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How to Pack for Travel to Italy: Interview with Rick Steves Tour Guide Sarah Murdoch

sarah murdoch travel guide

[Rick Steves tour guide and travel expert Sarah Murdoch.]

"You don't need as much as you think you do," says tour guide Sarah Murdoch, who's been preaching about the art of packing light for years. With 19 years of travel experience - as a tour guide and guidebook writer and researcher for travel guru Rick Steves - and an average of three to five months a year spent on the road, mostly in Italy and Europe, Sarah has accrued a great deal of expertise on the most effective ways to pack. She's had to considering she's often gone for weeks at a time - usually with just a backpack and a day bag (during our interview, Sarah showed me the backpack she's traveling with on this three-and-a-half-week trip; I liked it so much I had to ask what it was: Cotopaxi Allpa 35L - while her day bag is Tom Bihn Cafe bag). 

Sarah loves teaching travel and has been lecturing for years on how to travel light and in style, something that is especially important in Italy, the country of ‘la bella figura’ - where it's all about making a good impression.  

To catch some of her packing wisdom, we spoke to Sarah this week, as she was leading a tour in Catania , Sicily (she's also co-authored a 2019 Rick Steves guidebook on Sicily, together with Rick Steves and local Sicilian Alfio Di Mauro - a project she worked on for seven years). Read on for her practical tips.  

Sarah, you recently tweeted about being able to make a tight connection at JFK airport after your first flight was delayed, having to run, in the dark (!) from one terminal to the other, only because you were carrying a 15-pound backpack and a purse. You wrote that it would have been impossible with a rolling bag. Tell us about the advantages of a backpack over a rolling suitcase or carry-on.

When you carry a backpack, you're forced to think about weight. You have to really think, do I need that extra dress?, or, do I need that extra pair of shoes? So, typically, it forces you to pack light. With a rolling bag, you don’t care as much, but the reality is, you need to care because you still have to lift it to place it in overhead bins, you have to take it on and off the train, and, especially in Italy where there are cobblestone streets, it's not easy to get around with a rolling bag.

I try to convince people to travel with a backpack even if they think they're too old for it or haven't traveled with one for years. When I started working for Rick Steves, we traveled with backpacks and stayed in hostels with our groups, so we come from a tradition of backpacking. Rick Steves himself, up to the last time I traveled with him, was still using a backpack. People don't need as much as they think they do .

Sarah Murdoch is a Rick Steves tour guide

[Sarah Murdoch is a tour guide and a guidebook writer and researcher for Rick Steves. Photo credit: Adventures with Sarah Facebook page.]

So, what are then the real travel essentials? Let’s start with clothing. How do you pack light and not look sloppy? How do you select what to bring?

My whole concept of packing light is a bit different because I really focus on weight rather than what you bring.

To select, I start with the color scheme, or I'll find a piece of clothing or jewelry or a scarf that I really like. Scarves are important here in Italy, so I'll often choose a scarf I really like and then I'll choose clothes that match it. If all of your clothes match one scarf, they're going to match each other too, and even if they don't, you can wear the scar to tie it up together.

For colors, I usually start with blacks, whites and greys, which makes it easier. That doesn’t mean you only have to bring those colors. This year for example, I went with a light color scheme: different shades of white and beige. It looked really good, clean and fresh, and you don't look like a tacky tourist. I've always tried to figure out how we can look good and feel good about ourselves when we travel .

Beyond that, I also bring jewelry with me because I'm in Italy a lot and here you should accessorize. I collect jewelry from places I visit. The necklace I’m wearing now comes from Mount Etna . I buy things that have an interesting story. People will often comment on them, and if I have a story to tell, it's a great way to start a conversation.

One of my clients said there was one thing missing from my packing list for Sicily though: stretchy pants… for when you eat all the pasta and cannoli!

sarah murdoch travel guide

[You don't want your bag to look like that.]

Do you do laundry while you travel?

Absolutely. But I'm on day 10 here in Sicily, and  I have enough clothes that I don't need to yet. That’s because I bring items that are really light. This dress I have on weighs less than a t-shirt. I pick what to bring based on fabrics - this dress I’m wearing is made of very thin cotton and doesn't wrinkle easily – and on the amount of space it takes; this way, I can pack twice as many clothes as people normally can.  

