819 Swiss Riviera; How to Plan a Safari; Take a Hike in Europe

After enjoying the jazz festival in Montreux, American singer Tony Lewis decided he'd like to live there, in the Lake Geneva area of Switzerland. He says a boat ride can make you fall in love with the Swiss Riviera. Have a glass of our beautiful Chasla wine while you're on these 120-year-old paddle wheelers. While researching a book about elephants, journalist Sophie Roberts went on a wildlife viewing safari that had moments she'll never forget. I saw a chimpanzee approach on its hind legs, and that was profound, because a chimp on their hind legs reminds us where we all come from. She recommends what you can look for on a safari adventure. For Neil Lapping, a well-placed hiking vacation is his favorite way to enjoy the scenery of Europe. The beauty of in-to-in or hut-to-hut trails is they're self-limiting. You can't get big crowds down them. It's all ahead on today's Travel with Rick Steves. Overcrowding at Europe's most popular sites can be a problem these days, but it's not an issue on the historic long-distance hiking trails that crisscross the continent. To get close to some incredible landscapes and the people who live there, I've been enjoying organized do-it-yourself hikes lately. Coming up, a tour operator in Scotland helps with planning hiking vacations in Europe. While reporting on conservation issues in East Africa, travel journalist Sophie Roberts has tried out a variety of locally offered wildlife viewing safaris, ones that deliver on adventure without all the colonial-era cliches and put money into the local communities. In just a bit, Sophie lays out options for us. Let's start the hour looking at the picturesque area along the north shore of Lake Geneva that we like to call the Swiss Riviere. Lake Geneva, in the far south of Switzerland and sharing a shoreline with France, is surrounded by Alps and vineyards, mixing refined pleasures like music festivals, gourmet dining, and quiet lakefront strolls. It's an underrated slice of Switzerland. The culture blends Swiss orderliness and French elegance with a cosmopolitan flair. And to take a quick visit, we're joined by Tony Lewis, an American tour guide who's lived all over the world and has chosen to settle right there on Lac Le Mans, as the locals call Lake Geneva. Tony, thanks for joining us. Hey, my pleasure. Thank you, Rick. You know, a lot of us are unfamiliar with Lake Geneva. It's a big lake in Switzerland, and we're always focused on the mountains and the Alps. But there's so many other dimensions of Switzerland, and of course the French part of Switzerland is all about lakes. What's unique and what's appealing about Lake Geneva in terms of landscape and culture? Well, I arrived in Switzerland in 1991. I lived the first seven years in the German part of Switzerland, actually around the Zurich area on both sides of Zurich. And that's one kind of mentality, one kind of lifestyle. And I actually came to Montreux, which is a town where I live now, on the Lake of Geneva, Lac Le Monde, to the jazz festival. And I thought, this place is so beautiful. Is it actually legal to live in a place this gorgeous? And it took me about a year and a half to liquidate everything in the German part. and I moved here. And I think it's one of the greatest decisions I ever made. I just love this place. It's a totally different mindset than in the German part. People let other people, you know, it's live and that live a little bit more than in the German part where they tend to kind of look and control your neighbor and see what everyone is doing. When I first arrived in the 70s, 80s, they said Switzerland doesn't need policemen. You'd never see any policemen anywhere. You don't need policemen because we have already 6 million of them. But when I moved here to the French part, it's much more Latin, but it's an organized Latin feeling. Yeah, that's the feeling I get in Ticino also. You're talking about the French-speaking part of Switzerland. And in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland, you get that punctuality and that work ethic and that orderliness of the Germanic part of Switzerland. But you also mix in that romance of Mediterranean cultures, don't you? Yes, absolutely. And it's most evident in the way people just enjoy their lives. In other words, they get off of work and they leave work. And they meet with friends. They'll have an apero. They'll have a nice glass of our beautiful Shazla or something like that. And people take time for their families and their friends here and really to have a high quality of life, which is not only dependent on work. Let's talk about this lake a little bit from a sightseeing point of view. We've got a couple of great towns from a tourism point of view. Lausanne is built on hills. It's kind of a two-part city, right? And it's right there on the lake. I remember the cathedral there, stripped, cleaned by the Protestant iconoclasts, reminding me of the Calvinism that's part of Swiss culture, and the beautiful waterfront right there where you can hop on a boat. What's your impression of Lausanne? Lausanne is the capital of our canton. We don't have provinces or states. We have cantons. And it's the canton of Vaux where I'm at, which is a large part of the territory of Lake Geneva. The other side from where I am is actually France. And then there's a little bit which is the canton of Valais. And at the far end, you have Geneva. So Lausanne is a beautiful town. It's not a very large town. It's only 140,000 people. Towns here tend to be a lot smaller. Our largest city in Switzerland is 423,000 people, which is Zurich. So, you know, it's small. You know, we did a TV show once just on the cities of Switzerland, and I just had a little vendetta here. I wanted people to realize Switzerland, if it had not a single mountain, would still be worth visiting for its cities and its lakes. When we go to Lausanne, we've got this lakefront, idyllic sort of place you'd dream about retiring, perhaps. And you've also got some important sites. You've got the Olympics Museum, and you've got the Art Brut Museum. Can you tell us about those