Olá, we are Hilary Harp and Michael Schwarz of Atlanta, Georgia, USA. After two failed attempts to participate in a Rick Steves Tour and almost 6 years after booking our first tour, we were excited to embark on the “Heart of Portugal in 12 Days” Tour, September 8-19, 2025. First the backstory.

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We had never been on any organized tour or cruise and prefer to travel independently. We just didn’t think we were “tour people” but agreed that organizing our trips was becoming increasingly time-consuming, less enjoyable and keeping us from traveling more often. 

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Enter Rick Steves. We were familiar with Rick through his books, which we had used on previous trips, and through his PBS travel shows. Despite Rick’s endearing charm and sweetness, we had not really considered a Rick Steves tour, or any tour for that matter. Then Michael attended the American Library Association annual meeting in Seattle in 2019, where Rick was a featured speaker. Michael was blown away by Rick’s talk, “Travel as a Political Act.” A week later, Michael ran into an old friend who mentioned that he had just returned from a Rick Steves tour of Germany and loved it. That was enough to set the wheels in motion to put a deposit down on a Rick Steves tour of Ireland which would take place in May of 2020.  Yes, THAT 2020.

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You might recall that 2020 turned out not to be the best year for travel. Once Covid hit, all Rick Steves tours were cancelled, and we received a full refund. As Covid started to fade, we planned our revenge travel for another Rick Steves trip to Ireland in September 2022. Things were going according to plan until Michael tested positive for Covid right before the tour was to start. We were unable to join the trip but the folks at Rick Steves HQ were super helpful in refunding our full payments. Even though we had signed up for two Rick Steves trips and had not been able to participate in either one, we were really impressed with the company and their focus on customer service. Undeterred by our previous bad luck, we signed up for a 12-Day Heart of Portugal Tour in 2025. Portugal had been highly recommended by some friends and we figured this trip would be a good test to see if we were “tour people.”  Read on to find out if we were.