Get started with steves

library(steves)
library(dplyr)
#> 
#> Attaching package: 'dplyr'
#> The following objects are masked from 'package:stats':
#> 
#>     filter, lag
#> The following objects are masked from 'package:base':
#> 
#>     intersect, setdiff, setequal, union
library(ggplot2)

Source: Rick Steves’ Europe (compiled dataset). This dataset was created from public sources for teaching purposes and is not an official or verified Rick Steves’ Europe dataset. It is shared with the permission of the Rick Steves’ Europe team.

What’s in `episodes`?

glimpse(episodes)
#> Rows: 159
#> Columns: 38
#> $ overall_episode          <int> 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14…
#> $ season                   <int> 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, …
#> $ episode_in_season        <int> 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14…
#> $ season_episode_code      <chr> "S01E01", "S01E02", "S01E03", "S01E04", "S01E…
#> $ title                    <chr> "Portugal's Heartland", "Paris: Grand and Int…
#> $ synopsis                 <chr> "Portugal; barnacles; fishing town; pilgrims;…
#> $ theme_tags               <chr> "Religion & Spirituality", "Art & Architectur…
#> $ episode_type             <chr> "Standard", "Standard", "Standard", "Standard…
#> $ is_retired               <chr> "Yes", "Yes", "Yes", "Yes", "Yes", "No", "Yes…
#> $ primary_country          <chr> "Portugal", "France", "United Kingdom", "Unit…
#> $ all_countries            <chr> "Portugal", "France", "United Kingdom", "Unit…
#> $ region                   <chr> "Iberia", "Western Europe", "British Isles", …
#> $ primary_destination      <chr> "Heartland Portugal", "Paris", "South England…
#> $ iso2                     <chr> "PT", "FR", "GB", "GB", "IT", "DE", "GB", "BG…
#> $ flag                     <chr> "🇵🇹", "🇫🇷", "🇬🇧", "🇬🇧", "🇮🇹", "🇩🇪", "🇬🇧", "🇧🇬", "🇮🇹", …
#> $ lat                      <dbl> 39.66216, 48.85350, 51.35474, 53.25199, 41.89…
#> $ long                     <dbl> -8.1353519, 2.3483915, -0.1353155, -3.0420904…
#> $ geo_match                <chr> "country", "full", "full", "full", "full", "s…
#> $ original_air_date        <date> 2000-09-03, 2000-09-10, 2000-09-17, 2000-09-…
#> $ air_year                 <int> 2000, 2000, 2000, 2000, 2000, 2000, 2000, 200…
#> $ air_month                <ord> Sep, Sep, Sep, Sep, Oct, Oct, Oct, Oct, Oct, …
#> $ air_weekday              <ord> Sun, Sun, Sun, Sun, Sun, Sun, Sun, Sun, Sun, …
#> $ days_since_premiere      <int> 0, 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 49, 56, 63, 70, 77,…
#> $ gap_since_prev_episode_d <int> NA, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7,…
#> $ imdb_tconst              <chr> "tt1453776", "tt1453775", "tt1453778", "tt145…
#> $ imdb_url                 <chr> "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1453776/", "htt…
#> $ imdb_rating              <dbl> 6.4, 7.2, 8.3, 8.0, 7.4, 7.8, 7.7, 7.2, 7.2, …
#> $ imdb_votes               <int> 18, 12, 15, 12, 12, 18, 15, 10, 10, 8, 11, NA…
#> $ imdb_rating_shrunk       <dbl> 7.168969, 7.563797, 7.958889, 7.830464, 7.630…
#> $ imdb_low_votes           <lgl> FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FAL…
#> $ image_url                <chr> "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/0IvZOZtjMYM/maxresdef…
#> $ image_source             <chr> "ricksteves.com", "ricksteves.com", NA, "rick…
#> $ best_summary             <chr> "Portugal has an oversized history, fascinati…
#> $ summary_source           <chr> "ricksteves.com", "ricksteves.com", "tvmaze",…
#> $ best_runtime             <int> 26, 26, 26, 26, 26, 26, 26, 26, 26, 26, 26, 2…
#> $ watch_url                <chr> "https://www.ricksteves.com/watch-read-listen…
#> $ tvmaze_url               <chr> "https://www.tvmaze.com/episodes/525238/rick-…
#> $ tvmaze_id                <int> 525238, 525239, 525241, 525242, 525243, 52524…

