Rick Steves' Travel Festival

I just got back from Edmonds and a full day at Rick Steves' Travel Festival. I attended lectures on Greece, Turkey, Croatia & Slovenia, Rail Skills, Ireland, Paris and Iran. It was a long day, but I learned a lot, as usual. All of the lectures I had gone to before, but for most it had been a while or I had gone to the same topic by a different lecturer, so it was a good refresher and I of course got some new information. I had to admit, I got pretty bored in the Rail Skills class since I had gone to the course before and have tried to do research online and I knew most of what she was talking about.

On Travel Festival days (about one every three-four months) Rick Steves' Europe Through the Back Door rents out the Edmonds movie theater and the Edmonds Center for the Arts. I decided to stay in one place, so I attended all the lectures at the movie theater except the Iran lecture, which was at the very end since it isn't Europe. It made life much easier since the classes aren't timed to make it easy to walk across town and make it in time for a class at the other location (but I'm sure it alleviates lines at the Travel Center store).

If you are able to, I strongly suggest attending a class at Rick Steves' ETBD. There are classes every Saturday morning and Thursday nights. I haven't gone to a Thursday class yet- they just started them a few months ago- but I'm sure they're great. If you can't go to a class, go to the Rick Steves' website, http://www.ricksteves.com/, and play around. I really enjoy the graffiti wall, where anyone can leave a suggestion or question on a variety of topics. They don't censor unless something is rude or inappropriate, so the site has a variety of posts.

Before the Iran class, I went to the travel store and bought the Ireland travel book and a set of mesh bags. I wasn't planning on buying the Ireland book initially since it's a whole big book for one country (most of the others are either groups of countries or larger countries) but since I'm flying in, I thought it would be good and as soon as I leave, I can give it away so I don't have to carry it around.