https://github.com/moderndive/steves
Tidy snapshot of every Rick Steves' Europe episode (2000-2025) for teaching data analysis
https://github.com/moderndive/steves
Last synced: 10 days ago
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Tidy snapshot of every Rick Steves' Europe episode (2000-2025) for teaching data analysis
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/moderndive/steves
- Owner: moderndive
- License: other
- Created: 2026-05-01T11:56:21.000Z (3 months ago)
- Default Branch: main
- Last Pushed: 2026-06-30T13:47:37.000Z (25 days ago)
- Last Synced: 2026-06-30T15:26:06.722Z (25 days ago)
- Language: R
- Homepage: https://moderndive.github.io/steves/
- Size: 7.01 MB
- Stars: 0
- Watchers: 0
- Forks: 0
- Open Issues: 1
-
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.Rmd
- Changelog: NEWS.md
- License: LICENSE
Awesome Lists containing this project
README
---
output: github_document
---
```{r, include = FALSE}
knitr::opts_chunk$set(
collapse = TRUE,
comment = "#>",
fig.path = "man/figures/README-",
out.width = "100%"
)
```
# steves 
[](https://github.com/moderndive/steves/actions/workflows/R-CMD-check.yaml)
[](https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=steves)
[](https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=steves)
This package is an ode to a wonderfully informative and fun host in Rick Steves. It's a tidy snapshot of every episode of the public-television travel series
*Rick Steves' Europe* (2000–2025), enriched for teaching introductory data
analysis. One row per episode, 38 columns of identity, editorial
classification, geography, air dates, IMDB ratings, country flags,
thumbnails, and canonical best-of summaries.
Built in the spirit of [ModernDive](https://moderndive.com/v2) — almost every column
is a candidate for `dplyr::filter()`, `ggplot2::geom_*()`, or
`leaflet::addMarkers()`.
## Attribution
> Source: Rick Steves' Europe (compiled dataset).
>
> Note: This dataset was created from public sources for teaching purposes
> and is not an official or verified Rick Steves' Europe dataset.
Used with the kind permission of the Rick Steves' Europe team, in keeping
with Rick's long-standing commitment to education.
## Installation
Install the released version with:
```r
install.packages("steves")
```
Install the development version from GitHub:
```r
# install.packages("pak")
pak::pak("moderndive/steves")
```
## Usage
```{r setup}
library(steves)
dim(episodes)
```
```{r glimpse-show, eval=FALSE}
library(dplyr)
episodes |>
count(primary_country, sort = TRUE) |>
head(10)
```
```{r glimpse-run, eval = requireNamespace("dplyr", quietly = TRUE), echo=FALSE}
suppressPackageStartupMessages(library(dplyr))
episodes |>
count(primary_country, sort = TRUE) |>
head(10)
```
```{r ratings, eval = requireNamespace("dplyr", quietly = TRUE)}
episodes |>
filter(!imdb_low_votes) |>
arrange(desc(imdb_rating_shrunk)) |>
select(season, title, primary_country, flag,
imdb_rating, imdb_votes, imdb_rating_shrunk) |>
head(10)
```
```{r ggplot, eval = requireNamespace("ggplot2", quietly = TRUE), fig.height = 3.5, fig.alt = "Scatter plot of Bayesian-shrunk IMDB ratings against original air date for every Rick Steves' Europe episode, point size proportional to vote count."}
library(ggplot2)
ggplot(episodes, aes(x = original_air_date, y = imdb_rating_shrunk)) +
geom_point(aes(size = imdb_votes), alpha = 0.6, color = "#1B3A6B") +
scale_size_continuous(range = c(1, 5)) +
labs(title = "Episode ratings over the show's run",
subtitle = "Bayesian-shrunk IMDB rating; size = number of votes",
x = NULL, y = "IMDB rating (shrunk)") +
theme_minimal()
```
## Provenance
Editorial fields (`title`, `synopsis`, `theme_tags`, `region`,
`primary_destination`, `episode_type`, `is_retired`) are curated. Everything
else is built from public sources and joined back on
`(season, episode_in_season)` or on the IMDB title id `tt1243815`.
| Source | Fields |
| --- | --- |
| [IMDB datasets](https://datasets.imdbws.com/) (non-commercial) | `imdb_*` |
| [OSM/Nominatim via tidygeocoder](https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=tidygeocoder) | `lat`, `long`, `geo_match` |
| [`countrycode`](https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=countrycode) | `iso2`, `flag` |
| [TVmaze API](https://api.tvmaze.com/shows/9872) | `tvmaze_*` |
| [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Steves%27_Europe) episode tables | (cross-reference) |
| `ricksteves.com` Open Graph tags | `image_url`, `best_summary` |
## License
MIT for the package code and tidied data scaffolding. IMDB rating data is
© IMDB.com, Inc. and used under their non-commercial license. Episode
images and summaries are © Rick Steves' Europe and used under fair-use
for research and education.
This dataset is compiled 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.