Ian Watson — Travel Industry Credits

Since 1989 I have worked virtually every summer in the travel industry as a travel guidebook researcher and editor, as a tour guide and tour manager, as a group tour planner, as a cruise ship lecturer, and for a travel bookstore.

Travel guidebooks

Rick Steves' Germany 2011. Updated (part) and took photographs.
Rick Steves' Vienna, Salzburg & Tirol 2011. Updated (part) and took photographs.
Rick Steves' Germany 2010. Updated (part) and took photographs.
Rick Steves' Germany 2009. Updated (part) and took photographs.
Rick Steves' Germany & Austria 2008. Cover photograph (of Trier, Germany).
Rick Steves' Germany & Austria 2007. Updated (part) and took photographs.
Rick Steves' Scandinavia 2006. Updated Finland, Estonia, and Sweden sections and took photographs.
Rick Steves' Scandinavia 2005. Updated Finland, Estonia, and Sweden sections.
Rick Steves' Scandinavia 2000. Updated Finland and Estonia sections.
Rick Steves' Russia & the Baltics 1998. Author (with Rick Steves). (Most chapters available online.)
Rick Steves’ Baltics and Russia 1997. Author (with Rick Steves).
Rick Steves’ Baltics and Russia 1996. Author (with Rick Steves).
Rick Steves’ best of the Baltics and Russia. 1995. Author (with Rick Steves).
Rick Steves' the Baltics and Russia through the back door. 1994. Author.
The Baltics and Russia through the back door. 1993. Author. (Available online in PDF format.)
Frommer’s Eastern Europe on $30 a day. 5th ed. New York: Macmillan, 1994. Author of Albania and Slovenia sections, and updated Hungary section.
Let’s Go: Europe 1992. Editor.
Let’s Go: Europe 1991. Updated Scotland section, and author of Albania and Faroe Islands sections.
Let’s Go: Britain & Ireland 1991. Updated Scotland section.
Let’s Go: Europe 1990. Updated Iceland, Denmark, and Sweden sections.

Tour guiding and managing

2007 — 1 week for Heimsferðir in Italy
2005 — 6 weeks for Rick Steves' Europe in central Europe
2004 — 12 weeks for Rick Steves' Europe in central and western Europe
2003 — 12 weeks for Rick Steves' Europe in central and western Europe
2002 — 12 weeks for Rick Steves' Europe in central Europe
2001 — 12 weeks for Rick Steves' Europe in central and western Europe
2000 — 12 weeks for Rick Steves' Europe in central and western Europe; 2 weeks for Elderhostel/Scandinavian Seminar in Iceland (as group leader)
1999 — 9 weeks for Rick Steves' Europe in western Europe (partly as assistant guide)
1998 — 6 weeks for Rick Steves' Europe in western Europe (partly as assistant guide)
1997 — 6 weeks for Rick Steves' Europe in western Europe (as assistant guide)

Tour planning

2000-2003 — I designed, planned, and administered a 19-day tour of central Europe for Rick Steves' Europe Through the Back Door. This was a wonderful creative endeavor. I got to see hundreds of American travelers discover Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Czechia and eastern Germany. The itinerary rose from one to four to twelve annual departures.

Shipboard lecturing

2006 — Lectures on Norway, Svalbard, Jan Mayen, and Iceland on board the ms Prinsendam, Holland America Lines.

Travel bookstore

1995-1996 — I worked at the Globe Corner Bookstore, a great travel book and map shop in Cambridge, Massachusetts (it's still there).