What about shoes? They’re heavy and take up space, but you often want shoes that are comfortable as well as shoes that are nice enough to wear at night.  

Indeed the heaviest items are shoes and toiletries. People often ask me on my blog how I select shoes. I do searches by weight. From there, you can select other criteria, such as shoes for people who have special needs.

I have three pairs of shoes with me right now. Typically I bring a pair of nice-looking sandals, comfortable but stylish; a pair of slip-on shoes that are very comfortable; and, since it’s summer time and I'm in Sicily, I brought flip flops with me. I found a pair that has wedge heels, so you can almost make them look like a nice pair of shoes, but I can also swim in them. I was swimming in Favignana a couple of days ago, and I'm so glad I brought them because I couldn't have gone into the water without shoes. Here in Italy the beaches are often rocky. So you think of shoes you can use in multiple ways .

Cala Azzurra Favignana

[Rocky Cala Azzurra beach in Favignana, Sicily.]

You mentioned toiletries as being some of the heaviest items. How do you select what to bring?

In Italy you can get everything, so you don't need to bring all of your toiletries with you. It’s actually fun to go to a good old farmacia and shop for stuff you can’t find in the U.S. You only need to bring the things that you can't replicate somewhere else.

Toiletries and shoes are places where people could easily lose a lot of weight if they think creatively.

What about electronics? This is now a major must-have for everybody and we have so many devices. How do you make a selection?

You have to think about what you really need. So many of these electronics can do the same thing. I tell people to not bring a big camera anymore. It doesn't make any sense in the age of good digital cameras and phones. All my Instagram photos, the photos on my blog and even those in the Sicily guidebook were taken with my iPhone. If it's good enough to be in print, it's good enough for your photos. You can take great shots with a good phone nowadays.

I’ve brought an iPad before and I enjoyed that. You can use it for a lot of different things. But, do you really need it?

I bring my laptop only because I'm a writer and I need to work on my blog or pieces that I want to pitch. If you don't need it for work, a good quality phone will do everything now .

What do you find are the items that people tend to bring that are generally useless?

People bring hairdryers. You don't need hairdryers if you're staying in a hotel. The most useless thing anybody brings is a converter. That's a thing from the past. iPhone and electronics now have a converter built into it.

Then they bring too many toiletries, and too many books. Why add that weight if you can read on a tablet or on a phone?

In general, people regret bringing too much; they often don't wear all the things that they brought. If you're smart about how you pack, you can bring clothes that look good anytime . For instance, this simple black dress I have on is fine for any time of the day.

sarah murdoch travel guide

[Sarah in Sicily. She co-authored a Rick Steves 2019 guidebook about the region.]

Do you use things like money belts or fanny packs? Are you concerned with pickpockets when you're traveling in Italian cities?

I’m not, but that's because I’m six foot two and I've been traveling for 25 years, so I can pick a pickpocket out of a crowd like that. I'm a tour guide and my job is to be able to see the dangers. But I absolutely always suggest that travelers do invest in a money belt where you can place your passport, credit card and all your important documents. It's peace of mind. I now it's uncomfortable and makes you look fat, but I always tell people, it's like an instant diet: you go home, take it off, and you've lost 10 pounds. Feel better about yourself!

I have my money belt attached to the inside of my day bag, so they can’t steal it. And my day bag, I don't carry it on my shoulder, I carry it across my chest and I casually rest my arm on top of it. Backpacks as day bags are easy to pickpocket, and as for purses, imagine walking down Spaccanapoli and someone on a scooter snatches it. If you wear it across your body, it’s less easy. The people that have been pickpocketed on my tours have been careless, such as carrying wallets in back pockets.

If you’re at the Vatican Museums with 20,000 people, there are so many easy targets, and if you're the person with the bag across your chest and you're aware of who's around you, that's all it takes.

Crowds inside Vatican Museums in Rome

[Crowds inside Vatican Museums in Rome.]

Any packing tip specific for travel to Italy?

