Why Travel Guru Rick Steves Say His Prostate Cancer Is a ‘Thrilling’ Journey (Exclusive)

• Travel writer and host Rick Steves (69) was diagnosed with prostate cancer in August
• He had surgery in October and says he approaches cancer with positivity and a “traveller’s mindset.”
• While he waits for lab results to see if he’s cancer-free, he’s back at work, giving speeches and working on his popular PBS series Rick Steves’ Europe

Rick Steves tends to avoid easy travel — “La-La Land travel” is what he calls when everything is perfectly planned, perfectly comfortable…and perfectly bland.

“I love the bumps,” the PBS travel guru explains during a Zoom call from his home in Edmonds, Wash., for a story in this week’s issue of PEOPLE. “I like surprises. I don’t want everything to be premeditated. The journey should not be smooth sailing. It should be transformational.”

This summer, between trips, he filmed the 13th season of his series Rick Steves’ Europe, Steves, 69, embarked on his most surprising – and personal – journey yet when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. “I look at things with a traveler’s mindset, with curiosity and joy and positivity, and this was something completely new,” says Steves, who underwent surgery on Oct. 4. “I’ve never spent a night in a hospital before and all of a sudden I’m faced with an existential challenge. It was kind of thrilling and exciting.”

Tour guide Rick Steves reveals prostate cancer diagnosis: ‘I have a lot to be thankful for’

For more than four decades, Steves has encouraged fellow travelers to embrace the road less traveled with his kind-hearted brand of optimism through his guidebooks, his long-running PBS series and his travel company, which brings 30,000 people on trips each year. Europe. “Travels deserve your life,” he says. “It broadens your perspective.”

Rick Steves at the Parthenon in Greece in 2021.

Courtesy of Rick Steves

It’s a lesson Steves first learned as a teenager. The oldest of three children raised by parents Richard Steves Sr., better known as Dick, and June, who owned a piano import business in Edmonds, Steves first traveled abroad with his family at the age of 14.

“I came home from school one day and my dad said, ‘We’re going to Europe to see piano factories,'” Steves recalls. “And I thought, ‘Man, that’s a stupid idea.'”

But when he arrived, it opened his eyes: “There were different sweets, different pop, you could gamble in the lobby of the hotel, and I clearly remember statuesque women with hairy armpits. It was a wonderland for a 14-year-old jerk.”

And then he had what he calls a “eureka” moment while sitting in a park in Norway. “My parents sacrificed a lot to take their ungrateful son to Europe. They didn’t have a lot of money, but they wanted to expose me to it,” he says. “And I looked at that park, which was dotted with other parents who loved their children as much as my parents loved me. It occurred to me, ‘Wow, this world is home to equally dear children of God.’ And I thought, ‘This world is an amazing place.'”

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That sense of wonder and connection stayed with him, and a few years later he promised to return to Europe every year for the rest of his life. Except for two years during COVID, he kept that vow.

He began his career as a piano teacher, taking summers off to travel and writing notes in journals along the way. Then in 1978, at the age of 23, he undertook an epic journey on the “Hippie Trail” through Turkey, India, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan and Nepal. (Forthcoming book about his adventure, On the hippie trailbased on his periodicals, it is now available for pre-order.) Upon his return, he stopped teaching and began giving travel lectures and advice. In 1980, he self-published his first guide, and in 2000, he launched his PBS series.

Rick Steves on the “hippie road” in Afghanistan in 1978.

Courtesy of Rick Steves

Since then, he has settled into the image of one of the “lovable nerds on public television,” he jokes. “Like Mr. Rogers, Bob Ross and the Muppets.” He has also written 110 books and built a travel empire with 100 employees working on the show, tours and his weekly radio program, which began in 2005 and is broadcast on about 500 stations.

But in August, all that was put on hold. At the urging of his doctor, Steves took a prostate specific antigen (PSA) blood test for the first time in history. “It probably saved my life,” he says. “I’m now a campaigner for people to get tested.” He was showing symptoms, like frequent urination, but he didn’t think too much about it. The doctor told him his PSA number was “through the roof.”

Rick Steves

I look at things with the mindset of a traveler — with curiosity, joy and positivity

— Rick Steves

Finding out he had cancer was a shock. “When you find your niche and love what you do, it’s like oxygen. You can’t imagine life without it,” says Steves, who spends more than 100 days each year traveling filming and researching. “But when you get that news, you realize that work is not so primary. I have to be healthy. I have loved ones I want to be with.”

They include his children from a previous marriage, Andy, 37, also a travel writer, and Jackie, 34, a teacher, and his girlfriend of five years, Shelley Bryan Wee, a Lutheran bishop. Steves, who is active in the Lutheran Church himself, says Wee, a breast cancer survivor, has been by his side the whole time. “She is an inspiration, wise and comforting.”

Rick Steves and girlfriend Shelley Bryan Wee in the Swiss Alps in 2022.

Courtesy of Rick Steves

Because of the high PSA values, Steves decided to have his prostate removed. The surgery was a success, he says, and doctors don’t think the cancer has spread, but he’s still dealing with the aftereffects, including incontinence. “I didn’t know what that word was and now it’s a big part of my life,” he says with a laugh.

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He is determined to be open about his journey, even the potentially embarrassing parts. “When I was a teenager, my mother suffered from depression and it was a secret in the family,” he says. “That bothered me. I don’t like needless secrets. We need each other. We must share. We need support. We have to learn from each other.”

The outpouring of well-wishes he’s received from fans and friends since his diagnosis “has filled my sails with the wind of love,” he says. “It’s good medicine.”

Later this month, Steves expects lab results to find out if he is cancer-free. In the meantime, he returned to work and the people he loves.

“I’m on the road to recovery and it’s a wonderful feeling,” he says. “You cannot control where your path will take you in life. Sometimes there is a twist and you have to accept it. You can be positive or negative about it. I’m very positive about my prognosis.”

Prostate cancer: the facts

• 1 in 8 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer. It is the second leading cause of cancer death in men, behind lung cancer, but it is usually slow growing and most of those diagnosed with the disease will not die from it.

• Symptoms may include: frequent need to urinate or loss of bladder control; burning when urinating; blood in semen or urine; and lower back pain.

• A prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, blood test can detect the disease. Men aged 50 to 69 should discuss screening with their doctor. Men who are black or have a family history of the disease should start the conversation earlier because their risk is higher.

For more on Rick Steves, pick up a copy of PEOPLE magazine, now on newsstands.

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education