Skip the usual sightseeing and explore the world through your taste buds! These trips are all about eating, cooking and learning how food shapes a place. Whether it’s a rustic farm lunch in Portugal or a honey fair in Wales, each destination serves something worth the journey.

One of the best things about travelling is the dishes that land on your plate. Food says a lot about a place – its history, culture and how its people live. From market walks and cooking classes to farm visits and restaurant tours, these kinds of experiences go beyond the usual sightseeing and give you a proper taste of a place. Whether you’re picking, prepping or just passing dishes around, here are a few gastro getaways worth planning your next holiday around.

PORTUGAL
Some of Portugal’s best food experiences happen far from city restaurants. To see that first-hand, leave the urban hustle behind and venture into the countryside where farm experiences offer a different kind of meal – one you’ve helped create.

Head north to the Douro Valley, where you can help prepare a classic Portuguese meal in a vineyard kitchen before sitting down to eat it overlooking the vines. Near Évora in the Alentejo region, farm-to-table experiences offer rustic dining in traditional settings. Follow a route through agroforestry plots then sit down to enjoy dishes like caldo verde (a popular soup) or vegetable bean stew served with bread and olives grown on the farm.

Along the coast in Comporta, small organic farms provide outdoor cooking classes where you can pick your own seasonal vegetables with a chef instructor, before preparing the meal together. Some farms offer bread baking, cheese- or jam-making, while others guide you through herb gardens or teach you how to press your own olive oil. Lunch is usually outdoors and shared with the farmers, often with a bottle of local grape – not paired, not explained, just poured. It’s all very relaxed, very uncurated.

What you get depends on the season and the people you meet, but that’s part of the appeal. It’s a different kind of culinary trip, one where you trade restaurant reservations for soil under your fingernails and a long, honest meal.

GO: VISIT WWW.VISITPORTUGAL.COM FOR MORE INFORMATION.

SPAIN
If there’s a country built for food-focussed travel, it’s Spain. You don’t need a strict itinerary, just a few streets, an appetite and maybe a guide who knows where the good stuff is. Tapas tours are popular in Madrid, Seville and San Sebastián, each with its own speciality. Some focus on traditional dishes, such as patatas bravas, jamón and anchovies on toast, while others highlight small producers and seasonal bites. These aren’t commercialised, headset-style tours; they’re informal and often led by locals who genuinely love the food. You’ll walk, eat, talk, repeat.

Market tours are equally worth it. In Barcelona, La Boqueria is busy but still full of life, with colourful produce, seafood stalls and paper cones of meat and cheese to eat on the go. In Valencia or Málaga, you’ll find quieter markets where vendors talk through what’s in season and tastings often happen at standing counters between locals on lunch break. Some tours include grape or olive oil tastings; others end with a casual meal. If you care about how people eat, not just what’s on the plate, Spain’s food tours are a straightforward way to learn, taste and spend your day well.

GO: VISIT SPAIN.INFO FOR MORE INFORMATION.

UNITED KINGDOM
The UK’s food festival scene comes alive in September, with weekends packed full of regional flavours, pop-up kitchens and local produce. In South Wales, the Great British Food Festival (September 6 to 7) sets up in Margam Park with live cooking, cake offs and plenty to graze on – from award-winning pies to vegan street food and locally brewed ciders.

Later in the month, Thoresby Park hosts the Festival of Food & Drink (September 20 to 21), with a bigger market-style feel and a wide range of artisan food producers, pop-up cafés, bars, special guest TV chefs, crafts and homewares. For something quieter, Conwy Honey Fair (September 13) is a one-day event in North Wales dating back hundreds of years! You’ll find jars of honey, handmade beeswax goods and small-scale traders who actually keep the bees.

Long-time favourites like the Ludlow Food Festival in Shropshire and Abergavenny Food Festival in Wales also draw loyal crowds for their mix of top chefs, tastings and strong community feel. Beyond these, smaller food fairs pop up in town squares and gardens throughout the country in September; they’re not flashy but full of foodie fun and run by people who care about what they’re making.
If you like your trips slow and grounded, this one’s worth it.

GO: VISIT WWW.VISITBRITAIN.COM FOR MORE INFORMATION.

VIETNAM
Food in Vietnam doesn’t wait. It’s fast, fresh and constantly on the move – wrapped in banana leaves at street corners, ladled from bubbling pots in narrow alleyways and grilled over open flames outside cafés the size of a shoebox. But if you want to go beyond just eating, there are plenty of ways to learn how it all comes together.

In Hanoi, start with morning market tours that give you the basics, walk through aisles of herbs, live fish and mystery snacks you’ll get to taste and guess. Follow that with a hands-on class at a home-style kitchen, learning how to make dishes like pho, bun cha or bánh xèo from scratch.

Hoi An is known for more rural cooking sessions, some of which start with a boat ride and include rice paper making or fishing crabs from coconut groves before you cook. Ho Chi Minh City is better for after-dark tours, often on motorbikes, zigzagging through the chaos to find stalls selling sizzling skewers, broken rice and bánh mì (a typical Vietnamese sandwich) done a dozen different ways.

Whether you’re in the capital, the countryside or the southern sprawl, Vietnam’s food scene is busy, hands-on and full of contrast and heat. You’ll leave with a deeper understanding of the flavours – and probably a new obsession with fish sauce. ✤

GO: VISIT VIETNAM.TRAVEL FOR MORE INFORMATION.