Once upon a time, Rick Steves was just a travel nerd from the Seattle suburbs. Now, 32 years after writing his hit guidebook Europe Through the Back Door, he has an eponymous travel empire and a company leading 11,000 tourists per year. And on Saturday from 9am to 6pm, he—well, his company—hosts one of their thrice-annual European Travel Festivals.

At the Edmonds Theater and Edmonds Center for the Arts, experts lecture on Turkey Tours (a rundown of the various excursions the company runs), Michaelangelo’s Italy (a slide show of David, The Pietà, and the modest little cities that hold them), and Packing Light and Right (they’ll "demonstrate a professionally packed bag"). Everything’s free, with reservations available online. You only spend money if you’re inspired to run straight from the lecture hall to the ticket counters at Sea-Tac.

The Rick Steves Travel Center will be open with extended hours on Saturday as well; besides a travel store, there are rail pass sales, travel consultants, and a massive library of worldly books and DVDs centered around a fireplace.

Steves himself is in Portugal this weekend, but he makes an impact on the Northwest despite traveling four months out of each year. He promotes his home city of Edmonds, donated a building to the local YWCA, and is a board member of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. So he’s probably still the kind of guy you’d like to befriend in a hostel.