sites? Well, especially about the Olympic Museum. The Olympic Museum finds itself in Lausanne because the International Olympic Committee has its headquarters in Lausanne. And the museum is definitely worth a visit. And besides that, just the city itself is quite beautiful the way, as you mentioned, is built up on hills and has the old historic rivers which have been filled in. And they evened out these valleys where the old rivers were. And then they started to build the town already in the 1500s. Now, you live in Montreux. And we know Montreux because of the jazz festival. But you're there all year long, with or without the jazz festival. What's the city like? Well, the city of Montre is part of what we call the Swiss Riviera. And the Swiss Riviera includes a couple of towns here, one of them being Vevey, which is actually about the same size. Both towns are 25,000 people approximately. And Vevey is much more an old medieval town, which is actually the headquarters of Nestle International, one of the largest food conglomerates in the world. But Vevey is full of festivals and has lots of things to see. Now, going back to Montreux, Montreux is a town which exists since the 1st of January 1962. There was no Montreux before 1962. It was a grouping of 14 little villages, hamlets and villages, and they decided that they would fusion together and make a town, a real city, which is Montreux. And you've got Chateau Chillon nearby, don't you? Yes, I see Chateau Chillon. If I just get up from the chair where I'm sitting, I can actually see it out my window. And that is the most dramatic and romantic castle situation, among the most, that I can ever recall. with its beautiful history with Lord Byron imprisoned there and so on. And it's so welcoming to visitors right there on the lake. Right there on the lake. They invented castles a thousand years ago. There was no castles older than a thousand years. And this castle of Chillon is a thousand years old. So this is actually built during the first wave of feudalism and castle building. And it's just an amazing place. What I always say is to say how wonderful it is that we even get French visitors coming to our Swiss castle, leaving and saying, that's a wonderful castle. So if French people say that about a Swiss castle, that must mean something. There you go. This is Travel with Rick Steves, and we're joined by tour guide Tony Lewis for a look at his adopted home, Lake Geneva in Switzerland. Tony is a certified guide at the Laveau Vineyard Terraces, and he lives in Montreux. You can learn more about him and his work at his website. That's TonyLewis.ch. TonyLewis.ch. which, Tony, we've got a couple minutes left, and I would like to talk about things to do if you're home-basing on Lake Geneva, because you've got cheese, you've got chocolate, and you've got cruising the lake, and you've got local wine. There we go. Very quickly. I was hoping you would mention that. You're a guide at the Laveau Vineyards. Tell us about the Swiss wine, because my understanding is they produce so little, and the Swiss people love it so much that very little of it is exported. So you don't really experience Swiss wine unless you go to Switzerland. That's right. Most people arrive in Switzerland. Maybe they arrive at the airport in Geneva. They get on a train to go skiing in the mountains or to go to the jazz festival. And for an hour and a half, they're looking out the left side of the train. And finally, they say, do you guys actually make wine here? Because that's all you see are vineyards the whole way. And so, yes, we do make wine. We make some extremely, extremely fine wine, especially the whites of this region. I love the Swiss white wine. Although I don't like the Swiss being so stingy, they serve it in one deciliter glasses. In Germany, it's a fiertel, ein quarter of a liter, a fiertel. In Switzerland, it's a deciliter, it's a tenth of a liter. That's because it's such a treasure, Rick. That's because it's so expensive to pay salespeople to pick the grapes, I think. That's the other part. That's the other part. So, Tony, we've got some time. Let's say we've got a day for side trips from Lake Geneva, and we're all excited about chocolate and cheese because that's on our list for Switzerland. Where would we go to see a good chocolate factory, and where would we go to see the cheese being made? You wouldn't even have to go very far. You just head a little bit up into the mountains from Montreveve, and you're going to be able to visit the Cahier Factory in Broc, B-R-O-C. And it's not only a factory, it's also the museum, and you can stuff yourself so full of chocolate that you probably won't want to eat chocolate for another two months afterwards. By the way, that museum was really good, and the tour of the factory I enjoyed, and of course you see the chocolate being made, and then it is fun to enjoy a sample. And what about cheese? The cheese is not even far from there in the town of Gruyère, just outside of Gruyère, the little village, hilltop village. There you can go to the cheese. it's like an exposition cheese factory where you can go and they'll have all the explanations and of course tastings. And this is designed for tour buses so you just can park the bus, park your car, go in there and you'll see the big vat and you'll learn all about how they make the cheese and of course there's always a chance to sample the beautiful Gruyere cheese from Switzerland. Okay, well hey, let's just finish with this idea that I love. To me, Lake Geneva is kind of like the Swiss Riviera. It has a hint of a whiff of the Mediterranean. You've got this languid air, you've got palm trees, sort of this hazy, but you're surrounded by glorious mountains. And you've got these historic paddle boats, these steamers on the lake. Let's say you're staying in Lausanne or Montreux. What do you advise for a little cruise on the lake? You can leave, for instance, the Castle of Chillon. In the summertime, I think it's at 12 o'clock and 2 o'clock, You can do two-hour tours of this end of the lake, which will take you to a couple of beautiful little villages. You can even order a bottle of