Lale Surmen Aran and Tankut Aran, an Istanbul-based couple who have been married for 11 years, lead tours for Turkish and American groups to wherever they can (including Best of Turkey tours for Rick Steves Europe). They have a passion for unusual travel destinations, and always enjoy learning about the past, present, and future of the peoples of the world. With each trip, they say they become new souls, enriched and enlightened, taking one step forward. In addition to traveling, tour guiding, and guidebook researching, they run an Istanbul-based travel agency, SRM Travel (srmtravel.com).
""...he's become the unofficial guide for entire generations of North American travelers, beloved for his earnest attitude and dad jeans.""--Outside Magazine ""[Rick Steves] laces his guides with short and vivid histories and a scholar's appreciation for Renaissance art yet knows the best place to start an early tapas crawl in Madrid if you have kids. His clear, hand-drawn maps are Pentagon-worthy; his hints about how to go directly to the best stuff at the Uffizi, avoid the crowds at Versailles and save money everywhere are guilt-free.""--TIME Magazine ""Every country-specific travel guidebook from the Rick Steves publishing empire can be counted upon for clear organization, specificity and timeliness.""--Society of American Travel Writers ""His guidebooks are approachable, silly, and even subtly provocative in their insistence that Americans show respect for the people and places they are visiting and not the other way around.""--The New Yorker ""Pick the best accommodations and restaurants from Rick Steves...and a traveler searching for good values will seldom go wrong or be blindsided.""--NBC News ""Steves is a walking, talking European encyclopedia who yearns to inspire Americans to venture 'beyond Orlando.'""--Forbes ""Steves is an absolute master at unlocking the hidden gems of the world's greatest cities, towns, and monuments.""--USA Today ""The country's foremost expert in European travel for Americans.""--Forbes ""Travel, to Steves, is not some frivolous luxury--it is an engine for improving humankind, for connecting people and removing their prejudices, for knocking distant cultures together to make unlikely sparks of joy and insight. Given that millions of people have encountered the work of Steves over the last 40 years, on TV or online or in his guidebooks, and that they have carried those lessons to untold other millions of people, it is fair to say that his life's work has had a real effect on the collective life of our planet.""--The New York Times Magazine