I would definitely suggest that people dress a little bit nicer than the way they dress at home. Italians in general dress a lot more formally every day. Even if it's jeans - they wear Armani jeans, or they'll wear stilettos with the jeans! Italian women look gorgeous because they put on multiple layers. The way you put your outfit together makes it interesting . That’s a cool opportunity because you want to think about, how can I be in the Dolomites in the morning and on the beach in Catania in the afternoon: it's easy, you wear layers. In the U.S., we're not taught how to accessorize and how to layer clothing.

So my suggestion for people who want to travel more Italian style is, think in terms of layers: a sleeveless shirt, a light shirt, a light scarf and a necklace. Those are things that don't weigh anything, but small details like that make a world of difference, especially in a country where la bella figura is such an important concept. The way you present yourself in Italy determines how you're going to be treated . If you’re sloppy, you show a lack of self-respect. If you present yourself a bit more elegantly, it's showing respect to the people around you. That's not a concept in American culture.

Thank you, Sarah, for sharing your precious packing tips. We can all use them!

Check out Sarah’s blog at Adventures with Sarah , where you can also keep up to date with her latest tours and dispatches from the road. Here's a good travel gear list by Sarah .

Interview has been edited for clarity and length. 

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Sarah Murdoch promotes tours for a post-pandemic world.

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by Mike Nelson All photos courtesy of Sarah Murdoch

Long before the coronavirus wreaked havoc on the 2020 tourism business (and business in general), Sarah Murdoch was already thinking about the future of her industry.

Specifically, Murdoch — a Ventura-raised, Seattle-based architect-turned-travel guide, writer and impresario — had come to the realization, based on two decades of leading tours for Rick Steves Europe and her own Adventures with Sarah tour company, that tourism as many know and experience it needs to change.

“As tour operators, local guides and visionaries,” she explains, “we have the opportunity to make a conscious decision to make tourism better, more thoughtful and sensitive, and not promote the mass tourism mentality with everyone descending on the same city square all at once.”

“The Holy Grail of tour guiding,” she adds, with a broad smile, “is to create a sensation of individual travel, and to experience the delight and spontaneity of individual travel as a group.”

To that end, Murdoch and two dozen of her tour guide friends around the world — who share her “outside the box” approach to travel — have formed The Guide Collective, devoted to transforming the travel experience for those seeking something deeper, more intimate, more enriching and certainly more unique than a collection of Instagram posts.

That experience includes “virtual” livestreamed tours — a leisurely walk through Siena, perhaps, or a bike ride through a small French village — and, pending a healthier 2021, small-group “staycations” that prioritize making local connections over visiting “famous” locales.

“Of course, people want to see Big Ben,” she says. “But I would bet that for those who travel with me, Big Ben isn’t what they remember about visiting London. It’s going to that little pub, sitting with the locals and meeting the pub owner, and hearing local ghost stories.”

Especially in a post-pandemic world, a reality Murdoch experienced when, using her Irish passport, she visited Italy for five weeks in September to meet with fellow tour guides and local travel officials, and to livestream “virtual” experiences through Facebook to hundreds of followers.

For Murdoch — a graduate of Ventura’s Poinsettia Elementary and Balboa Middle Schools — her trip brought back memories of her first experiences in Rome during the 1990s, as an architecture student in the University of Washington’s study-abroad program.

Five years after earning her degree, Murdoch abandoned her architecture career for a job with Rick Steves Europe, leading tours and writing guidebooks. She later founded her aptly-named Adventures with Sarah company that takes travelers to out-of-the-way places — the kind of travel experiences that the Guide Collective, of which she is founder and executive director, will offer.

Recently, between juggling her roles as travel impresario, “Cucina Quarantena” online cooking instructor (from her home kitchen through Facebook) and home-schooling mom to sons Lucca and Nicola, Sarah Murdoch spoke by Zoom with Ventana on her experiences of and vision for travel going forward.

Ventana: What is the appeal of travel or you?

Sarah Murdoch: My first trip abroad was at age 10 with my family to see relatives in England and Ireland. We did the big grand tour of Europe, and it blew my mind. I loved the diversity, how each city was so rich in history. And in Europe, the trains can take you to see so much; in two or three hours, you can completely change culture.

A lot of people when they travel think, “I’ll see these things or sights.” But what about people’s experiences?

