Rick Steves Calls Out One Of The Biggest Obstacles Many Vacations Face

When it comes to the big, wide world of travel, there are some voices that carry a whole lot of weight. It could be British comedian-turned-globetrotter, Michael Palin, author of "Pole To Pole" and veteran of round-the-world trips. It could be explorer and writer, Levison Wood, a man who walked the whole length of the Himalayas. But, for Americans, particularly those pining after the old towns of Europe, there's one name that stands out from the crowd as perhaps the most iconic of all: Rick Steves. Since 1976, he's produced countless guidebooks, run travel radio shows, and even designed tailor-made tours, and he has one piece of advice that should help you overcome a huge hurdle to a good vacation.

There's a saying out there that sums it up: "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good." It's been attributed to the French Enlightenment thinker Voltaire, but it's an accurate summary of Rick Steves' own advice. Yep, in a blog post entitled "Making the Most of Your European Trip," Steves hammers home the need to be flexible and spontaneous, or, as he so tersely puts it, "braced for some surprises, good and bad."

He takes pains to point out that there's no such thing as the "perfect" trip. Things go wrong all the time; things you cannot predict will happen. Thankfully, this travel guru also moves to offer a series of tips that should help when stuff goes south. And, just like the very best Rick Steves travel tips, they are usable, workable solutions, ranging from proper planning and forcing yourself to be a little extroverted, to talking to the locals and embracing the glorious uncertainty of travel.

Travel writer Siobhan Warwicker, in her aptly entitled post "Confessions of an upturned turtle: how solo travel taught me to let go of perfection" on the Flash Pack blog, echoes Steves' call to lean into the ups and downs of travel. She recalls how wiping out on Portuguese surf, hiking in the dark on the Cumbrian fells, and falling over on a Himalayan mountainside turned out to be among the most rewarding experiences of all. Steves touches on just that in his guide to the top travel mistakes, where he says the joy of travel is in "not necessarily doing it right."

Take the case of Greece's iconic Parthenon, which became visible without scaffolding for a short spell in 2025, revealing the true grandeur of the ancient temple for the first time in about 20 years. According to Euro News, 20,000 people per day come to see the monument soaring above Athens, the most walkable city on Earth, but how many have let the presence of a semi-permanent scaffold ruin their enjoyment over the decades? Don't be one of them, would surely be Steves' advice, which is echoed in a Reddit thread on r/travel, where one past visitor says, simply: "Spoiler Alert: there is always scaffolding on the Parthenon. If you wait for it to be taken down, you'll never go."

Steves has shared advice before on what to do when you feel disappointed by a destination, and this is more of the same. It's about a way of thinking that involves being positive when things aren't perfect; actively enjoying the process of things not quite working out. It's precisely what the revered travel guru means when he encourages readers to avoid the urge to be a travel perfectionist, and to be "ad-lib ... imaginative and spontaneous while conquering surprise challenges."