Why We, Travel Bloggers, Are Such Hungry Peeps!?

Today’s post is all about the food so don’t read it on an empty stomach!

“People who love to eat are always the best people”

Julia Child
Hungry peeps
A girl is eating candies in Sri Lanka
Indulging in a local candy, Sri Lanka

Food and Travel

Food is an essential part of our travels – everyone can agree with that. Almost all travelers love to try different dishes, experiment with new foods, mix flavours and spices to see what new food combinations they can discover. We all (travel bloggers) seem to be curious about foreign cuisines and there is nothing better than indulging in a Belgium waffle, Italian pizza, Chinese baozi, Japanese sushi, Polish pierogi, Czech trdelnik or Indian curry, right? More adventurous and passionate food lovers (like Cez and myself) can go a little bit extreme with eating, for example, when trying Chinese bees, fried Thai cockroaches or Vietnamese bugs.

A boy is eating a mooncake
Cez and his yummy mooncake, China

Food obsession in bloggers’ world

In today’s post, I would like to focus on traveler-food relation. What I have noticed, when looking through various travel social media channels, is that we (travel bloggers) are getting more and more obsessed with the food. When I check out Pinterest updates daily, all I can see are pictures of food – delicious looking cakes, perfectly cooked meat, fruity smoothies, jars of candies and bowls of morning cereal topped with berries and nuts. When I check out Facebook updates, the majority of photos illustrate (guess what) food, but this time it’s mostly street food and restaurant dishes. I won’t even mention the Instagram mostly filled with pictures of Starbucks coffees (like I have never seen one in my life:)). Although we follow only travel related accounts on all social media channels, I have a feeling we belong to a culinary, not travel, circle. I don’t mind it. I actually love it. I could stare at photos of food all day long if I could. I love the vivid colors of some exotic dishes, the texture of local specialities and the shape of some fruits I’ve never seen in Europe before. All in moderation though.

Instagram picture food
Pictures of food we post regularly on our social media channels

Don’t you think we (including myself) often go overboard on food, bombarding others with what we eat when traveling? If so, why do we do it? Is it because we strongly believe that the way to people’s heart is through their stomach or we just fancy looking at something that gives us the pleasure (in this case pleasure of eating)?

SE Asian Cuisine GP
SE Asian dishes – all yummy and healthy!

Is every travel blogger a foodie blogger nowadays?

Recently, we came across two terms: “foodie blogger” and “foodie traveler”. A foodie is a gourmet, or a person who has an ardent or refined interest in food and alcoholic beverages. Since food has played such a great role in traveling and we all blog about the food we eat in different parts of the world, can we call ourselves foodie bloggers as well? I guess most of budget travel bloggers can identify with the following behaviours:

camera and hot chocolate
Camera and food are inherent when traveling
  • Obsessive taking pictures of food before and after each meal (at least 10 different photos of the same food item).
  • Daily food binges when travel (we can’t just take pictures of food, we need to try it all for the sake of “food research” for our blog).
  • Having a list of favourite foods around the world (the list is getting bigger and bigger every day).
  • When we are hungry, we get grumpy and sightseeing is not that much fun.
  • We smile when we have a first bite of something sweet when visiting a foreign country.
  • We are all coffee lovers (or at least most of us).
  • Posing with food in every single picture (most common pose “I pretend I don’t know that you are taking a picture of me while eating”).
A girl is eating in Macau
Having a Portuguese breakfast in Macau

Social media triggers

I have never been so passionate about the food like right now. When I started my very first travel experience (London 2008), I was mainly focusing on history of places I was heading to, top spots and monuments, local galleries and museums and never ever cared much about the food I was eating. Actually, I thought that taking a picture of your full English breakfast in London or croissant in Paris was silly, embarrassing and stupid. I was like “Everybody knows what croissant looks like so why should I take a photo of it!?!?” I didn’t have a blog back then though. Since we started blogging and joined the travel social media channels, we noticed that posting photos of food is something natural, normal and yet compulsory.

Pinterest
Pinterest is all about food nowadays

Once I started focusing more on food when traveling, I discovered a real food passion. Right now, I can’t imagine my week without having something unusual to eat in China and when I travel in Asia, I am excited about the new dishes I am about to try.

See also  Best 2 Days Itinerary to Kuala Lumpur

Are you also obsessed with taking photos of food when traveling and posting them on social media channels? What do you think about this phenomenon?

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Agness Walewinder
Agness Walewinder
Travel freak, vagabond, photography passionate, blogger, life enthusiast, backpacker, adventure hunter and endless energy couchsurfer living by the rule "Pack lite, travel far and live long!"
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77 thoughts on “Why We, Travel Bloggers, Are Such Hungry Peeps!?”

  1. Avatar of Montse {Rhu and Sam}

    Interesting post guys! Gastronomy is an important piece of the culture of a country, through traditional dishes and ingredients you get to know more about a territory, so it’s perfectly normal we are kind of obsessed with food (well, also because we like to eat!!). Besides, cities like Barcelona or Girona are posing to become a food travel destination, here in Catalonia we have the “best restaurant in the world” and some people visit the country with the only purpouse to EAT ;-)))

  2. Avatar of Daniel McBane

    Eating is probably my favorite aspect of traveling, but I hardly have any photos of food because, ironically, I haven’t really done any traveling since I started my blog. The few times I have gone out to eat with my camera, I’m always so hungry by the time the food arrives and it looks so good, that I completely forget to take any pictures and just start eating. I think I’ll only ever get photos of disgusting looking food.

    1. Avatar of Agness Walewinder

      You are so much like me. When the food arrives I am just way too hungry to take some good pictures, but one quick snapshot is always compulsory!

