Rick Steves
Rick Steves at the Mountain Hostel in Gimmelwald, Switzerland
Born	(1955-05-10) May 10, 1955 (age 57) Edmonds, Washington, U.S.
Occupation	Writer; television & radio host
Known for	Travel guides
Religion	Lutheran

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Richard "Rick" Steves (born May 10, 1955, Edmonds, Washington) is an American author and television personality focusing on European travel. He is the host of the American Public Television series Rick Steves' Europe, has a public radio travel show, Travel with Rick Steves, and has authored various location-specific travel guides.

Career[link]

Steves started his career by teaching travel classes at his alma mater, University of Washington, and working as a tour guide in the summer. At the time, he also worked as a piano teacher (his father had owned a piano store). In 1979, based on his travel classes, he wrote the first edition of Europe Through the Back Door (ETBD), a general guide on how to travel in Europe. Steves self-published the first edition of his travel skills book ETBD in 1980. Unlike most guidebook entrepreneurs, he opened a storefront business, which at first was both travel center and piano teaching studio. He held travel classes and slide shows, did travel consulting, organized a few group tours per year, and updated his books. He did not provide ticket booking or other standard travel agency services. He incorporated his business as "Rick Steves' Europe Through the Back Door." The store was in Steves' hometown of Edmonds, Washington (a city north of Seattle). The company's headquarters are still in Edmonds.^[1]

During the 1980s, his business grew slowly but steadily. He brought out more guidebooks, published by the alternative publisher John Muir Press, under the label "2 to 22 Days in ..." His group tours competed more on sincerity, small group size, and service than on price. He sold railpasses and travel gear in his store and eventually by mail order, ran a trip consulting service, and held slideshows and lectures. Gene Openshaw, a childhood friend of Steves', wrote most of the history and art material in his books. Dave Hoerlein, an architect by training, drew maps for the guidebooks and became a popular tour guide.^{[citation needed]}

In 1991, the company had approximately five employees. That year, Steves began producing TV shows about European destinations. These shows were produced with his own funding and given to public television stations for free. The TV shows made him a nationwide figure, and his tour, guidebook, and merchandise businesses boomed. An important factor in the company's success was the information exchange possible between the various parts of the business. The tour business benefited from the yearly guidebook updating and his trip consulting businesses, and vice versa. The company is privately held by Steves.^{[citation needed]}

Current activities[link]

Steves advocates independent travel. His books and media deal with travel mainly in Europe, and are directed at an American audience. As host, writer, and producer of the popular and long running Oregon Public Broadcasting television series Rick Steves' Europe, and through his travel books, he encourages Americans to become what he calls "temporary locals." He encourages his readers and viewers to discover not only major cities, but also cozy villages away from popular tourist routes. Steves' television series, guidebooks, radio shows, mobile applications, and his company's European escorted bus tours attract fans known as "Rickniks".^[2]

Steves' relationship with public television began with his first series, Travels in Europe with Rick Steves, in 1991. Since then, he has become one of public television's top pledge drive hosts, raising millions of dollars annually for stations across the U.S.^{[citation needed]} He writes and co-produces his television programs through his own production company, Back Door Productions.

Tourists of Italy encounter Rick Steves on a backstreet, using his book as a guide.

Since self-publishing his first book in 1980, Steves has written country guidebooks, city and regional guides, phrase books, and co-authored Europe 101: History and Art for Travelers. His guidebook to Italy is the bestselling international guidebook in the U.S. In 1999, he started writing in a new genre of travel writing with his anecdotal Postcards from Europe, recounting his favorite moments from his many years of travel. Steves' books are published by Avalon Travel Publishing, a member of the Perseus Books Group. In 2009, Steves published the book Travel as a Political Act, a guide to political advocacy based on his travels.

In addition to his guidebooks and television shows, Steves has expanded into radio, newspaper and mobile applications. In 2005, Steves launched a weekly public radio program, Travel with Rick Steves. Focusing on world travel, each program has a guest travel expert for interviews, followed by call-ins with questions and comments. In 2006, Steves became a syndicated newspaper columnist with his Tribune Media Services column. In 2010, he launched the mobile application Rick Steves' Audio Europe, a library of audio content (including self-guided walking tours) organized into geographic-specific playlists for the iPhone and Android.