wine and have a glass of our beautiful Chasselot wine while you on these old 120 paddle wheelers Very nice Tony Lewis thank you so much for shining a tour guide light on an underappreciated corner of Switzerland Lake Geneva Happy travels Tony Thank you so much, Rick. We'll get advice for planning a hiking adventure in Europe in a bit. But first, the author of A Training School for Elephants, Sophie Roberts, is back with us to help sort through the options for a safari vacation in East Africa. The kind that delivers adventure and wildlife viewing and a degree of comfort without turning into a colonial-era cliché. That's next on Travel with Rick Steves. Everybody loves elephants. The chance to view them in person, along with lions and rhinos and wildebeests in their natural habitat, promises to be the trip of a lifetime. While researching conservation stories in East Africa, journalist Sophie Roberts has gotten acquainted with local tour operators and the types of wildlife safaris they provide. She wrote a helpful article for the Wall Street Journal on how to choose a safari from among the many options offered. Sophie's back with us today on Travel with Rick Steves to lay out the options she's found for planning a safari vacation, one that delivers on adventure without falling into colonial-era cliches. Sophie, welcome back. Thank you, Rick. So safaris are a big industry, and they're quite popular. Can you just give us a little general introduction to, in Africa, which countries are the best opportunities for enjoying nature on a safari, and how are they different, and what's your experience been with safaris? Sure. So my very first safari was in Tanzania. That's where I fell in love with elephants, and Tanzania is a big country with a lot of variety. You can do a chimp safari on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, where, of course, Jane Goodall did all her amazing work with chimpanzees. You can do wonderful elephant safaris in parks like the Serengeti. And that great migration that is so famous and justly so, when 1.3 million wildebeest sweep through the Serengeti, they also sweep into Kenya, over the border, into the Maasai Mara. It's a contiguous ecosystem. The Maasai Mara, Kenya, iconic, utterly iconic because of that movie, largely, Out of Africa, starring Robert Redford. the Maasai Mara is a big five country and that means you're seeing the kind of iconic animals. Now that's not the only way to do safari though because you can also go for a single species. So mountain gorillas. I've gone on safari with mountain gorillas in Rwanda. It's the most expensive place to do it. Uganda which is a little bit cheaper and the DRC, the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is at the moment, unfortunately, in a state of chaos. But there are moments where peace prevails, and it's a very special place. So there are so many different iterations of safari. Zimbabwe is very exciting. Hwangi National Park, which has actually got a population problem with elephants. It's got too many elephants. The last place I did safari was last month in South Sudan, a very different story, where there is one elephant left in the southern reaches of South Sudan that is wandering so lonely, is wandering with a herd of giraffe. So... Well, I didn't realize that safaris are oftentimes focused on a particular animal. So you'd have chimp safari or elephant safari. Does that mean you've got a guide and you go out in the bush or whatever and you find and you track this particular species, or is it a free-for-all and it just has a lot of chimps? The really popular safari areas tend to have a lot of species. So as we were talking about this big five, the lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo, and rhino. So the first timer tends to want to see that five. Okay, do the five again. What are those again? I'm just trying to image these. The big five are lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo, and rhino. and only a few places have the Big Five because some of them unfortunately have lost their rhino. What about giraffes? I thought giraffes would make it. No, it's not on the Big Five. The Big Five is originally derived from the time of hunting and they were the hardest to shoot. And then you've got this, there's certain spectacles like you go to Iceland in order to see the Aurora Borealis and you go to Africa on a safari to see the Great Migration. Tell us a little bit about how we might see that and what we would see. Well, that great migration, 1.3 million wildebeest moving. Wildebeest are an animal that are preyed upon by the lion and the other big predators. So where the wildebeest move, you have these other species moving with them. They're moving on an annual 370-mile-long cycle through one contiguous ecosystem, the Serengeti and the Maasai Mara. This is a community of a million of these wildebeest? More than. More than a million moving together. Yeah. And then how do you, as a person on a safari, are you in a Jeep in the middle of that? Or are you in an airplane over it? Or how do you actually experience the great migration? Mostly done in a Jeep. National parks, they don't tend to allow, although country by country varies, they don't tend to allow for walking safaris. So it's mostly in Jeeps. But you can do smaller migrations where you can move differently. There's another migration called the loiter, which runs through the hills, which has got less wildebeest. It's also in Kenya, but that has different rules of engagement. Safari vehicle, the Jeep, is the most popular way of doing safari. But my preference, maybe for a second timer or a third timer, is walking. Because a walking safari, you get to see things up close. you get to understand the life cycle of a butterfly, which is equally magnificent as the two-mating lion. So it's a very different folks for different strokes. But I also love night safaris because nocturnal animals come out absolutely extremely. I love a night walk in a tropical zone or in a faraway place. There's so many nocturnal creatures. And if you have a good guide and a headlamp, you've got lifelong memories. And in Africa, you