a tourist-friendly road. What part of the Mississippi does that cover? So the Great River Road, it's a federally designated scenic byway for most of its length now. It runs on both sides of the Mississippi all the way from Minnesota to Louisiana. It ends at Venice, Louisiana, where the pavement ends. Wow. On both sides. The whole thing. All right. Well, then it would take us through Tennessee, which is next on the river after Kentucky. There we're going to start seeing some Civil War history, aren't we? We are. So if you're really into Civil War history and you want a chance to hike a little bit to, I'd say Fort Pillow State Park would be the place to go, the site of a significant Civil War battle. But it's a beautiful spot on top of the bluffs, and there's camping and hiking there, too. we got Memphis. We had St. Louis in Missouri. We got Memphis in Tennessee. Which one of them is more interesting from a Mississippi point of view? Oh, probably Memphis has a better riverfront. Tom Lee Park has undergone a major renovation, and it's a beautiful spot to hang out, and they have different areas set to represent different kinds of ecosystems, so that would be good. And you're close to ribs then. Some good smoked ribs, you know. There you go. And also, I read you talked about this pedestrian bridge. It sounds really cool to be able to go over a pedestrian bridge over the Mississippi. Tell us about that. Right. There are a couple places where you can do this. The Chain of Rocks Bridge in St. Louis is one. It's a pedestrian and bicycling bridge. But at Memphis, there's an old rail bridge where they added on a pedestrian path so you can cross the Mississippi from Memphis to Arkansas over this big river. And it's really a mind-blowing sight to be standing there looking down. I would love to do that. Okay. Next, we go to Arkansas. Arkansas loves its scenic bike trails, doesn't it? Arkansas has a bike trail that goes a long ways, and that would be good. And that bike trail, part of it runs past a marker for where Japanese internment camp was in World War II. I would probably say go to Choctaw Island, though. It's a state-managed area, wetlands and floodplain forest right next to the Mississippi. It's a great place to explore. Dean Klinkenberg is our guide to hiking, biking, paddling, wildlife, refuges, and historical sites down the Mississippi River Corridor. right now on Travel with Rick Steves. Dean lives in St. Louis and has written The Wild Mississippi, a state-by-state guide to the river's natural wonders. Dean also writes the Frank Dodge mystery novel set along the river's banks, and he hosts a podcast at MississippiValleyTraveler.com. Dean, you write that Mississippias could be kind of disappointing because most of the shoreline is private and hard to reach. Yeah, a lot of it is really difficult to get to. There are a couple of places you can. I really like St. Catherine Creek National Wildlife Refuge down near Natchez. I would recommend going there. The one advantage that Mississippi does have, you could go to Clarksdale, and you could go on a canoe trip with the Quapaw Canoe Company. They'll take you out for a day or an overnight trip. You should do that if you're in the area. And then you get a look at some of those old growth swamps. There wouldn't be much. You can go to Sky Lake in Mississippi, which is an old growth swamp. Most of it has been raised for farming, but it's hard to imagine this. But the Mississippi Delta that we see today that's so flat in agriculture was all Cypress Swamp. All right. Hey, let's finish off with our southernmost end of the Mississippi, Louisiana. And this is where there's lots of tourism. What are we going to see and experience in Louisiana from the Mississippi's point of view? So probably most people are going to be in New Orleans. And there's a lot to see just in that area. So there's, you know, Cootery Forest and City Park is a nice little refuge of bottomland forest in the middle of the city. I also like going to Bayou Sauvage for a little bit of coastal marsh. And then the John Lafitte National Historic Park has a bunch of hiking trails and swamps, too. So this is all sort of your springboard to all of this would be New Orleans? Yeah, all of that is within half an hour, 45-minute drive in New Orleans. So in other words, when you go to New Orleans, you could spend a few days side tripping out and having that Delta experience? Absolutely. I hope people don't just spend their entire time on Bourbon Street and they get out and see other things so you can get out and experience some wildlife. You can go for a kayaking trip on the Pearl River, which is about an hour away. Now, and, you know, we think of New Orleans as the mouth of the river, but it goes another hundred miles to the end of the river. And that's where we find a lot of that exotic delta kind of flora and fauna, right? Yeah, it becomes kind of this more and more salinated coastal marsh the further south you go. So there are some places you would need a boat to visit. The road ends at Venice. And that road, you won't see a lot in terms of the Mississippi. You'll be on the levee side. You know, Dean, this is such a cool adventure that you've taken on. I mean, it's how many miles? It's 2,000 miles or something from where you walked across the Mississippi up there as the river leaves the lake in Minnesota to down here in Delta country. I know it's kind of ridiculous to choose one spot, but clearly when you read through your book, The Wild Mississippi, a state-by-state guide to the river's natural wonders, you get a sense that you have a great, almost emotional or spiritual attachment to this river. Where's one moment where you really connect with the importance of America's greatest river? I think probably there was a moment I remember when I was paddling up in northern Minnesota. And again, this sort of encapsulates part of what I like about being on the river. I was paddling on my own. This was a two-day trip. And I entered a part of the river where I was about to go through a marsh. where the grass was taller than I