Rick Steves                             
October Surprise

Hi from Rick: October Surprise!

It's not too late to treat yourself to a nice slice of Europe this fall.

Dear Traveler,
I'm just back from two great months in Europe. (Check out my blog to see my favorite stories and photos.) Everyone's asking me, "So where are you heading next?" Actually, I'm giving my passport a rest. I have no plans right now, but I know lots of others who do.

This week I've enjoyed nudging my good friends, Joe and Debbie, onto an October Heart of Italy tour (Debbie is into cooking, and this tour's guide is quite the Italian gourmet). I'm not as "hands on" with our tour sales as I used to be, and this reminded me how gratifying it is to help people sort through their tour options and help plan their post-tour travel as well. It will be Joe and Debbie's first time in Italy. Oh, to enjoy that first time again!

Lots of travelers, taking advantage of low airfares, are booking tours on fairly short notice this fall. And for October we still have seats available for destinations like Venice, Florence, Rome, Greece, Basque Country, Paris, London, Spain and Portugal. (My wife Anne and her girlfriends just grabbed seats on one of our October Spain-Portugal tours.)

So we've cooked up a little "October Surprise" to help nudge you procrastinators: sign up for one of our October (or later) 2009 tours in the next couple of weeks and we'll give you a $200 per person shopping spree in our online travel store. You'll be the best equipped traveler on the bus, on the beach, or in the bistro. See our 2009 tour seats update for a list of departures with seats still available.

And check out this month's Travel News to watch my entire Iran PBS special - free - on Hulu. You'll also find articles that take you into the villages of Bohemia, the cafés of Vienna, and the unsavory minds of Europe's tourist scammers (forewarned is forearmed)!

Whether you are gearing up to travel in 2009, or later (stay tuned to hear about our 2010 tour lineup soon), we're here to get you there.

Happy travels,

Rick Steves

International Travel News for 2009

by Rick Steves - October 2009

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Source: http://www.ricksteves.com/news/travelnews/0909/0909hi.htm