tend to do it as a night drive because of the predator problem, but not always. You know, there are places where the predators are not there, so you can be safe. So you can walk, you can look at insects, you can go at night, you can do one focused on birds. There's lots of alternatives to the cliched chasing around for lions on a jeep. My greatest safari was a bone safari. I took my little boys, I've got two young sons, and I took my little boys on a bone safari. A bone safari? What's that? We were looking for the bones, you know. We were looking for the, I don't know, it might have been the femur of an elephant or it might have been the skull of a leopard. But these are wild places where death happens and you see these bones lying on the ground of a plane. It's an amazing thing and the children love it. And it means that they can, you know, I'm not putting them in a space where they're in danger of becoming prey, but they are getting a sense of life and death and jeopardy and looking for bones. So that's really wonderful. This is Travel with Rick Steves. We're talking with travel writer Sophie Roberts right now. Her latest book follows a forgotten 19th century expedition through Africa at the height of colonial cruelty and folly. It's called A Training School for Elephants, Retracing a Curious Episode in the European Grab for Africa. Sophie's travel articles appear in such publications as the Financial Times and in Condé Nast. To learn more about her work, her website is sophieroberts.com. Sophie, it is so fascinating to be thinking about these opportunities to appreciate the natural wonders of Africa. I would imagine, like when you're talking about taking a child on a bone safari, the quality of the guide is critical. How does the quality of the guide matter? And how do you make sure you have a good guide? Because I would think that'd be fundamental to a good experience on a safari. It is for me because I'm a storyteller, so I appreciate storytellers. And I spend time before I commit to working with or taking a safari with someone, I spend time on a Zoom call or a WhatsApp just chatting. to see where their storytelling falls, you know, and where their knowledge falls and where they're from. Because I would be a very good guide to my valley in West Dorset, England, where I live. I'd be a shocking guide if I stepped over the border into Devon and tried to tell you about a part of another valley I do not know. So it's that indigenous, local knowledge that's everything. So the best advice I give people booking a safari is get your guide on the phone and talk to them. Now, I want to talk about a few nitty gritty sort of bits on safaris. First of all, is there a season? Is there an off season and a peak season? What are the pros and cons of going during the crowded time or the less crowded time? Is it more expensive or cheaper or, you know, that kind of thing? Well, the cost is hugely different. And I don't see the point of going in high season because in high season, Serengeti, wildebeest migration, there's too many vehicles, in my opinion. What is high season? When is that? It varies in which because it's moving in this cycle. But sort of on the river, everybody wants a river crossing because that's when you see the wildebeest crossing through a narrow part of a river and they get the crocodiles are taking the wildebeest down and it's all blood and gore. And, you know, people like looking at that. I don't particularly need to see that. I certainly don't need to see 30 vehicles. I'm not on a safari to see other folk from my valley in Dorset. But I mean, like in the Greek islands, there's a peak season when it's comfortable weather and everything's open. And there's a closed season when the ferries are turned off and nobody wants to go there. Well, July and August is really busy in that bit of East Africa. And then you get, you know, it's classic school holidays. You get very busy in December and January as well. But safaris go year-round? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I would always go off-season. Green months of November and December, I think particularly spectacular in East Africa. Sophie, is there a do-it-yourself alternative? I would imagine safaris can be expensive. Can you just rent a vehicle and hire a private guide? I do that and have done it a lot over the last few years. Well, I've been researching my book at Training School for Elephants because I needed to keep my costs rock bottom. So I would find local drivers and I would work with them for a few days in an area they knew. It was rare that I'd work with a driver out of an area they knew. And I found some remarkable folk. I would love it if you could talk about the ethics of a safari and how we can take a safari without the colonial clichés and how we can take a safari and come home with that beautiful, beautiful souvenir of a better appreciation of both the fragility and the majesty of nature in Africa and also the hard story of the people and how wonderful the people who you meet are. Go to the Edgelands. So go to your national park, but for every day you spend in a very organized and touristic environment, match that time on the Edgeland. So ask your guide if they can take you into their village community and have a meal. You will find things happen and the stories open up and the connections are made, ask all the questions you can about that person that is sharing their time and passion with you because that's where things light up. That's where it lights up. Sophie, that is the greatest piece of advice. Travel writer Sophie Roberts lives in West Dorset in England and you might see her byline in the Financial Times. She wrote The Lost Pianos of Siberia as a way to uncover stories of how people survived political oppression in the Russian Far East. Her most recent work centers on tracing the historical record of a colonial-era scheme by Belgium's infamous King Leopold II and the legacy it left behind in India and East Africa. It's called A Training School for Elephants. Sophie hosts a travel writing podcast series called Gone to Timbuktu. She's also scheduled to tutor a week-long non-fiction writing