Richard "Rick" Steves (born May 10, 1955 in Edmonds, Washington) is an American author, historian, and television personality on European travel. He is the host of a public television series and a public radio travel show, and the author of many travel guidebooks and autobiographies.

Rick Steves began his career by teaching travel classes at the University of Washington in Seattle and working as a tour leader 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, a general guide on how to travel in Europe. 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 there.

In the 1980s, his business (informally known as Europe Through the Back Door or ETBD) grew slowly but steadily. He brought out more guidebooks, published by the alternative publisher John Muir (Volkswagen) Press, under the label ‘2 to 22 Days in....” His group tours competed more on sincerity, small group size, and service than on price. During these years, Steves’ guidebooks and tours had a generous readership. They emphasized authentic experiences and value for money. The books do cover mainstream sights such as the Colosseum and Tower of London, but they also try to point to “back doors” with lower prices that are not in the business of staging cultural experiences for tourists.

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 benefitted from the yearly guidebook updating and his trip consulting businesses and vice versa. The company is privately held by Steves.