New essay published in Hedgehog Review

Cover of the July 2024 issue of The Hedgehog Review

An essay I wrote about travel guide Rick Steves and his philosophy of travel was published in the July issue of The Hedgehog Review, a popular journal based at the University of Virginia. The essay was adapted from research forthcoming with the peer reviewed journal, Material Religion. I argue that travel is more than a consumptive practice - we should use the lens of religion to examine it as a “cosmopolitan revelation” and Rick Steves is a “civil religionist.”

Here’s a blurb:

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.1 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.
On my second tour with the company—the first, in 2016, guided me through the “Heart of Italy”—I too was in search of something more than a vacation. Whether it was a reverent walk through the Holy Door into St. Peter’s Basilica or a gondola ride in pursuit of panoramic views, I was seeking a new perspective on life, not just bragging rights on Instagram. With my passage into adulthood complicated by the Great Recession and contentious politics at home, I wanted to be made over into the thoughtful and informed American abroad—all on a budget. My idealistic dream? To be mistaken for a local. Having been told by my Lebanese mentor that it was possible to spot an American in a crowd by the way they walk, I reckoned I needed more than a guidebook to learn the art of fitting in—something more akin to transformation. I had only a few weeks off from work and wanted a way to see the highlights of an “authentic” Europe in a way that would make me more authentic, too.

Anne TaylorJuly 1, 2024