retreat at an estate in the Shropshire Hills this May We have web links for that and Sophie earlier visits with us in the notes for this week show at ricksteves slash radio How can you do justice to this notion that we need to give the people of Africa names and we need to understand the colonial reality of Africa and our part in that? It's hard because safari has grown out of a Western tradition. So the way that safari is commoditized and sold to us tends to be through the people that have access to the market. so it's not representative of everyday people on the ground who want access to the market because they don't know how to get to an American or a European they're not the bridge so you have to work much much harder as a consumer to ask questions of your travel agent of your tour operator and of yourself when you are going online to find the safari that you want to make in the place you want to make it. And you have to ask tough questions. Who is my guide? Where are they from? What's their knowledge of that area? Is it indigenous? Or is it somebody that's flying in and flying all over, selling kind of some white version of the safari, some white romance, some white mischief, some Happy Valley narrative, some khaki fever, which is the kind of Anglo-American imagination that's been created by Hollywood. So it is possible if you do your due diligence for a European or an American to take a safari and break out of that continent in golden out-of-Africa hues and get beyond the khaki and connect with the people. I think it is absolutely possible. It just means you've got to work harder as the consumer. And a lot of people are scared of going to Africa. So they use middle people in order to access that safari. And I think that's a pity. I've never felt safer than when I've worked in Africa, you know, taking trains, taking buses, traveling local. I feel really safe there. But Africa has kind of been demonized to the point where it seemed to be dangerous. And I'm not by any, everybody's risk is a personal risk. But I personally feel so safe in that part of the world. I feel that people are looking out for me. The manners are beautiful. And I think that we need to be a little bit more confident about getting into those places on our own terms and not through a conduit that is still colonial in its bones. Sophie, could you just wrap us up with a magic moment you've had connecting with animals in Africa on a safari, and then a magic moment you had in the edgelands connecting with a person, a person whose name you know. A magic moment with wildlife. I was working in Uganda, and I was in an area where there is a small chimpanzee population. And that small chimpanzee population can never move. It can't migrate because it's a relic population. It's not connected to forests that those chimps can move through. And I was listening to the call of the chimpanzees. I couldn't see them. I could only hear them. And then I saw a chimpanzee approach on its hind legs. And that was profound because a chimp on their hind legs reminds us where we all come from. Wow. and then take me to the Edgelands and an encounter you had with a new friend. When I was working most recently in the Serengeti in Tanzania, I was working with a walking scout. So that's somebody who carries a gun, not to shoot to kill, but to protect you on a walking safari. He was a very beautiful man called Pius Massebo. And he revealed to me in the course of our walking together, looking at butterflies, looking at butterflies, that he was a former poacher, that he hunted and killed for bushmeat to feed his family. We talked some more. Over the course of the next few days, he invited me to meet his family. And they literally lived on the edge of Serengeti National Park, the fence right in front of them, that boundary. And we sat down, I sat down with his family, his wife, his children. They made me a chicken curry. They would not take a penny from me. And I started to understand how a man like that did have to shoot for bushmeat because of poverty and how tourism and conservation tourism had given him another chance when he'd learnt that maybe keeping those animals alive was going to be of a greater benefit to his children long term than it was to pick them off one by one to put in the pot. And I found Pius a very moving human who made me see what is not always obvious on the other side of the fence. And that to me is what more of us need to look for when we're in that part of the world. Sophie Roberts, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for writing a training school for elephants and inspiring us to have a better appreciation of the story of Africa. Thanks, Sophie. Thank you very much, Ray. You can see more of Sophie's work at sophieroberts.com. Our next guest grew up in South Africa, but now makes his home in Scotland, where he runs a company that arranges self-guided walking and bike tours on the great trails of Europe. Neil Lapping helps us plan a hiking vacation next on Travel with Rick Steves. Ever since I was a student, I've spent two or three months a year exploring Europe. It never gets old for me, the new things to explore and experience all the time. One of the trends I've been enjoying in the last few years is a slower form of active travel, hiking the historic walking trails of Europe. It gets you up close to the landscape and gives you time to meet and rely on the people who live there. We've spoken previously on Travel with Rick Steves about some of the venerable routes that you can travel by foot for a few days or a few weeks. The options these days make it easier for people of almost any age to do it, with tour operators taking care of logistics, providing detailed route maps, and even transporting your luggage for you to the different places where you'll be staying each night. While there are many companies that offer these kinds of virtually guided hiking tours, I've used Max Adventure to plan trips around Mont Blanc and through the Italian Alps. So I've invited its founder, Neil Lapping, to tell us how these kinds of trips work. Neil joins us from his home in Glasgow, Scotland. Great to be here. Thanks