Rick Steves is a travel writer who’s on a mission. His name appears on guidebooks to nearly every country on the continent including Croatia and Slovenia as well as France and Italy. Steves has brought more than 30,000 travelers to Europe. His television series Rick Steves Europe debuted on PBS 25 years ago. Steves advises travelers to get off the beaten trail and head for villages where they can see the way local people really live. He’s also a passionate advocate for legalizing marijuana who says he sometimes comes home, smokes pot and like to stare at the fireplace for 3 hours. Steves’ new book is called On the Hippie Trail. It’s a detailed journal about a trip he took with his friend Gene from Istanbul to Kathmandu when he was 23 years old. I talked to Rick Steves about exotic lands, marijuana, travel and mortality.