By JACKSON HOLTZ

updated 2:19 p.m. ET March 9, 2006

EDMONDS, Wash. - Sprinting his way through Europe each summer, as he has for the last 32 years, Rick Steves often steals lunch from breakfast, stuffing a couple of pieces of bread and some meat into his backpack.

It's not that he can't afford to buy a ham and cheese baguette - the 50-year-old public television star and best-selling author runs a $31 million dollar travel business - he just likes to save time and money.

It's part of a travel aesthetic he's refined and marketed to an audience of baby boomers eager to experience Europe the Rick Steves way: through the back door. Familiar with his TV shows - in heavy rotation on PBS - they are drawn in by Steves' efforts to find new, unspoiled places, his friendly and approachable persona and his commonsense, affordable approach to travel.

"I've got an efficiency and a guerrilla approach ... plus a unique synergy where everything I do helps everything else because it's overlapping," Steves said.

The operations of his company, Europe Through The Back Door, are built to work together: Tour guides update travel books; book research leads to TV scripts; TV shows and a new radio show bring in new customers.

Steves takes no money for the shows he produces for public TV and radio. But he bristles at the notion that he's using public broadcasting as a marketing platform.

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"I'm just a travel writer trying to get more horse power, more amplification," Steves said.

But the affluent, educated and often liberal viewers and listeners of public broadcasting closely match his target customers.

"It is advertising," said Gary Erickson, a marketing professor at the University of Washington. "He's selling his books. He's a good spokesperson for his products."

Steves said he measures success in the number of trips he positively impacts, not in dollars. He said he wants to help the 12 million Americans who travel to Europe each year do so efficiently, affordably and with more meaning. He doesn't belong to major travel industry associations and turns down underwriters if they don't align with his values.

He passed on a deal with Visa because they wanted him to only recommend restaurants that exclusively accepted their credit cards, Steves said. Another deal fell through, he said, because the sponsor was afraid of Steves' liberal politics.

"I have a responsibility to be a good citizen and to be outspoken," he said. "And not to worry about someone who doesn't want to use my guidebooks."

He's criticized the Bush administration's foreign policy and promotes the legalization of marijuana.

Steves found his passion for Europe as a young man, touring with a backpack and a few bucks.

In his 20s, he started teaching a class about traveling to Europe on a budget at the University of Washington. By the early 80s, Steves was leading minibus tours, a half-dozen people at a time.

Just last year, his Edmonds-based company, Europe Through the Back Door, took about 8,000 visitors to Europe.

His guide books evolved out of the class and tour handout materials. Packed with itineraries and chapters on where to stay, what to see and where to eat, the mimeographed handouts started disappearing.

"Decent people were being driven to theft to get that information," he said.

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