could see. So I couldn't see my way through the marsh. I had to follow this little trickle of water, but I was supposed to exit that marsh somewhere to stop to camp for the night, and I missed where I was supposed to turn out because I was so focused on following this little trickle of water. So as time went by, I got more and more anxious, worrying about whether I was going to be sleeping in my canoe that night. And then as the light sort of softened and entered golden hour, It started to relax me, and I just looked around a little bit more, and I saw more wildlife in the next hour during that golden hour than I would see the entire two days. Trumpeter swans, beaver, lots of other birds. And I just sort of relaxed into the moment and enjoyed what was going on around me, and I got to that next campsite just as the sun was going down. My goodness. It sounds like a magical interspecies communion with nature. The river can take care of you if you let it. It can also do you some harm if you're not careful. Well, you need a good guidebook. Dean Klinkenberg, thanks so much for joining us, and happy paddling. Thank you very much, Rick. Catch the blue train Place that's never been before Look for me Somewhere down the crazy river Somewhere down the crazy river You can find web links to our guests in the notes we provide with each week's show at ricksteves.com slash radio. That's also where you can hear a podcast version of our show, send us an original travel haiku you've written, or even just ask a question, like Gerard in Chicago recently did. Gerard from Chicago emails us, and he writes, I like your advice to minimize headaches by showing up early or late at tourist attractions and to buy sightseeing passes to get around the lines at the crowded sites. How do you minimize other headaches that come with travel? Okay, so if you're thinking about headaches, headaches that plague travelers all over the place, this is my very basic sort of stuff that I talk about in all my lectures, but you've got to pack light. When you leave home packing light, you will travel better. There's no excuses. Man, woman, young, old, rich, poor, winter, summer, two weeks or two months, I limit myself to 9 by 22 by 14 inches. That's my self-imposed limit. You will thank me for that. Also, don't be a victim of petty theft. Thieves in Europe target Americans. I think the United States is, without any doubt, statistically more dangerous than where you're going to go on your trip from a violent crime point of view. But the pickpockets, just petty little, pesky street thieves, they're very, very common in the touristy places in Europe. It's pretty predictable. If you're going on the Ramblas in Barcelona, if you're going to crowd on to Bus 69 in Rome, if you're going to be waiting in line at some great museum in Florence, you're going to be dealing with pickpockets working the crowd, making their living. Not violent crime, but petty pickpocket things and purse snatchings. Just don't be sloppy. Leave your valuables in the hotel or at home. Don't have them with you on the street. And when you're out and about, especially when you anticipate tourist crowds, zip it up, button it up, tuck it into your money belt, keep an eye on your purse, your bag, especially your mobile phone. Also remember that a simple phone call or a web search can make your travels go so much smoother. Reconfirm your hotel. I never go to a hotel without calling it the night before to reconfirm that they got the reservation and they're expecting me. You're doing them a favor and you're doing yourself a favor. Reconfirm your car reservations a day in advance. Call a restaurant to confirm that they're actually open or to reserve a table. And sightsee smartly. These days, you want to book in advance whenever it's required or advised for sightseeing attractions that everybody's going to. Confirm the opening times of sites. This is another thing. Remember, a lot of publications, a lot of websites, a lot of guidebooks will list the, quote, closing time as when they stop selling tickets. And you've got to differentiate. There's when do they close the ticket window and when do they kick you out of that site. Generally, they'll advertise the closing time when they stop selling tickets, and you've still got 30 or 60 minutes before you have to leave. know that because you can do a lot of good sightseeing in one hour, and if you come to that last hour, you'll find even the most crowded sites in Europe to be remarkably empty. I've walked into the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, buying my ticket 45 minutes or an hour before closing, and I can walk in while all day long hundreds of travelers have been turned away. So you've got that busy hour, which is a good option if you know how to use it. And finally, these days, the most grueling thing about European travel is the heat and the crowds of peak season, summer travel. Travel with this in mind. I meet more and more travelers that, for whatever reason, end up traveling in the dead of winter, and they are so thankful they did. There you go, a few ideas about minimizing your headaches on the road. Happy travels. Travel with Rick Steves is produced by Tim Tatton with Kazmierl Hall and Donna Bardsley at Rick Steves Europe in Edmonds, Washington. Andrew Wakeling and Sherry Court upload the shows to our website. Sheila Gerzoff handles affiliate promotions. Our theme music is by Jerry Frank. Take a look at Rick's list for what to pack in your suitcase and share tips with fellow travelers. It's part of our online travel forum. It's at ricksteves.com. We'll see you next week with more Travel with Rick Steves. Monday Night Travel. It's a weekly travel party, and you're invited. Zoom in and have some fun learning about Europe's art, history, culture, and food over drinks and snacks. It's free, it's an adventure, and be careful, it can be addictive. Join me and my travel buddies over Zoom for Monday Night Travel. We're live every week, starting at 6 p.m. Pacific Time, 9 p.m. Eastern. 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