As a professional, I don’t think check-the-box, bucket-list tourism is as rewarding as people imagine it is. People get a lot more out of a trip when they step away from that need to take that Instagram photo, and go as culturally curious people, accompanied by someone who can help them understand and interact with the local culture, not just see the sights.

I led a tour several years ago in Cambodia, and of course you go to see Angkor Wat. But most memorably, we stopped in this little village in the middle of nowhere because we saw they were selling honey. We got out, talked to the locals, sat in their houses, bought honey and experienced their way of life. My son, who was 12, said, “You know, they may not have TV or electricity or what makes me happy, but they are probably happier than we are.”

And that drives the work I do now. How do I create tours and write about travel in a compelling enough way to get people to think deeper about how to approach their travel? Is it, get that photograph and say you saw the Mona Lisa, or do you want to connect with the local culture?

How did the Guide Collective come about?

That idea has been in my head for a couple of years, because I had a different vision of how travel can go. It started with Adventures with Sarah. Then, when about 30 tour guides were laid off in May from Rick Steves, I thought, let’s try something new. How do we carry on doing the work we love, in a time when we can’t do it?

I know a lot of interesting people around the world who have the potential to connect with many more, especially through social media. I wanted to help everybody who was at loose ends, so I called a meeting in April of anyone wanting to learn how to do videos or be a travel writer.

We’re now at 20 to 25 people, some who I hardly knew before this, and our vision keeps growing. Collaboration is so powerful, and so many people in different countries have different skill sets. It’s been almost like a support group for unemployed tour guides, because it’s hard not to do what we love so much.

What kinds of virtual and in-person travel experiences will your Guide Collective members offer?

Initially, we want to have two or three live virtual events weekly as long as the pandemic lasts, depending on what the situation is. By doing virtual tours, we see a way to make it through this pandemic, make a little money, and find a new way for people to express ourselves.

In Italy, it was really cool doing live streams. A local guide in Pompeii called me to come do a virtual tour, the first one he’d done all year, and said, “It felt good to be normal again.”

As for actual tours, Guide Collective is not a tour operator, though it may become one. At the moment, it’s simply a way to promote tours that each Guide Collective member can operate, and you go online through the individual member to book tours. Some are sold out for next year, and I think we’ll do really well, because people have responded favorably to our different vision for travel.

What can a Guide Collective member offer that a larger company cannot?

It’s a more personal experience. You’ll book a tour directly with the person leading the tour, so you know what you’re getting. People who sign up with me are excited to travel with me because they know what to expect, they get my personality and my silly sense of humor. You know everyone in your group is on the same page, and it’s more enjoyable.

If you’re leading a larger group with a lot of people who don’t know you, you have to spend time proving you know what you’re talking about. As an American tour leader, I’ve had people look at me like, “Who do you think you are, talking about Sicily?” and it takes time to convince them that, yes, I’ve spent a lot of time in Sicily, I do know what I’m talking about. [Murdoch co-authored Rick Steves’ 2019 Sicily guidebook.]

How large will your groups be, and how does the pandemic affect that?

My ideal is 14 or 15 at most. That means your costs may be higher on one hand with a smaller group, but as small operators without a corporate parent we also have a smaller overhead — I work from home, for example — so we can still offer competitive prices.

Travel will be changed irrevocably after this pandemic. Bus companies and museums are anticipating regulations that will limit the numbers, so you can’t pack 28 or 29 people on a bus, or 40 to 50 from a cruise ship, to visit crowded museums anymore. I don’t think anyone wants that; it’s not safe or smart.

Talk about destinations and itineraries; how will they be different? 

I’ll take people to see things where there aren’t other tourists. You can find cities everywhere that people have never heard of that offer amazing things. In Italy, one of the places I’ll go to is Puglia; it’s glorious, with wonderful museums and architecture, and hardly anyone speaks English. There is plenty to see outside of the main city centers, away from crowds, where you can see culture in action.

And I am a spontaneous person; I avoid detailed itineraries. If I see a pecorino farm by the road in Sicily, I want to pull over and talk to the guy. With a small group, you can take people places you can’t take big groups to. It’s so lovely to share those spontaneous adventures with others.

