A Cosmopolitan Revelation
In the summer of 2018, I skipped Fourth of July barbecues and fireworks at home to venture to a wooden platform balanced atop the Aiguille du Midi in France, an unnerving peak rising 12,602 feet above sea level. The village of Chamonix, a rustic Alpine town turned luxury ski and mountaineering haven, was nestled far below. The day before, I had taken an old-fashioned train to the shrinking Mer de Glace glacier, now better known as a wake-up call to climate disaster than as a sight of striking natural beauty. On this day, though, I braved a 10,000-foot ascent in a gondola crammed with people to a breathtaking cliffside overlook, hoping for a clear view of the top of the Alps. From this perch, tourists were able to see the mountains not only of France but of Switzerland and Italy, including the real Matterhorn (far more impressive than its Disneyland namesake). While many took pictures, others watched an infinitesimal string of mountain climbers scale nearby Mont Blanc, the tallest peak not only in the Alps but in all of Western Europe. The terror and awe inspired by the sheer height and mass of these mountains must have been what Edmund Burke was describing when he wrote about the experience of the sublime.
I sat on a bench to catch my breath. Chamonix was my last stop on a twelve-day, five-country tour of the Alps with a company founded by the revered American travel maven Rick Steves. With a guidebook series that sells more than one million copies a year, some thirty years of television programs, a public radio show, a free app that offers hundreds of country-specific audio guides, a weekly “Monday Night Travel” class virtually attended by thousands of devotees, and an interactive website, Steves has taught Americans how to travel in Europe for nearly fifty years. In a 2019 profile, the New York Times Magazine called Steves a “travel guru” and “legendary PBS superdork…in the pantheon with Mr. Rogers, Bob Ross, and Big Bird.” Steves’s desire to “save the world, one vacation at a time” was visually represented by a cover photograph showing him traipsing exuberantly, à la Maria von Trapp, across a meadow filled with chrysanthemums and Photoshopped butterflies, with a backdrop depicting an idyllic alpine scene rising behind him.11 xSam Anderson, “Rick Steves Wants to Set You Free,” New York Times Magazine, March 20, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/03/20/magazine/rick-steves-travel-world.html. Steves’s philosophy—which he and the guides working in his name describe as “Europe through the back door”—teaches travelers to unlock the “real” Europe through historically grounded, budget-conscious experiences with an emphasis on “extroverted” interactions with locals, with the intention of steering visitors clear of the madding tourist crowds. His company annually leads more than a thousand small-group tours using some forty-six different itineraries, carefully designed by Steves to help people navigate what he describes as a glut of travel information.