Political advocacy[link]

Steves supports the decriminalization of marijuana among responsible adult users in the USA.^[3] According to Steves:

Like most of Europe, I believe marijuana is a soft drug (like alcohol and tobacco), not a hard drug. Like alcohol and tobacco, there is no reason why it shouldn't be taxed and regulated. Crime should only enter the equation if it is abused to the point where innocent people are harmed.

Steves is currently on the Advisory Board of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. He is a co-sponsor of New Approach Washington, an initiative to legalize, tax, and regulate marijuana in Washington State.^[4] Steves hosted an ACLU-sponsored educational program broadcast, Marijuana: It's Time for a Conversation.

Steves also supports issues of homelessness. He purchased a 24-unit apartment complex in Lynnwood, WA to house homeless mothers and their children. It is administrated by the local YWCA.^[5] He raises funds for the hunger advocacy group Bread for the World.^[6]

Steves also supports the arts. In 2011 he gave US$1 million to Edmonds Center for the Arts and Cascade Symphony Orchestra.^[7]

Steves is an Honorary Council member of NARAL Pro-Choice Washington.^[8]

Views on Terrorism[link]

In a column for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Steves wrote about the September 11 attacks:^[9]

And the United States was outraged. So much so that—three long years later—many Americans still refuse to even dignify the attack by asking, 'Why did they do it?'

A few years later in an interview with the Seattle Times, Steves said:

I think we're 300 million people and if we lose a few hundred people a year to terrorists, that doesn't change who we are and it shouldn't change the fabric of our society. Frankly I think we should get used to losing—as long as we're taking the stance in the world of being the military superpower, you're going to have people nipping at you. And if it's hundreds or thousands—we lose 15,000 people a year to have the right to bear arms and most people think that's a good deal, year after year. We spend 15,000 people for the right to bear arms. What do we spend to be as aggressive and heavy weight on this planet? We're always going to have terrorism."^[10]

In a book Steves writes: "We cannot rest on the notion of the 'innocent civilian.' Morally, when it comes to a free and powerful nation like ours, I believe there are no innocent civilians. If I pay taxes, I am a combatant." ^[11]

Family and personal life[link]

Steves is divorced and the father of two grown children, Andy and Jackie.

In 2005 Steves purchased a 24-unit apartment complex in Lynnwood, Washington and had it fixed up to serve as transitional housing for homeless mothers and their children. Steves is allowing free use of the complex for 15 years—leaving management responsibilities to the local YWCA Pathways for Women, while Rotarians in the Edmonds Noontime Rotary Club help maintain the buildings, do grounds upkeep, and provide everything from the furniture to the flowers. In addition, the club raised $30,000 in donations to build a play structure for the children of Trinity Place.

Steves is an active Lutheran, and has written and hosted educational videos on subjects such as Martin Luther and the European Reformation of the Church. He writes "I've got no problem with hedonism ... after all, I'm a Lutheran."^[12] Steves supports Liberation Theology^[13].

Steves spends about a third of every year in Europe, researching guidebooks, filming TV shows, and making new discoveries for travelers. He lives and works in his hometown of Edmonds, Washington, where his office window overlooks his old junior high school.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Rick Steves at the Internet Movie Database
• Transitions Abroad interview with Clay Hubbs
• Rolf Potts interview
• Transitions Abroad columns written by Steves
• Interview: Rick Steves on Guided Tours
• Interview: Rick Steves on Baby Boomer Travel Trends
• Steves on KUOW radio program Speakers Forum
• The Rick Steves Guide to terrorism in the world
• Can we fight terrorism constructively?

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Isabelle Antena is a French singer and songwriter, notable both as a founder of electro-samba pioneers Antena and also as a prolific and successful solo artist.^[1]

Isabelle Antena is a pioneer of bossa nova and samba-inflected nu jazz and electropop. She was a founding member of 1980s French-Belgian synthpop trio Antena, and in the 1990s led another group, the Powaga Sisters, for three albums between 1993-2004. Alongside these projects she maintained a solo music career, selling over a million albums and earning musical acclaim across the globe. As a solo artist Isabelle Antena has found particulat success in Japan and the Far East.

