Travel expert Rick Steves spoke with Boston Public Radio on Thursday about the power of traveling.

"If you get out of your comfort zone and just get out there and wallop your ethnocentrism, it carbonates your life, it gives more color to the palette that you paint your story with," he said. "That's what makes my work as a travel writer something so important and as we deal with the challenges of today — with diversity and good goverance, climate change — it's just much more important than ever that we get a broader perspective."

Rick Steves is an author, television and radio host, and the owner of “Rick Steves' Europe” tour group. You can catch "Rick Steves’ Europe" weeknights at 7:30 p.m. on WGBH 2, and his radio show “Travel With Rick Steves” Sundays at 4 p.m. on WGBH.