for having me, Rick. Yeah, now, how did you end up in Scotland? I understand you're from South Africa. And then how did you end up creating a hiking company in Scotland? So I fell in love with travel when I was at university and studying. And despite my mother sending me over to the UK to make my fortune, I spent the next five years traveling. and I traveled all around Europe, the world, Australia, New Zealand, and a girl took me to Scotland. And I fell in love with Scotland. My heritage is originally Scottish. My great-grandfather was born in Glasgow. And I was just wowed. And as I was trying to work off my traveling debt in the Northwest Highlands of Scotland, I just saw bus after bus of visitor and tourist experiencing Scotland through the rain-soaked window of a bus. and it didn't matter if you're 18 or 80, but you stopped in the same car park, you went to the same attraction, you stopped in the same shop. And I had had all these adventures around the world, hiking, biking, surfing. And I was like, people need to be experiencing Scotland like this. They need to be outside, meeting people, having unplanned interactions. And Scotland has this amazing network of trails. We call them national trails. So with no money and no idea, I thought I'm going to set up a hiking company running active hikes in Scotland. So this is very interesting. So you provided, I love this idea, find a need and fill it, you know. There was a need. But when you think about a hike, a lot of people think, well, that's not a tour, I'm just hiking. But when it comes to a long-distance hike on a venerable trail, I need some expert to propose a good route, and I also need somebody to efficiently and reliably book my hotels. And a problem when you're hiking is you've got a lot of competition for the existing beds and you're only doing one-night stays. You're generally only hiking and then one night and one night and you can fall through the cracks and there can be all sorts of frustrations. So a company that does these hiking tours provides both of those services, right? Providing a proposed route and then booking the hotels And the bonus is people are still totally free to leave when they want, stop when they want, because you are not with a group, right? Absolutely. So you're traveling independently. And I think I hate being told what to do. I really love walking at my own pace, having a relaxed breakfast or getting up at the crack of dawn to take great photos. And I think it's pretty daunting when you're trying to plan a hike or visit to a new place. It's like, how long should I take? Where should I stop? Where should I stay? and it really, when you're hiking, it really matters where you stay. If you're driving or touring, it doesn't matter if your hotel's a mile or two off the route. But at the end of a 10 or 12 mile days hiking, it really matters where your hotel is. And it really matters that you can get a drink there and a good meal. So I think this kind of detail is super important. And, you know, we go on our trips, myself, my wife, my kids every year. And I love exploring them and the style of travel where you forced, you know, you can only do 10 to 15 miles a day. You're forced to stay in these little places which you otherwise wouldn't. And the more people we can get out of those busy places and into more rural, great local places where they make an impact, the better. You say 10 to 15 miles. I hike usually eight hours a day when I'm on one of these hikes. and normally they're 8 or 10 miles, I think, but they're in the Alps, so we're gaining 3,000 feet. And a lot of your more popular hikes are coastal hikes and, you know, Hadrian's Wall or something. And I'm just curious personally on this. If I'm used to, say, 10 miles a day in the Alps, would that be kind of the equivalent of 15 miles a day on a coastal trail? Absolutely. I mean, some of the coastal trails, to be honest, are some of the helliest. Is that right? But I could do 20 miles a day on my treadmill. You know, I think where having that insight and knowledge really helps. You know, something can look super easy on a map or when you're planning it. And until you've done it, you don't appreciate what it's like. And sometimes 20 miles might be pretty easy. Sometimes eight miles in the Alps is full on. And it's only when you go and do that that you discover this. And also sometimes like our vacations are precious. It's quite funny. often when we're researching these routes, I'll go and I'll be like, ah, this will be amazing. And what happens is you go and do the day's hike and you're like, oh, that was okay. And then the next day, it's incredible. You're like, oh my gosh, why did I waste yesterday doing that day's hike? Well, that's what a good guidebook does. That's what a good guide does. That's what a good tour company does. I always say I hit and miss and miss and hit and miss and bring home the hits and put it into American terms so you can have a better batting average. This is Travel with Rick Steves. We're joined by Neil Lapping, and Neil is the founder and CEO of Max Adventure, dedicated to organizing multi-day hikes on some of the venerable trails in Europe and beyond. You can visit their website at maxadventure.com. You know, Neil, these days, a lot of people are complaining about the crowds, and if you're worried about crowds, well, then don't go to Amsterdam and don't go to Rome and don't wait in line to go up the Eiffel Tower. You know, of course, those are great things to do. But most of Europe is uncrowded, and I've never encountered crowds on any of the hikes I've had. In fact, the people I see on the trail are a blessing. It carbonates the experience loop because I get to talk to people. And I think that the nature of how these trips work because generally you moving along a trail and it rural and there very limited accommodation at each night stop So if you're walking along a trail and there's only one hotel and it's got 40 places, there are only going to be 40 people on that trail. Yeah. And that's the beauty of it. And, you know, I'm allergic to crowds. I love people, but I really, I want the experience with my friends. I