Over two decades working as a tour guide in Spain, Portugal & Argentina has meant several months of travel each year… a wonderful opportunity for Robert Wright to deepen his knowledge in each of those countries. His main interests —whether for work or for fun— are history, architecture & current events .
Born in Florida but raised in Memphis, Robert moved to Seattle after university where he almost eliminated his southern accent. Almost. He worked as a toxicologist thanks to studying biochemistry, shipped containers to Asia after receiving a Master’s degree in International Studies, & later ditched everything to go to Spain.
Moving to Cádiz turned out to be one of the best decisions he ever made. Learning local Spanish was far from easy, but after a year he was hooked. Back in Seattle, Robert looked for other places to continue speaking Spanish… and wound up in Argentina. Go figure.
Robert began working as a tour guide and guidebook researcher for Rick Steves in Europe while maintaining residency in Argentina, so his life has spread over several continents since the year 2000. At the same time, Robert set up his own company to offer walking tours of Buenos Aires. They were a big success, trailblazing the way for other expats in Argentina to do the same. His in-depth info from those tours is now available to everyone here in the form of PDF city guides & blog posts.
After 14 years in Argentina, Robert returned briefly to Seattle then moved to sunny Sevilla in 2016 where he married a sevillano… who is also a tour guide! And for the first time since leaving Memphis, he has everything in one place. Amazing but true. During the pandemic, Robert & Rafael purchased a home in the foothills of the Sierra Norte of Sevilla & love their new, small-town life. What adventures are next??
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A more detailed biography has been written at the following post: becoming a tour guide. Robert also took advantage of the pandemic to write about each place he’s lived. The 13-part series begins here.
Media spots
Robert has been invited several times to discuss a variety of topics related to Spain, Portugal or Argentina on the “Travel with Rick Steves” radio show. Any of those 14 programs can be found on the Rick Steves’ Europe website, Soundcloud or Apple Podcasts. The latest —about the Algarve coast in Portugal— is directly linked below:
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Prior to the pandemic, the Rick Steves’ tour member & guide reunion was legendary. In January 2020, Robert hosted the Test Drive a Tour GuideTM presentation for Spain, putting together a PowerPoint presentation with all his own photography. The video is still up on Facebook!
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Robert also appeared in the Lonely Planet tv production, Globe Trekker, doing a guided tour of Recoleta Cemetery for host Judith Jones. It was a great experience, but unfortunately there’s no link to that 2012 program. However if you click on the photo below, you can find a couple posts I wrote about filming & the final reveal:
Contact info
Need to get in touch? The easiest way is via the contact form below. Robert can also be found on Bluesky as well as LinkedIn. Look forward to hearing from you!