Elaborate on the “staycation” concept.

Well, you could go to Venice for two days, stand shoulder to shoulder with thousands of people in St. Mark’s Square and think Venice is too crowded. The reality is that Venice is a beautiful little village with a relatively small population, where everybody knows everybody.

So I’m planning a seven-day staycation in Venice that focuses on Venice’s six districts, each with something that’s unusual and local. We want to turn people’s expectations upside down. Tourists enjoy ciccheti [appetizer] crawls in the evening, and we’d love to do that in the morning, when the locals go for a morning glass of wine and a snack. Let’s eat and experience the city like a local.

My friends in other cities are creating similar itineraries to change the narrative in tourism. Bottom line: I want it to be a local perspective.

Before the pandemic, tourism had become increasingly popular — maybe too popular?

2019 was the busiest year ever for tourism, and it was a mess. People were everywhere, and cities all over Europe felt like they were at a breaking point. And those of us in the tour industry were losing our marbles by year-end because it was too much.

Now with the pandemic,   we’re having a breather. We know tourism will come back, but do we want it to come back to what it was?

What do the locals want?

In Italy I talked with travel writers, hotel and restaurant owners, and others who have a stake in tourism. And the bottom line is that they do not want people to do 10 cities in five days because that does nothing to promote cultural understanding. They said, “We’d love to see people stay longer in one place, at least a week, go to local museums that have two visitors a day, learn our culture, eat in local restaurants, and really become part of our cities.”

And that’s everywhere, not just Italy or Europe. People want travelers in their communities to get to know the place. The locals love this idea; it’s putting money in their local businesses in their communities, family-owned hotels and restaurants.

It’s an idea worth trying, and I think it will be the way people enjoy travel in the future.

Guide Collective tours being offered for 2021 and 2022 (subject to local health and travel regulations) include New Zealand, Australia, Italy, Spain, Greece, Slovenia, Morocco, South Africa, Uganda, India, Patagonia and Peru.

For more information visit:

The Guide Collective: www.guide-collective.com .

Adventures with Sarah: adventureswithsarah.net .

Facebook: adventureswithsarah

Twitter: @sarahrmurdoch

Instagram: @adventureswithsarahm.

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I enjoyed reading this and thought you might also. https://www.seattletimes.com/life/travel/seattle-tour-operators-that-have-survived-covid-19-tell-how-they-made-it-and-what-they-make-of-travels-future/

Carol, thanks for sharing this delightful article. Way to go Sarah!

Yes, thanks for sharing. Sarah's Cucina Quarantena was one of the websites that helped getting through the early days of Covid easier (for me). I also enjoyed her travels to Europe last summer and this. Thanks, Sarah.

I admire Sarah’s creativity and entrepreneurship in keeping her business going through the pandemic. I went on her small tour to Venice the last week of August and had a fantastic time. She learned well from Rick Steves over her 20 years working for him!

I took that photo of Sarah rowing in Venice! What a delightful surprise to see it in the article. Fantastic staycation, as Judy B described in her trip report .

Sara was our tour guide on my very first Rick Steve’s trip, she was awesome!! We did Venice, Florence & Rome and she was so knowledgeable and interesting that she inspired us to “keep on traveling “ and we’ve done 7 RS tours since. I am so glad she is still sharing her talents with travelers.

Thank you for sharing this article. I love Sarah and her travel blog. And bonus - Ranier was the very first tour guide we had with Rick Steves so happy to see he’s equally creative in surviving the pandemic as a guide.

Carol..thank you for posting this! The portion of the article about Rainer Metzger was a welcome surprise. He was our guide on the South Italy tour…knowledgeable (especially in architecture), calm in the face of Italian strikes (!), and without any patronizing or condescending attitude. We would travel again with him in a minute. So glad to see that he’s up and running!

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Seattle tour operators that have survived COVID-19 tell how they made it — and what they make of travel’s future

Travel workers have had a particularly rough go of things during the coronavirus pandemic.

Practically overnight, their livelihoods went from being rooted in a lucrative, global industry to a grounded one. The travel industry has continued to have stops and starts as waves of this pandemic have come and gone ; the promise of vaccines and summer activities led to a hopeful moment, but then came the surge of the delta variant.