want the experience to be authentic. I want the people that you meet on the trail, whether they're locals or fellow travelers, to be genuinely engaged and interested in what you're doing and where your journey is. And I think that's what you get without these crowds. But the beauty of in-to-in or hut-to-hut trails is they're self-limiting. You can't get big crowds down them. Hey, what I'd like to do, just very briefly, review the variety of venerable, I'm talking five or six day hikes, you know. Whether somebody's hiking on their own or if they're going to take some company that organizes things, tell me what the top five or six venerable trails, you know what I mean by the Tour de Mont Blanc, you know, I mean, it's got, you wear t-shirts, it says, I've done the Tour de Mont Blanc. Tell me, in Europe, where are the popular hikes and sort through what the options are, again, whether you're going on a tour or on your own. My first and favorite venerable hike is the West Highland Way through the highlands of Scotland. The West Highland Way. And where is that from? The West Highland Way. And it starts just outside Glasgow. It walks past my garden gate where I live in Lelkheim. I was going to say, you can walk there from Neil Lapping's house. Okay, go to Neil's place. Wave as you go past. And it goes up the side of Loch Lomond. It's following old drove roads, military roads where the English kept the clans under control. It's lochs and glens, and it's truly one of the best in the world. Okay. I think for the Alps, you can't beat the Tour de Mont Blanc. It's just three countries, three cuisines, three cultures. You go over a pass, and you go bonjour to bonjour. I like it because it's a circle, too. You start and finish right outside of Chamonix, and you just keep going in one direction. It's great. And the scenery is spectacular. It is my absolute favorite. And it's 100 miles, but you can cherry pick it and just take the best 60. The best days. What is another Alpine region that would be popular? The Dolomites are absolutely fantastic. So I just think you can't beat the Dolomites for classic, amazing, jaw-dropping scenery, but lovely infrastructure, great mountain refuges where you can stop for a coffee and a cake. You've got to love somewhere where they serve you cake for breakfast. And I think there's so much history there. You're right on the border and you've got all that fantastic World War II history. You know, I love it. You know, I'm friends with Cassandra Overby and she writes long distance hikes in Europe. And she's really into coastal hikes in southern Europe. And it really turns out there's some wonderful coastal hikes down in the Mediterranean areas. What are options there? Yeah, you're just spoiled for choice. you know you've got your kind of classics like the Amalfi Coast where you're going to experience a lot of stairs but you're going to you know have like really buzzy touristy towns and then quiet yeah you know olive and lemon grows high up on the cliffs and that incredible Mediterranean Blue Sea and one of the hikes that's really been gaining traction over the last few years is the road to Avenger China or the Fisherman's Trail along the Atlantic seaboard in Portugal It's wild, it's rugged, it's remote, it's amazing food, fantastic Portuguese wine. Fresh seafood after a long day of hiking. Oh, it's just to die for. But it's still quite undiscovered. Neil Lapping is our guest on Travel with Rick Steves. Neil founded Max Adventure back in 2003 to help travelers design hiking and biking vacations on the historic trails of Europe, the U.K., Japan, and New Zealand. Hikes that are off the beaten path, but with a little support along the way. Their website is maxadventure.com. Now, Neil, I realize you've been doing this for 20 years, and I've been hiking this way for about five years. I've noticed the tech has changed over the years. Tell us how the GPS is improving for hikers. It's been transformational, Rick. When we started off, we used to write guided route notes, and they might say, you know, follow the trail, turn right at the white cottage, turn left at the blue gate. And then someone would, you know, paint the gate white and the cottage blue, and people would get lost. And I think for most people, and then we'd also have to supply maps. And most people find map reading difficult, especially if you're not used to them, you're in a different country, you know, the mapping changes. So over the last five or 10 years, we've moved from those paper maps and guidebooks into our dedicated mobile app. So the beauty is you start the day, you load up your day's hike in the app, and all you've got to do is follow the blue dot. It's, you know, as easy as following, you know, Google Maps on your phone. And it's opened it up for people. You know, I like to say people don't want to go on a navigation vacation. They want to go on a vacation and they switch off. Where am I? Great. I get to a junction. It's easy. It's fun. Anytime I'm hiking, I just I'm getting addicted to that little dot. and where's my trail and where's my dot. Neil, I'd like to take just a couple minutes to talk about the nitty-gritty of this kind of hiking. Gear, clothing, safety, difficulty levels, and so on. First of all, how do you advise people to be careful they don't get in over their head? I mean, I've done the Tour de Mont Blanc, and there's a lot of people that shouldn't do it. It was my limit, you know. You don't want to get somebody up there, stranded in the middle, having to call a helicopter. No, we certainly don't want that. I think the first thing is know your own fitness and abilities. And I think match to what you're doing at home. Start by looking at, okay, what am I comfortable with? And also bear in mind that you're doing this day after day. How are you going to feel like on day three, four, and five when you're creaking a bit? And so I think build up to it as well and don't overstretch because it's not going to be great if you're trying to challenge yourself a bit too far. You know, that's a big mystery and a scary thing for me was, I know I can do it one day. Can I do it six days in a