  3. Avatar of Constance

    I recently read an article that said “if you photograph what you eat, it will taste even better!!!” I am not sure that this is entirely true, but I feel that trying a different cuisine with different ingredients and cooking techniques is an adventure in itself. We begin to gain insight of a certain culture through its food and we gain knowledge of the food sources available in that country. The last time my husband and I traveled to Thailand, we made it a mission to eat where the locals dined and we made some of the most amazing memories while dining with the locals!

    1. Avatar of Agness Walewinder

      Great quote Constance and so true :). Me and Cez also dined out like locals when in Thailand and we must admit Thai cuisine is one of our favourite ones!

  4. Avatar of Steve

    Eating is one of the most enjoyable aspects of travel. Be it street food or in a restaurant. I end up eating things that I would normally not eat at home. It also influences what I eat when I am not travelling. Since I returned from my last trip I have lost 7kgs.

  5. Avatar of Maria

    I think it’s unavoidable. If you have wanderlust, you want to be a part of every place you manage to get to and that includes FOOD. :-D

  6. Avatar of Stef

    I have to admit that I noticed it too. Before I had my blog I wasn’t that obsessed with food as I am now. I liked to try the food but didn’t have to take a picture. It was a nice minor matter. When travelling to another country now, trying the local food seems to be almost as important as sightseeing or learning about the history. I think it intensifies your cultural experience in some kind of way. And I really love that everything has evolved like this, I love to try so much new food, it’s just part of my travel lifestyle nowadays. And as food is a huge part of a country’s identification and culture, I’d say it’s kind of necessary to write about in order to see the whole picture.

  7. Avatar of santafetravelers

    Food is such an important part of travel unless you eat at McDonald’s or Kentucky Fried- then you may as well stay home. What is grown locally? What do locals eat? Where do they eat? It’s all a part of the big picture. We love food so much we have a weekly post on it. Keep eating and writing about it. Great photos! Made me hungry and per instructions, I read it on a full stomach.

  8. Avatar of Ayla

    This is a brilliant post! And fits perfectly seeing as I just wrote my own piece today about food haha! I used to stare at people thinking why the hell are they taking pics of food but now I do it all the time as well! Food is too good not to photograph though and then dribble over while you remember it later :)

  9. Avatar of Pedro

    Agness, I relate so much to your post… Just a couple of hours ago I had this gorgeous kebab (yep, a kebab!) and started taking pictures, when I noticed some locals curiously looking at me. They probably thought I hadn´t eaten in days.

  10. Avatar of Sam

    I am totally guilty of this too…but at the same time I still sometimes feel embarrased or silly taking pictures of food before I eat (and always having to remind my partner, Zab, not to dig straight in until I’ve got my photo!) It’s weird, isn’t it? But to be honest, I am definitely attracted to visit places if I’ve seen photos of food from there that looks really good and like something I’d want to eat.

  11. Avatar of Karla

    Ah food, glorious food! Well Agness, I am totally guilty of taking so many pics which I have been doing since I was like 11 years old. Old habits die hard.

    Food itself is essential to our daily lives and I have had amazing experiences during my travels. I like to remember what meals I had and where ;)

    My favorite memories is capturing images made by locals, real meals and then send them a copy via email. They are delighted!

    Great post ;)

    1. Avatar of Agness Walewinder

      Old habits die hard – well said! I guess I’ll never change. It’s so funny because that feels so weird not taking a picture before having my meal, even if it’s just a piece of fruit!!!!

  12. Avatar of Gerald

    This is how it happened with me. I started traveling for the love of traveling and food was an afterthought. It didn’t take long until I was tired of the prepackaged chain restaurant food and started seeking out new foods. Next thing you know and I’m eating something called a Thanksgiving Turkey Burger for lunch today ;)

  13. Avatar of Mary {The World Is A Book}

    This post made me so hungry. Oh Agness, this is so true. One of the things we look forward to experiencing when traveling is eating. It’s always fun to see what and where the locals eat. As for my husband, the weirder the food the better. I also always enjoy seeing what fellow travel bloggers, like you guys, eat when they’re traveling.

  14. Avatar of Aggy

    I agree! Since I started travelling, food naturally followed. I guess it’s cos food is really part of travelling, it’s part of the culture too.
    Love your food adventures Agness and I hope we get the chance to grab a bite together wherever in the world!

    1. Avatar of Agness Walewinder

      Yes, that’s something you just can’t miss when trying to understand the foreign culture and traditions, huh? Yes, we definitely gotta catch up Aggy. I am dreaming of indulging in a huge plate of pierogi with you!

  15. Avatar of Jessica of HolaYessica

    I think food pictures are an easy way to show people something interesting and different about the culture. Plus, everyone can have an opinion about food because everyone likes to eat! :)

    Also, people definitely seem to like reading about food. Even though I’m not much of a foodie at all, on the rare occasion that I do mention food my readers respond pretty well. And a lot of people back home ask me what the food is like in Spain every time I go home too.

  16. Avatar of Zara @ Backpack ME

    How I get you!
    The foodie in me has developed SO MUCH ever since I started traveling (and ever since I installed Instagram too!). In the beginning I enjoyed eating local food but now I go after it like crazy – and I enjoy a much vaster range of flavors than before.
    I have come to understand that eating local is one of the simpler yet deeper things that can connect you to a given place is very little time. Food is an expression of tradition, culture and even an ice-breaker when it comes to conversations with local people. At least in Portugal, if you wanna make friends, try the food and talk about it with people you meet.. I guarantee you’ll make friends very quick! :)

    1. Avatar of Agness Walewinder

      I know. It’s definitely an ice-breaker especially here in China when eating goes first! I hope to make it to Portugal soon, hopefully next year!

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