Why Travel Guru Rick Steves Say His Prostate Cancer Is a ‘Thrilling’ Journey (Exclusive)

The writer and PBS host, 69, who underwent surgery in October, says he's approaching cancer like a new adventure, with a "traveler's mindset"

• Travel writer and host Rick Steves, 69, was diagnosed with prostate cancer in August

• He underwent surgery in October and says he's approaching cancer with positivity and a "traveler's mindset"

• While he awaits lab results to see if he's cancer-free, he's back to work giving talks and working on his popular PBS series Rick Steves' Europe

Rick Steves makes a point of avoiding easy journeys — "La-La Land travel" is what he calls it when everything is perfectly planned, perfectly comfortable...and perfectly bland.

"I like bumps," the PBS travel guru explains on a Zoom call from his Edmonds, Wash., home for a story in this week's issue of PEOPLE. “I like surprises. I don’t want everything to be figured out in advance. Travel isn’t supposed to be smooth. It’s supposed to be transformational.”

This summer, between trips filming the 13th season of his series Rick Steves’ Europe, Steves, 69, embarked on his most surprising — and most personal — journey yet when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. “I look at things with a traveler’s mindset, with curiosity, joy and positivity, and this was something totally new,” says Steves, who underwent surgery on Oct. 4. "I've never spent a night in the hospital before and all of a sudden, I’m confronted with an existential challenge. It was kind of thrilling and exhilarating.”

Related: Travel Host Rick Steves Reveals Prostate Cancer Diagnosis: ‘I Have Lots to Be Thankful for’

For more than four decades, Steves has been encouraging fellow travelers with his brand of good-hearted optimism to embrace roads less traveled through his guide books, a long-running PBS series and his travel company, which brings 30,000 people each year on tours to Europe. “Travel carbonates your life,” he says. “It broadens your perspective.”

It’s a lesson Steves first learned as a teen. The oldest of three children raised by parents Richard Steves Sr., known as Dick, and June, who owned a piano import business in Edmonds, Steves first traveled abroad with his family at the age of 14.

“One day I came home from school and my dad said, ‘We’re going to Europe to see the piano factories,’” Steves recalls. “And I thought, ‘Boy that’s a stupid idea.’”

But once there, it opened his eyes: “There was different candy, different pop, you could gamble in the hotel lobby, and I distinctly remember statuesque women with hairy armpits. It was a wonderland for a 14-year-old twerp.”

And then he had what he calls an “eureka” moment while sitting in a park in Norway. “My parents were sacrificing hugely to take their unappreciative son to Europe. They didn’t have a lot of money, but they wanted to expose me to that,” he says. “And I looked out in that park, which was speckled
with other parents loving their children as much as my parents loved me. And it hit me, ‘Whoa, this world is home to equally lovable children of God.’ And I thought, ‘This world is an amazing place.’”

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That sense of wonder and connection stuck with him, and a few years later, he vowed to return to Europe every year for the rest of his life. Except for two years during COVID, he’s kept that vow.

He began his career as a piano teacher, taking summers off to travel and jotting notes in journals along the way. Then in 1978, at age 23, he took an epic journey on the “Hippie Trail” across Turkey, India, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan and Nepal. (An upcoming book about his adventure, On The Hippie Trail, based on his journals at the time, is available for pre-order now.) Upon his return, he quit teaching and began giving travel lectures and advice. In 1980, he self-published his first guidebook, and in 2000, he launched his PBS series.

He’s since settled into his image as one of the“lovable nerds on public television,” he jokes. “Like Mr. Rogers, Bob Ross and the Muppets.” He’s also written 110 books and built a travel empire with 100 employees who work on the show, tours and his weekly radio program, which began in 2005 and airs on about 500 stations.

But in August, all of that was put on pause. On his doctor’s urging, Steves had taken a prostate-specific antigen blood test (PSA) for the first time ever. “That probably saved my life,” he says. “Now I’m a crusader for people to get tested.” He’d been showing symptoms, like frequent urination, but didn’t think much of it. His doctor told him his PSA number was “through the roof.”

"I look at things with a traveler’s mindset—with curiosity, joy and positivity"

Rick Steves

Learning he had cancer was a shock. “When you’ve found your niche and you love what you do, it’s like oxygen. You can’t imagine living without it,” says Steves, who spends more than 100 days traveling each year filming and researching. “But when you get that news, you realize work is not as primary. I’ve got to be healthy. I’ve got loved ones I want to be with.”

Those include his children from his previous marriage, Andy, 37, also a travel writer, and Jackie, 34, a teacher, and his girlfriend of five years, Shelley Bryan Wee, a Lutheran bishop. Steves, who is active in the Lutheran Church himself, says Wee, a breast cancer survivor, has been by his side throughout. “She’s an inspiration and is wise and comforting.”

Because of his high PSA numbers, Steves opted to have his prostate removed. The surgery was successful, he says, and doctors don’t think the cancer has spread, but he’s still coping with after-effects, including incontinence. “I didn’t know what the word was and now it’s a big part of my life,” he says with a laugh.

Related: Al Roker Says Early Detection of Prostate Cancer Enabled Him to Meet His Grandchild: 'That Little Girl Is Everything'

He is determined to be open about his journey, even the potentially embarrassing parts. “When I was a teenager, my mother had depression and it was a secret in the family,” he says. “That bothered me. I don’t like needless secrets. We need each other. We need to share. We need support. We need to learn from each other’s experiences.”

The outpouring of good wishes he’s received from fans and friends since his diagnosis has “filled my sails with a loving wind,” he says. “It’s good medicine.”

Later this month, Steves is expecting lab results to learn if he is cancer free. In the meantime, he’s back to the work, and people, he loves.

“I’m on the road to recovery and it’s a beautiful feeling,” he says. “You can’t control where the road takes you in life. Sometimes there’s a bend and you got to take it. You can be positive or negative about it. I'm very positive about my prognosis."

Prostate Cancer: The Facts

• 1 in 8 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer. It’s the second leading cause of cancer death for men, behind lung cancer, but it’s usually slow-growing and most who are diagnosed with the disease won’t die of it.

• Symptoms can include: frequent need to urinate or a loss of bladder control; burning when peeing; blood in semen or urine; and lower back pain.

• A prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, blood test can screen for the disease. Men between the ages of 50 and 69 should discuss having a screening with their doctor. Men who are Black or who have a family history of the disease should start the conversation earlier because their risk is higher.

For more on Rick Steves, pick up a copy of PEOPLE magazine, available on newsstands.