Traveling and eating, two things that go very well together. Vacations designed around food are a wonderful way to immerse your self in a destination. Culinary travel, where you travel to learn about the food for a region or country, is one of the best ways to truly experience a culture.
There are different types of culinary travel. You can take a culinary tour, enroll in a gourmet cooking school, visit a wine producing region, attend a festival that focuses on food or alcohol, or just spend a longer period of time in one location sampling the local cuisine.
Culinary tours vary from excursions that take you to specific regions to sample the local food to those that include cooking classes and trips to local markets with fine dining in local establishments. Most tours will combine sightseeing along with the eating and cooking.
Enrolling in a gourmet cooking school for a week can provide hands on experience in preparing meals or specialization in cuisine from a particular destination. Check to see how much hands-on cooking is involved in the classes and what level of expertise you require to have the best possible experience at the school. Are you an amateur or a gourmet chef? Are you taking classes to improve your culinary expertise or just to learn how to prepare your favorite cuisine? There are questions you should ask yourself before you sign up for a travel cooking class.
Spending your vacation in one particular place or region is an excellent way to immerse yourself in local cuisine. By staying in one place and taking day trips for sightseeing you will have the opportunity to sample food from several local restaurants and markets.
Food oriented festivals are held all over the world at different times of the year. The Oktoberfest is held at the end of September in Munich Germany. A combination of a food and beer festival the Oktoberfest draws people from all over the world to help celebrate. In Thailand, the annual Vegetarian Festival occurs in mid-October while in Missouri USA the American Royal Barbecue Contest draws over 50,000 BBQ enthusiasts to Kansas City. There is a harvest festival in India and a Lemon Festival in France, several garlic festivals not to mention the Vidalia Onion festival in Georgia USA. These are just some of the food festivals that occur annually so whatever your tastes or preferences, there is likely a food festival that will appeal to your taste buds.
Wine tasting is another popular culinary trip. There are several wine tasting tours available to every country that produces wine. Travel through the Napa Valley in California or visit the Cape wine lands in South Africa, indulge in the finest wines that Argentina has to offer or go down under and sample some Australian wines. The wine producing areas of France and Germany are a must for wine connoisseurs but Spain and Portugal also offer superb wines. Or maybe you are a Scotch drinker and would rather travel the Whiskey Trail sipping legendary whiskeys.
How you decide to spend your culinary vacation is up to you. Take a culinary tour, attend a cooking school, spend more time in a region to immerse your self in the food and culture, go to a food or beverage festival, take a wine tasting trip or drive the famous whisky trail. Eat, drink, travel and enjoy.