Caught in the middle were tour operators and guides. We spoke with three creative operators with Seattle ties to find out how they survived the last 18 months, and how they’re thinking of their businesses — and travel as a whole — going forward.

For Sarah Murdoch, the pandemic started with a blow. She’d spent 20 years as an Italy tour guide for Rick Steves Europe, which came to an end when the company reduced employee hours and laid off guides last summer.

Luckily, Murdoch had started her own touring business on the side six years before, Adventures with Sarah, focusing on destinations outside of Europe like Southeast Asia , Morocco and Egypt. After the layoffs, she threw her energy into expanding her business. She sewed and sold a lot of travel-themed masks, and started cooking demonstrations for her 50,000 Facebook followers in a series she called “Cucina Quarantena.” That led to a Patreon page, where devoted fans could pay for additional content, like live walking tours around Italy. “That’s been paying my mortgage, actually,” she says. “My fans really backed me up.”

Still, she wanted to keep taking groups around the world. She considered what kind of activities would work during a pandemic. No big museums, she realized, and no large crowds. Instead, “we’re going to be focused on the nontouristy aspects.” Last year, she put tours on the books for 2021, hoping the pandemic would allow for travel by then.

So far, she’s been able to make the tours happen. She spoke with The Seattle Times from Italy, where she’d brought a group of 12 people. Rather than hopping across several countries in a single trip, she and her tour group are in one hotel, one country, and branching out on activities from there.

But even that has challenges. “This is a day-by-day thing, honestly,” she says. Rules around the pandemic change so quickly. What are airport regulations? Are PCR tests required? What are the local requirements?

She has 12 tours planned from summer into fall. “I’ve been joking with people that I’m going to get a sainthood at the end of the season if I’m able to run all tours we have scheduled.”

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Online content was a huge part of Regina Winkle-Bryan’s strategy, too. As the founder and trip facilitator at Bold Spirit Travel , she began livestreaming tours from guides she’d worked with abroad, like an art historian who gave viewers a tour around the Jewish Quarter in Rome or an Italian chef offering cooking classes, and hosting multiday seminars on various travel subjects.

But real-life tours were crucial, too. Her business had been focused on international travel, but travel restrictions made her realize there were plenty of places to take people here in Washington. She began offering tours of Mount Rainier, Leavenworth, and a wine and waterfall tour along the Columbia River Gorge.

Both the local tours and the online offerings have been more successful than she expected. “There have been a lot of silver linings in this, frankly,” she says.

Local tours had their challenges, though. Triple-digit temperatures this summer led to cancellations on her Leavenworth tours, and she had to bump the starting time up by several hours for those who were still committed. It was also unseasonably hot during one of her wine and waterfall tours. “It hasn’t just been COVID. It’s also been climate,” she says.

Still, she intends to get back to consistently touring internationally, with itineraries that allow for both safety and flexibility. Late last month she was guiding a small group walk of the Camino de Santiago along the French route.

What type of person is traveling — let alone joining a tour group — right now? “It’s the boldest of the bold,” Winkle-Bryan says. Fully vaccinated folks who have weighed their risks and are eager to travel anyway. And the passage of time has at least given people more tools, she says. “I think people are more used to having to deal with all of the precautions that we need to take these days and are ready to go and do something, even if they have to do it with a mask on.”

However bold they may be, recurring upticks in cases have scared some would-be travelers away. “I wish we weren’t having these issues with the delta variant,” Winkle-Bryan says. “I know that there is a great need for tourism. Italy and Spain depend on tourism, especially Americans.”

Seattleite Rainer Metzger, tour operator at Guided By , says he knew he’d have to start thinking about his business differently soon after he, too, was let go by Rick Steves Europe. “It was pretty clear to me early on that pandemic-era travel would be very, very different,” he says. “I survived by taking the time to reformat my business into a post-pandemic tour product.”

Having a small, flexible, independent company has made changes easier to enact. Like Murdoch, his tours are smaller and slower. There’s more exploring neighborhoods and talking to locals, which has been a significant change. His groups often ask locals: What was it like to live here during the pandemic?