One row per episode, 13 seasons, 159 episodes spanning 2000–2025. Most columns fall into a few groups:

Identity: overall_episode, season, episode_in_season, season_episode_code.
Editorial: title, synopsis, theme_tags, region, primary_destination, episode_type, is_retired.
Geography: primary_country, all_countries, iso2, flag, lat, long, geo_match.
Dates: original_air_date, air_year, air_month, air_weekday, plus derived gap and span fields.
IMDB: imdb_rating, imdb_votes, imdb_rating_shrunk, imdb_low_votes, imdb_url, imdb_tconst.
Canonical bests: image_url, best_summary, best_runtime, plus *_source provenance flags.

How often does Rick Steves visit each country?

episodes |>
  count(primary_country, flag, sort = TRUE) |>
  head(10)
#> # A tibble: 10 × 3
#>    primary_country flag      n
#>    <chr>           <chr> <int>
#>  1 Italy           🇮🇹       29
#>  2 Multiple        🌍       20
#>  3 United Kingdom  🇬🇧       20
#>  4 France          🇫🇷       15
#>  5 Germany         🇩🇪        9
#>  6 Spain           🇪🇸        9
#>  7 Turkey          🇹🇷        6
#>  8 Austria         🇦🇹        4
#>  9 Greece          🇬🇷        4
#> 10 Portugal        🇵🇹        4

episodes |>
  count(primary_country) |>
  filter(primary_country != "Multiple") |>
  mutate(primary_country = forcats::fct_reorder(primary_country, n)) |>
  ggplot(aes(n, primary_country)) +
  geom_col(fill = "#1B3A6B") +
  labs(title = "Episodes per country",
       x = "Episodes", y = NULL) +
  theme_minimal()

Horizontal bar chart of the number of Rick Steves' Europe episodes set in each country, sorted from most to fewest.

Are highly-rated episodes a particular kind of place?

imdb_rating_shrunk pulls noisy ratings (some episodes have only 5 votes) toward the show mean. It is always populated, so it sorts cleanly.

episodes |>
  filter(!is.na(lat)) |>
  group_by(region) |>
  summarise(n = n(),
            median_rating = median(imdb_rating_shrunk)) |>
  arrange(desc(median_rating))
#> # A tibble: 11 × 3
#>    region             n median_rating
#>    <chr>          <int>         <dbl>
#>  1 Multi-Region       9          7.91
#>  2 British Isles     23          7.87
#>  3 Balkans            4          7.78
#>  4 Alpine             8          7.77
#>  5 Scandinavia        7          7.77
#>  6 Western Europe    26          7.77
#>  7 Beyond Europe     13          7.72
#>  8 Eastern Europe    10          7.70
#>  9 Mediterranean     34          7.70
#> 10 Iberia            13          7.59
#> 11 Baltic             1          7.50

Mapping the show

lat and long are filled for ~93% of episodes. Compilation episodes (“Travel Skills Special”, “Why We Travel”) are intentionally NA — there is no single coordinate.

library(leaflet)

episodes |>
  filter(!is.na(lat)) |>
  leaflet() |>
  addTiles() |>
  addCircleMarkers(
    ~long, ~lat,
    radius = ~ pmax(3, imdb_rating_shrunk - 5),
    popup  = ~ sprintf("<b>%s</b><br>%s %s<br>%s",
                       title, flag, primary_country, best_summary),
    color = "#1B3A6B", fillOpacity = 0.6, stroke = FALSE
  )

Production cadence

episodes |>
  count(air_year) |>
  ggplot(aes(air_year, n)) +
  geom_col(fill = "#FFC72C") +
  labs(title = "Episodes aired per year",
       x = NULL, y = "Episodes") +
  theme_minimal()

Bar chart of episodes aired per calendar year, showing seasonal production cadence from 2000 to 2025.

What’s in episodes?

How often does Rick Steves visit each country?

Are highly-rated episodes a particular kind of place?

Mapping the show

Production cadence

What’s in `episodes`?