Richard John Steves Jr. (born May 10, 1955) is an American travel writer, activist, and television personality.

In 2006, he became a syndicated newspaper columnist, and in 2010, his company released a mobile phone application called "Rick Steves’ Audio Europe" containing self-guided walking tours and geographic information.

The family also visited relatives in Norway during the Apollo 11 Moon landing, and in a park in Oslo, Steves came to a realization that would influence him throughout his life: "This planet must be home to billions of equally lovable children of God."

[4] Steves attended the University of Washington, majoring in European history and business administration, graduating in 1978.

After long days of filming in Europe, he has been known to slip script revisions under the crew’s doors at 2 in the morning, then to ask them at breakfast for feedback.

He encourages his readers and viewers to visit not just major cities but also cozy villages away from popular tourist routes.

Steves's television series, guidebooks, radio shows, mobile applications, and his company's European escorted bus tours attract fans known as "Rickniks".

Since self-publishing his first book in 1980, Steves has written country guidebooks, city and regional guides, phrasebooks, and co-authored Europe 101: History and Art for Travelers.

In addition to his guidebooks and television shows, Steves has expanded into radio, newspaper, and mobile applications.

Politically, Steves has identified himself as a member of the Democratic Party, and publicly endorsed Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden's presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2020, respectively.

[18][21] Steves hosted an ACLU-sponsored educational program called Marijuana: It's Time for a Conversation, which was nominated for an Emmy.

In 2005, he constructed a 24-unit apartment complex in Lynnwood, Washington, called Trinity Place and administrated by the local YWCA, to provide transitional housing for homeless mothers and their children.

[23][24] Members of the Edmonds Noontime Rotary Club help maintain the buildings and grounds, providing everything from furniture to flowers.

Steves also donates royalties from one of his books to the group Bread for the World, a movement to end hunger.

[24] As a lifelong traveler, Steves avows that terrorism is something to which Americans should get accustomed, a natural outgrowth of the United States' position in the global community and how it is militarily advanced.

"[27]In Travel as a Political Act, Steves wrote that displaying the American flag on car antennas "creates a fearful, schizophrenic dynamic that may stoke today's terrorism and tomorrow's international conflicts".

[28] On January 20, 2017, the date of Donald Trump's inauguration, Steves matched the sum total of every purchase made on his website that day and donated it to the American Civil Liberties Union.

According to Steves, the website had higher traffic than usual after he announced the effort, and that customers purchased $42,962 in merchandise.

He donated $50,000 to the ACLU and stated: "Those of us with passports and who are wealthy enough to travel a lot—especially white, straight, Christian males like me—don't often think a lot about civil liberties ... at least, not in an immediate or personal way.

[31] Steves is an active Lutheran, and has written and hosted educational videos on subjects such as Martin Luther and the European Reformation.

[35] To recognize his "outstanding service to church and society", the Luther Institute, an affiliate of the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, presented their Wittenberg Award to him.

[40] Steves began dating Reverend Shelley Bryan Wee, Bishop of the Northwest Washington Synod in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, in December 2019.

[42][43] After the cancer diagnosis, in December 2024, Steves opened up about his life in an interview aired on a podcast by The New York Times.

I would have had a very, very beautiful life being a piano teacher, coming home every night for dinner and mowing the lawn, and joining clubs, and, you know, being regular and reliable.