Rick StevesReviews of ricksteves.com

Potential tour clients beware of Rick Steves’ Europe policy and treatment during painful emergency events, how they are insensitive and fail to be supportive! In the event of an unfortunate medical event, that necessitates you to cancel your tour reservation, Rick Steves’ current refund medical and family emergency policy is clearly subjective, giving them sole control to decide if your medical situation was truly an emergency event and if/how much of a tour refund you might receive. Other recent posted reviews highlight how Rick Steves apparently refused to give someone a refund following a Cancer diagnosis and needed treatment. After informing Rick Steve about being forced to cancel tour reservations, due a cancer diagnosis and urgent care requirements, they informed us our reservations had been resold to waitlist clients. Rick Steves told us we couldn’t have friends assume our reservations since they’d already been reallocated (presumably sold) to their standing waitlist. Rick Steves’ Sales Team justified their limited refund decision by pointing to their published policy that states “RSE MAY provide you a refund as described above if one of the following refundable medical or family emergency events requires you to cancel your reservation or interrupts your tour. A Refundable Event must first occur less than 60 days prior to your tour's start date or while on tour. It is RSE's SOLE DISCRETION to determine if your situation is a Refundable Event.” Our emergency cancellation of our tour was less than 60 days prior!! Following Rick Steves initially telling us our reservation weren’t available, to justify their limited “sole discretion” irefund decision, Rick Steves’ Sales Team simply pointed to their policy that gives them sole discretion to justify even if and how much of a refund, and they made multiple questionable and documented conflicting claims about incurring unrecoverable expenses to justify their thinking. For example, contrary to what Rick Steves’ promotes, they claimed they incurred unrecoverable tour guide expenses (yet the tour was full, and they advertise they don’t pay tour guides based on tour group size). This was our first, and definitely our last, Rick Steve’s Europe tour. We even told them we’d accept a credit towards a future tour. They told us they don’t provide credits because it involves too much paperwork for them (really!!!?). Definitely not the sensitive nor reasonable treatment one would expect from a firm that promotes itself as being customer focused and supportive. Particularly from a firm whose founder is a Cancer Survivor himself. Nobody plans for an emergency medical matter. Again, other Rick Steves clients dealing emergency medical situations have reported not receiving any or limited refunds.

We loved our Sicily tour! Yes, we could have done it on our own, but it would have taken us twice as long and we would have skipped some things that turned out to be extraordinary. It is a fascinating state that feels like an entirely separate country and its history is so long and multilayer... invaded by every power from every century. We liked this so much we signed up for Turkey!

We are scheduled to go on a tour in October of 2026. My husband was recently diagnosed with cancer and is scheduled for surgery in late September. As a result of his surgery and recovery period, we are unable to go on the tour. My complaint is that after contacting customer support, I was told that we would NOT be eligible for a refund. We will NEVER book with Rick Steves again.

Recently I was on Rick Steves tour (The Best of England in 14 days) and l had some concerns to report. There were 6 hotels as part of this tour. The initial 4 hotels had no elevators and on all of them l as the ONLY tour member who was consistently placed on the upper floors. You also should know that l am not white and my name was the ONLY one who didn't fit the English language. Coincidence or discrimination????????..If you are a minority traveler with Rick Steves pay attention to any sign of racism or discrimination and don't let them get away with it. I did not and l was assured that my last room (last hotel in London with elevator) was going to be the best....Is England a racist country??..probably ..

We’ve taken six RS Tours and we’ll take more. There is a perfect balance of guided and free time. The prices are reasonable (we would pay more on our own if we did everything planned on the tour AND we would stand in lines to do it. The tours avoid much of the “touristy” stuff (You won’t have to kiss a Blarney Stone!) and offer some unique experiences not available to the public. His guides are local and top notch and not subcontracted. The amount of walking is often overstated but occasionally understated (Rome will kick your butt!). Hotels are not the best but not the worst and prices reflect that.

My first RS trip best of Europe on the farewell dinner I came back from the bathroom to set with my family. the tour guide came up blocked me from sitting there using both arms and was in my personal space. I was completely caught off guard and shocked to say the least, a dreadful experience. When I spoke to my sister later, she said there was so much going on she did not realize this happened to me. I find it absolutely unacceptable. Their response was they would take it as a training opportunity.

Rick Steves recommended Overlord tours for tours in Normandy, this was our experience My brother and sister in-law, my wife and i booked Overlord tours for a 4-day private tour, just the four of us. Having to say Overlord tours was the best thing we ever did, the 4 days were amazing, the vehicle was new clean, our tour guide was Jean, he was like a professor, what a wealth of knowledge about everything in Normandy, (this is the guy to get). Jean went beyond being a guide for us, what a pleasure, we went places i feel most people never get to see, we customized our day and went off the beaten path, to some it up you will love overlord tours for your adventures in Normandy and if you are lucky enough to get Jean as your guide thumps up, wish i could give it more then 5 stars, (side note you can take a nap in between going to locations, it was the best) thank you again Jean for such a great trip. see you again.

We toured Portugal by car in mid-April 2026, following Rick Steves’ itinerary for a 2-week trip. Algarve, Evora, Nazare/Alcobaca, Coimbra, Douro Valley and Porto. It was an enjoyable trip in all ways. We used Rick’s walking tours in each destination, stayed in several of his recommended hotels, enjoyed his restaurant suggestions, and side-trip ideas. Driving was easy and pleasurable with short distances most days. Excellent roads; Googlemaps worked perfectly. This was our umpteenth trip with Rick Steves. His books and videos are a treasure. They have greatly enhanced our many European travel experiences.