The average American enters Europe through the front door.  This Europe greets you with cash registers cocked, $5 cups of coffee, and service with a purchased smile. To give your trip an extra, more real dimension, [enter through] the back door. Through the back door, a warm, relaxed, personable Europe welcomes us as friends.  We’re part of the party—not part of the economy. Traveling this way, we become temporary Europeans—approaching Europe on its level, accepting and enjoying its unique way of life.  We’ll demand nothing, except that no fuss be made over us.

Extroverts have more fun.  If your trip is low on magic moments, kick yourself and make things happen.  If you don’t enjoy a place, maybe you don’t know enough about it.  Seek the truth.  Recognize tourist traps.  Give a culture the benefit of your open mind.  See things as different, but not better or worse.  Any culture has much to share.

Of course, travel, like the world, is a series of hills and valleys.  Be fanatically positive and militantly optimistic.  If something’s not to your liking, change your liking. Travel is addicting. It can make you a happier American, as well as a citizen of the world.  Our Earth is home to six and a half billion equally precious people.  It’s humbling to travel and find that people don’t necessarily envy Americans.  Europeans are like us, but with due respect, they wouldn’t trade passports.

Globe-trotting destroys ethnocentricity. It helps you understand and appreciate different cultures. Regrettably, there are forces in our society that want you dumbed down for their convenience.  Don’t let it happen.  Thoughtful travel engages you with the world—more important than ever these days.  Travel changes people.  It broadens perspectives and teaches new ways to measure quality of life.  Rather than fear the diversity on this planet, travelers embrace it.  Many travelers toss aside their hometown blinders. Their prized souvenirs are the strands of different cultures they decide to knit into their own character.  The world is a cultural yarn shop, and Back Door travelers are wearing the ultimate tapestry.  Join in!

“The Back Door Travel Philosophy” 
(from Rick Steve’s Europe Through the Back Door: 2007)