Originally Antena were a trio,^[2] discovering a sound all of their own on Camino del Sol, combining minimal electro, pop and samba styles. Thanks to producer Martin Hayles, in the summer of 1984 Antena signed a deal with Phonogram, who took a shot at the UK singles chart with "Be Pop". At the same time Isabelle moved to London. The second single, "Life Is Too Short", appeared in November, but did not bring mainstream success and so Isabelle returned to Les Disques du Crepuscule and a solo career. A new single, "Seaside Week End", appeared at the beginning of 1986, closely followed by the album En Cavale. Released early the following year, Hoping for Love saw Isabelle step left of the dance-floor, and expand her latin, funk and samba palette to include jazz and acoustic stylings.

Hoping For Love took Isabelle to Japan for the first time, where in 1987 she was voted best international female singer at the prestigious Tokyo Music Festival. Her subsequent performance at the Tokyo Dome between spots by Earth, Wind & Fire and Kool & the Gang remains a career highlight. Isabelle quickly consolidated this success with her third solo album On a Warm Summer Night. In Europe this was released as Tous Mes Caprices, and promoted with a Belgian tour supporting Vaya Con Dios, whose bass player Dirk Schoufs would go on to collaborate with Isabelle as a writer and musician, and become her second husband. Always a prolific writer, Isabelle went on to write and record De l'Amour et des Hommes (1988) and Jouez le Cinq (1989) - the latter being re-issued only months later as Intemporelle (1990) - performing live across Europe as well as North America and Japan. Dirk Schoufs left Vaya Con Dios to join Isabelle, bringing with him Vaya drummer Marco De Meersman and Fritz Sundermann, jazz guitarist and son of Freddy Sunder.

This quartet formed the new creative core for the next album, Les Derniers Guerriers Romantique, a conceptual work released in April 1991. However tragedy struck on May 24 when Dirk Schoufs died, leaving Isabelle devastated. Following a year of reflection, she returned to the studio in 1992 to record one of the best albums of her career, Carpe Diem, released in Japan and France in November. Recorded by Gilles Martin with colleagues including De Meersman and Sundermann in the comfort of Studio Caraibes in Brussels, Isabelle produced the album herself.

Since Carpe Diem, Isabelle has released a further ten albums, spanning jazz, funk, latin and house styles, as well as writing for and producing for other artists. These have included Fragile on the Rocks, The Powaga Sisters and the jazz project Pause Cafe. Although as a solo artist Isabelle Antena has often found greater commercial success in Japan and the Far East than in Europe, she remains critically acclaimed in Europe and the United States.

In 1996 the track "Antena" opened the first ESL compilation^[3] by Thievery Corporation, and since then Isabelle has worked with many current DJs and producers including Buscemi, Nicola Conte, Ursula 1000 and Yukihiro Fukutomi. Along with Thievery Corporation, all contributed to her popular 2005 bossa mix double album, Easy Does It / Issy Does It (Remixes), and Thievery guested again on the 2006 Antena project Toujours du Soleil. Completing the Antena trilogy, Bossa Super Nova was issued in April 2010. Isabelle remains an artist of genuine integrity, proudly independent, and faithful to the philosophy she espoused to the New Musical Express in 1984: « The fact that we have had to struggle quite a lot to get to even where we are now is not important. I think there is always a value in people whose music is not mainstream. What is hard to listen to today might be easier to listen to tomorrow. The good thing about music is that anything is possible ».

Discography[link]

1. Camino del sol (1982)
2. En cavale
3. Hoping for Love
4. Tous mes caprices (aka On a Warm Summer Night)
5. De l'amour et des hommes
6. Jouez le cinq
7. Intemporelle
8. Take Me to Paradise
9. More Acid Than Jazz
10. A la belle etoile
11. Carpe Diem
12. Easy Does It
13. Issy Ioes It (on vinyl only)
14. French Riviera
15. Toujours du soleil
16. Mediterranean Songs
17. Bossa Super Nova (2010)

References[link]

External links[link]

• http://www.isabelleantena.com
• http://www.ltmrecordings.com/antenabio.html Isabelle Antena biography at LTM
• http://www.myspace.com/isabelleantena

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