Types of Travel Guide #7: Culinary Travel Guide

All about The Culinary Travel Guide

In this article we’re going to look at the definition of a Culinary travel guide, and look at examples of published guides.

Definition of a Culinary Travel Guide

The food industry is an “evergreen” topic. Human beings’ interest in food is timeless. Well, we all have to eat, don’t we?

If you have a passion for food and cooking, a culinary travel guide might just be the perfect fit for you. Your guide could be a hybrid destination and special interest guide that covers a culinary aspect of a specific destination.

Here’s a couple of examples of Culinary Travel Guides from Amazon:

Globe Pequot Press publish a Food Lovers’ Guide to series that provides the inside scoop on the best places to find, enjoy, and celebrate local culinary offerings of specific destinations.

Keren Brown authored the Food Lovers’ Guide to Seattle: Best Local Specialties, Markets, Recipes, Restaurants & Events. It includes food festivals and culinary events, specialty food shops, farmers’ markets and farm stands, trendy restaurants, time-tested iconic landmarks, and recipes using local ingredients and traditions. Keren’s guide is a hybrid destination, special interest, and event-specific guide.

Ellen Grady wrote the Blue Guide Italy Food Companion, which details how to enjoy the best of Italian food and understand the menu, and provides tips for ordering in restaurants and street markets. This guide is specific and specialized and was written to complement Blue Guide’s Italy destination guide.

Another popular approach for your culinary guide is to choose a specific ingredient or drink and explore a city, region or country with this item as the book’s common thread.

111 Coffee Shops in London That You Must Not Miss was written by Kirstin von Glasow who introduces the reader to London’s most interesting and unusual coffee shops, neighborhood cafés, and espresso bars.

Hardie Grant Media publish Wine Regions of Victoria: A touring guide for lovers of wine and food, which includes regional information, individual winery listings, and details on where to stay and what to do.

The Ultimate Guide to Finding Chocolate in New York City (Lower Manhattan & Brooklyn Ed.): 40 NYC Chocolate Shops was written by Neill Alleva and Rob Monahan, and maps out every chocolate boutique in a specific area of New York City.

Caroline Mignot crisscrossed Paris in search of sugary delights and the resulting book is My Sweet Paris: The Top 150 Places for Dessert in Paris. She guides the reader in the search for the best classics, as well as new creations.

You could also incorporate specific food interests or dietary preferences into your culinary travel guide.

Good Goal authored the Barcelona Guide: to specialty coffee, craft beer, vegan food, ethical fashion, slow food, parks and more, which introduces the reader to Barcelona’s slow food scene.

Alex Bourke wrote Vegetarian Europe, which includes restaurant listings as well as customs and phrases. All the information was compiled from visits by researchers and assisted by local vegetarian groups.

Bruce Hunt wrote Seafood Lover’s Florida: Restaurants, Markets, Recipes & Traditions, which covers the culture of seafood in the Sunshine State. It features the history of the cuisine, recipes both original and contributed by restaurants, and where to find, and most importantly consume, the best local offerings.

Considerations When Planning a Culinary Travel Guide

Food writers need a different vocabulary than travel writers but they still need to rely on the senses to evoke an emotional response in the reader. Writing about food should tickle the senses, so you’ll need to have a passion for food to master this type of travel guide.

Want to learn about the other types of travel guides? Here’s the full list of this article series:

In addition to these articles, I also wrote the following articles about writing a Local Travel Guide (which is a sub-genre of special interest travel guides):

Want to know how to write a Culinary #travelguide? Here's some tips. #amwriting Click To Tweet

If you’re a travel blogger who wants to turn their travel blog into an ebook or paperback destination guide, leave me a comment below.