“The connections with people now are stronger than with paintings in a museum,” he says. And some cultural features have been enhanced by the pandemic. “It was amazing to see a city like Rome, where dining outside was already popular — they doubled down and now there’s twice as many places outside with seats,” he says.

But he, too, has been facing changes due to variants, despite these silver linings. “I’ve had a lot of postponements, and cancellations even, because of delta. The last month has been kind of a tough month,” he says.

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He’s not trying to persuade anybody to behave differently. “Each traveler is going to have to decide for themselves when they are comfortable traveling again,” he says. Except for one thing: “If you’re not vaccinated, you should not travel internationally.” He hopes people will go further than that by getting tested before and after travel, too, regardless of country requirements.

For the most part, people nervous about delta are postponing until next year. Metzger hopes the pandemic will improve, or booster shots will increase confidence in travel. He intends to travel around both Italy and Morocco over the next several months, both operating tours and researching future ones.

However long the surge lasts, Metzger expects many of the pandemic’s changes to travel will remain. “I think people will enjoy traveling in small, familiar groups, people will spend more time outdoors, and I think people will make more last-minute choices,” he says.

Murdoch agrees. She’s even created a service where travelers don’t get their itinerary ahead of time, called “Trust Me,” to add an extra element of surprise and discovery to the trips.

“If there’s one thing people have taken away from the pandemic, it’s that we were all going too fast,” she says. Even on once-in-a-lifetime trips, people were go, go, go. Now, when people travel, a good tour operator should be “helping people savor their time,” she says, “rather than be in a hurry to take a picture.”

The opinions expressed in reader comments are those of the author only and do not reflect the opinions of The Seattle Times.

IMAGES

  1. How to Pack for Travel to Italy: Interview with Rick Steves Tour Guide

    sarah murdoch travel guide

  2. How to Pack for Travel to Italy: Interview with Rick Steves Tour Guide

    sarah murdoch travel guide

  3. Tour Guide Sarah Murdoch

    sarah murdoch travel guide

  4. How to Pack for Travel to Italy: Interview with Rick Steves Tour Guide

    sarah murdoch travel guide

  5. Interview with Sarah M.

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  6. Tours with Sarah

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VIDEO

  1. Cucina Quarantena, Thailand Edition: Ae Pikul cooks pineapple curry with us

  2. Cucina Quarantena: Beef Burgundy

  3. Unpacking: Review of TravelPro Maxlite 5 Suitcase and Unpacking of Goodies from Italy

  4. Adventures in Sicily: Ancient Syracuse

  5. Cucina Quarantena: Garlic Soup

  6. Cucina Quarantena Field Trip: Tayaki downtown Seattle with beanfish.net BeanFish

COMMENTS

  1. About Sarah

    Sarah Murdoch is a professional tour guide, travel writer, artist and occasional architect. Beginning her adventures as a kid in 1985, she's been exploring regularly since the travel bug bit her while studying in Italy in 1995.With a BA in architecture from the University of Washington, she worked as an architect before abandoning the drafting board for the allure of the open road.

  2. Adventures with Sarah

    with Sarah June 21st-28th, 2024 $3750 Double / $4600 Single Pre-Tour Athens Extension: June 18th-21st $1250 Double / $1500 Single.

  3. Adventures with Sarah

    Sarah Murdoch is a professional tour guide, travel writer, artist and occasional architect. Beginning her adventures as a kid in 1985, she's been exploring regularly since the travel bug bit her while studying in Italy in 1995. For the past 20+ years she has been guiding and writing travel guides, spending 4 months per year globe trotting.

  4. Adventures with Sarah

    Sarah Murdoch is a tour guide, travel writer, and tour operator covering the globe, specializing in Italy. She worked for more than 20 years for Rick Steves as a tour guide and travel journalist ...

  5. Our Guides

    Sarah Murdoch, Guide Collective founder, is a tour guide, travel writer, artist, architect, and lecturer. For 20 years, she wrote and researched for Rick Steves guidebooks, co-authoring "Rick Steves Sicily.". Through her blog and travel community, Adventures with Sarah, she offers tours around the world, along with packing advice and travel ...

