Food Travel: Top Trips and Destinations

Once you’ve learned how to make the perfect tiramisu, you’ll never look back. On our 10-day love affair with Northern Italy, you’ll fill your boots in Rome, Siena, Florence, Pisa, the Italian Riviera and Lake Como. Compare notes on the grapes on the San Gimignano vineyard tour with a wine tasting and cooking class, and have your head turned by pretty ingredients on our foodie walking tour of Milan, led by a Local Insider. Don’t worry – you’ll burn off calories with activities such as hiking the cliffs in the Cinque Terre National Park.

This eight-day whisk through Ecuador is part foodie tour, part overview of one of the most fascinating countries in South America. You and your trip mates will get to know ingredients at a market visit before cooking them in a masterclass in Quito, building up to an artisan chocolate tasting. Other ways to savour local fare include a picnic packed with portable goodies after a horseback ride in Cotopaxi National Park and the dreamy fruit ice cream from the craft market in sleepy Salcedo. You’ll balance eating with exercises, whitewater rafting, swimming in waterfalls and hiking.

If you’re going to take a food trip, combine it with scenery and history to really max out your experience. South Korea is a top choice for us, with more than 100 different versions of kimchi. A country that takes its food so seriously will naturally woo you. Feast at Tongin Market in Seoul, embrace vegetarian dishes at a Buddhist temple and dine family-style in a hanok (authentic Korean home) in Gyeongju. In Busan, a cookery class with rice-wine appreciation and a relaxing tea ceremony is the perfect preparation for lunch at the largest seafood market in the country.