What is experiential travel?
Baking bread in an old windmill, perched on a hill overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Lunch at a picnic table on the Uyuni Salt Flat in Bolivia. Hearing firsthand from a Hungarian winemaker about making wine during Communism. Learning how traditional Georgian quevri are made from one of the last qvevri makers in Georgia.
Experiential travel is immersive. It focuses on actively engaging with the culture, history, people, food, and environment of a place. It’s one of the best ways to create memorable and meaningful experiences that enhance sightseeing and visiting the well-known highlights.
With Global Gourmands, inspiring moments are only the beginning of your adventure. Through carefully curated experiences you are writing your own story, enabling your to experience a destination like a local and coming home as a global citizen.
Culinary travel is a kind of experiential travel, but Global Gourmands brings you beyond the tasting room and immersing you in your destination’s culture and flavors, its people and its history. You won’t just sample a region’s specialties, you will learn the secrets of its terroir and discover the traditions, stories and personal connections that you can’t find on TripAdvisor or anywhere else.
Traveling with Global Gourmands is a journey of discovery – of your destination and of yourself. Choose from one of my upcoming tours or contact me at 708-305-7354 to plan your custom adventure!
Rural Development & Culinary Travel
Gastronomy travel has the unique ability to support rural businesses, create jobs and protect and promote culture and heritage.
I design and operate our tours collaboratively with local people on the ground, who have deep ties in the communities we visit. I believe this gives my clients the richest, most rewarding travel experiences AND contributes to the strengthening of local cultures and economies. This way, Global Gourmands helps generate revenue for small-scale food producers and artisans, locally-owned restaurants and independent winemakers, all of whom are committed to innovative and environmentally sustainable practices.
And, by focusing on areas off the tourist circuit as well as operating many tours in the low and shoulder seasons when crowds have subsided, we help build economic resilience, contribute to the preservation of local cultural traditions and reduce our environmental impact.