  6. Adventures with Sarah

    Adventures with Sarah. 58,890 likes · 3,340 talking about this. Join tour guide and packing ninja Sarah Murdoch for travel tales, packing tips, travel advice and insider guide knowledge.

  7. Lisa and Sarah Talk 2023 and 2024 Tours

    Sarah Murdoch is a tour guide, travel writer, and tour operator covering the globe, specializing in Italy. She worked for more than 20 years for Rick Steves, and co-authored the Rick Steves Sicily book. Formerly an architect, she uses her design skills to create innovative packing strategies. Her packing lectures have helped thousands of ...

  8. Sarah Murdoch

    Sarah Murdoch Adventures with Sarah. Sarah Murdoch, trained as an architect, abandoned her drawing board in 2000 to lead tours and research guidebooks for Rick Steves' Europe. ... She lives in Seattle but prefers to be roaming the globe with her favorite travel partners, her sons Lucca and Nicola. ... Guide Collective. C/O AWS. 7511 Greenwood ...

  9. Packing Light and Right with Sarah Murdoch

    Welcome to Adventures with Sarah! You are watching Packing Light and Right.Sarah Murdoch is a tour guide and travel writer who lives out of a backpack for 4 ...

  10. How to Pack for Travel to Italy: Interview with Rick Steves Tour Guide

    [Rick Steves tour guide and travel expert Sarah Murdoch.] "You don't need as much as you think you do," says tour guide Sarah Murdoch, who's been preaching about the art of packing light for years. With 19 years of travel experience - as a tour guide and guidebook writer and researcher for travel guru Rick Steves - and an average of three to ...

  11. Packing for Travel with Sarah Murdoch

    Sarah Murdoch of Adventures with Sarah and Guide Collective shares her tips for packing light and right. Each video shares tip and tricks learned over 25 yea...

  12. Sarah Murdoch promotes tours for a post-pandemic world

    Specifically, Murdoch — a Ventura-raised, Seattle-based architect-turned-travel guide, writer and impresario — had come to the realization, based on two decades of leading tours for Rick Steves Europe and her own Adventures with Sarah tour company, that tourism as many know and experience it needs to change. "As tour operators, local ...

  13. Adventures with Sarah's Substack

    My top 10 books for travelers to Italy. 📚 The perfect last minute gift for all kinds of travelers and learners. Dec 10, 2023 •. Sarah Murdoch. 3. 2. The Negroni: The Ultimate Italian Cocktail. History of the Drink + New Takes on the Classic Negroni 🥃. Nov 4, 2023 •.

  14. Packing Light for Shoulder Season Travel with Sarah Murdoch ...

    Tour guide and travel writer Sarah Murdoch shares her strategy for packing light, with tips on weight, products to choose, and a general philosophy for packi...

  15. Sarah Murdoch

    Founder and Executive Director of The Guide Collective, a travel magazine and hub for virtual tours. ... about Sarah Murdoch's work experience, education, connections & more by visiting their ...

  16. 5

    #travel #travelguide #adventures #globaladventures #luxurytravel #luxurytraveladvisor #luxurytraveldestinations Meet Sarah Murdoch, with Adventures with Sara...

  17. Drinks with Sarah Podcast

    Sarah Murdoch—tour guide, travel writer, and CEO of Adventures with Sarah—has drinks with friends all over the world. Join in on conversations about travel, life, and good living. Learn about Sarah, her tours, her life, and her adventures at adventureswithsarah.net

  18. Sarah Murdoch (guide) featured in News Article

    Sara was our tour guide on my very first Rick Steve's trip, she was awesome!! We did Venice, Florence & Rome and she was so knowledgeable and interesting that she inspired us to "keep on traveling " and we've done 7 RS tours since. I am so glad she is still sharing her talents with travelers. Posted by Amy. FL.

  19. Seattle tour operators that have survived COVID-19 tell how they made

    For Sarah Murdoch, the pandemic started with a blow. She'd spent 20 years as an Italy tour guide for Rick Steves Europe, which came to an end when the company reduced employee hours and laid off ...

  20. Lachlan and Sarah Murdoch donation to Sydney's queer history museum

    Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. There is one irreverent Mardi Gras entry unlikely to ever go on display at Sydney's new multimillion-dollar Queer history museum ...