row? And I had never done more than two long hikes in successive days. And now two times I've done six or seven days that are really demanding in a row. And I was pleasantly surprised at how it just got easier and easier. I was almost training as I was doing it. You totally do. I always find personally that day three is the worst. day three you're a bit creaky and then it just gets better and you get to day five or six you don't want to stop I didn't want to stop it's the uncanny weird thing I was done with this trip for a week and my girlfriend and I went to the Cinque Terre and we decided let's go hiking and you'd think we wanted to be done with our hiking boots but we spent five hours hiking in the Italian Riviera that next day when we were supposed to be done hiking but the training I don't think it has to be any huge thing but I had some friends we did the hike with they trained at the Mall of the Americas in Twin Cities, Minnesota. And that's no way to train, you know. And you can't train on your treadmill. That's not going to do the job. You've got to get out there and really hike rough trails. And whether it's 3,000 altitude feet gain in the United States or in Europe, it doesn't matter. It's the same sort of demand on your body. And we had a trail, a hike in Washington State. It's just a steep hike straight up. It's not the most interesting trail, but it gains 3,000 feet up Mount Cy. and we made that a length of measure for us, a Mount Sai. It's 1,000 meters, 3,000 feet and almost all of our hikes are one Mount Sai in the Alps and that means you kind of start at 5,000 feet, you have your picnic lunch on the ridge at 8,000 feet and then you descend into the next valley. So we could do 3,000 feet altitude gain and 10 miles here quite effortlessly. I mean, it was a good day and that made us feel confident about our work in Europe. A hundred percent. I think that preparation and, you know, Mount Sai is probably the top end of the type of trips we do. Loads of the self-guided trails in Europe are much easier than that. Oh, yeah. You know, they're through rolling countryside and really accessible for most people. OK, let's talk about gear, because that makes a big difference. In Europe, they love to say there's no bad weather, just inappropriate clothing. And that is certainly true on the trail. there's such a huge range of places you're going for so i think the first thing is being aware of the time of year southern italy is hot in the middle of summer so first really think what time of year do i want to travel there and most operators will give you a great guide of what's the weather going to be like what to expect and then normally most of the gears what you're going to be hiking with when you're at home if you're in mountains terrain a pair of hiking poles good layers water if it looks like it's going to be colder a flask gloves hats but the the weather can change it depends you know obviously it's much more stable if you buy the coast and it might be more about keeping the sun off your head if you're in the mountains i've hiked the tour de mont blanc in august which is the middle of summer and we've had 30 degree centigrade heat one day and snow a day later. So I think it's about having that classic layers, base layer, mid layer, warm layer, waterproof. I would remind people not to fixate on the weather reports because we nearly canceled a hike once because it looked like it was going to be horrible weather. And we've generally had horrible weather reports and great weather. So weather, you just got to face the weather. But you do know how you make it stop raining is that if you put your coat on, it's going to stop raining. And if you take your coat off, it'll start raining. So true. So true. Okay, so get good gear. Absolutely. And there's amazing gear. And, you know, you can go to any of the outdoor retailers, tell them where you're going, what the weather's going to be like, and they'll advise you so well. The gear has come on incredibly over the last 15 or 20 years. I do want to make a case for poles. I don't care who you are. You don't want to hike in the Alps. I wouldn't hike anywhere without poles. I think it's safer for anybody in my age group. You need poles or you're just asking for trouble. Well, I've just turned 50 and I've been using poles for 20 years. You know, I think they're so super useful if the terrain's a bit rocky or if you're going across a little stream or river crossing or, you know, if there's a bit of snow on the trail. I love them. They're almost part of that kind of feeling of our own adventure. They're part of the rhythm. I'm dancing with my poles. I just, it's much safer. Plus, it gives my upper body a workout as well as my legs and my heart. Yeah, totally. Although after a week on the trail, it's too much good food. So that's the thing. I always go along thinking I'm going to lose weight on the trail and the offset happens because every cake is justified. No, I find that the food tastes better after a good day of hiking. Something about the altitude and good food and camaraderie, all the hikers that you're eating with. And you've earned to eat whatever you want. And when you're in Europe, it comes with great wine. it's just, it's good living Neil Lapping, CEO and founder of Max Adventure thank you so much for joining us maybe I'll see you on the West Highland Way or something like that Thanks Rick, appreciate it Travel with Rick Steves is produced at Rick Steves Europe in Edmonds, Washington by Tim Tatton, Kaz Merhal and Donna Bardsley Affiliate relations are by Sheila Gerzoff Our theme music was written and performed by Jerry Frank. You can find links to our guests, listen to a podcast version of the show, and search the archives at ricksteves.com slash radio. We'll look for you again next week with more Travel with Rick Steves. Hey, I'm Rick Steves. In my work, I've always measured profit, not in dollars earned, but by trips impacted. And after over 40 years of teaching travel, it's clear to me that if you equip yourself with good information and expect yourself to travel smart, you will. 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