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
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.
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.
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)?
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:
- 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”).
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.
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.
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?
77 thoughts on “Why We, Travel Bloggers, Are Such Hungry Peeps!?”
I agree with you fully. Food and discovering new dishes while traveling is part of the whole experience and I always try to eat local. When I can I also try to learn to make some local food so I can cook them the next opportunity that comes along. I like posting food photos on social media too because I enjoy to look at the ones other people post. Sometimes it’s even inspiring to me and I’d like to think I can be inspiring for others too.
I know you guys. It’s great you try to cook the local dishes at home. We do the same to feel like we were still there!
I love food…and taking pictures of it. Guilty! I think you can learn a lot about a new culture through its food.
Yes, that’s true. The food expresses a lot.
I’ve actually been taking photos of my food since well before I became a travel blogger. It’s just gotten more intense and focused now. But my food posts are super popular so I’m definitely going to keep doing it. Food is such an integral part of any society and can also be very different from what you eat at home. People are curious!
I know. Your Facebook is full of photos of food, that’s why I loooove it! :D
I agree with you. To my understanding, we do travel blogging to learn, explore and experience different cultures. Food is part of culture. Communities have different cultures thus different types of foods. To add on, we have to taste that food.
Definitely!
O no! I didn’t heed your advice and read this post on an empty stomach. Now I’m starving!!!! I think I’ve always been a bit of a foodie, though perhaps I didn’t consider myself one until I began traveling so much. Food is such an essential element of traveling and understanding cultures though! One thing we’ve been wanting to focus on on our blog more is food, though we typically gulp it all down before we can break out the camera ;)
You are so much like us!
I’m guilty of the same! I never used to take photos and Southeast Asia changed me, I ended up taking a photo of every single thing I ate one month :) Cool to look back now!
Hahaha :)
Ha ha ha, I think we all love food, not only blogges, but indeed recently I see more and more pictures of people stuffing weird things in their mouth :)
We can’t help it! We love to travel and we love to eat to compensate the tiring thing about travel. Good thing we go walk and walk instead of just taking a cab to explore. So that’s why we need to eat ;)
Soooo true Hannah!
I have to admit I’m one of those people who don’t get it why people tend to take a photo of what they are eating. Makes me feel envious and would want to eat what they are having lol. But for a while I have learned to appreciate the photos I see on a travel blog and its nice to know that there is a unique kind of dish that exists on different parts of the world.
If you are a travel blogger, you know you will write about the food so you need some photos to attach to your post + everyone loves looking at food pictures :)!!
Thanks for the warning. Seeing all these photos really made me hungry. I love Thai food and I can’t wait to have some again!
Are you planning to travel in Thailand anytime soon?
I always like taking pictures of the different local foods as memory keep sakes. Actually, when looking back at photos, I seem to ‘sense’ the memory more if it is one with me in the picture with the local food vs one of me in front of a monument/building. And yes you are right, since starting my blog, I too have noticed a shift in focus of many travel bloggers towards food. I thought at first it was like one of those phenomenon’s you buy a yellow car and then you see a lot more yellow cars on the road! :)
That’s true. I sometimes like to sit down and just keep looking at food photos I’ve taken on my travels. They can remind you great things of the country!
In my opinion different food simply belongs to different cultures and therefore you have to taste the food of the places you trave lto in order to fully experience the place and its culture.
I mean, I would feel weird when I would eat a Wiener Schnitzel at a street restaurant in Chiang Mai. Another reason why so many travel writers are obsessed with food might be that they are sick of the fast food shit they are confronted with each and every day in the western society.
Exactly, I agree. You can learn a lot about the country and its culture through the food and yes, great point, we are sick of unhealthy and fatty fast food.
Your comment that being hungry can make you grumpy is very true for me, as my wife will testify!
I love food, I can’t live without it! :-)
Hahaha, “I’m sorry about everything nasty I said yesterday. I was just hungry.” :)
I am utterly obsessed with food and I am always thinking of the next meal or snack, so it made sense for me to start a blog about my two passions of food and travel.
I am much happier discovering a new tasty treat then I am visiting my fifth temple of the day, or museum or must see sight! Always love a good food pic :-)
Rob, that sounds like we have a lot in common. Would love to meet you one day on our travel to ding into a nice meal!
‘Guilty as charged’ she mumbles while publishing a blog post on Mauritian street food ;-)
Hahahahah :)
Hey, I’ve been following your blog for a little while now. Keep up the great posts!
I totally agree with this post, food sometimes seems like my only reason to travel. But it wasn’t always that way and for me actually travel helped me fall in love with food. https://thebigmangolife.com/2013/03/23/food-friday-how-i-fell-in-love-with-food/
:)
Thank you Kristal. We’re so happy to keep in touch!
When will you be taking your travels to the Western Hemisphere?
Most likely in 2015:) as 2014 is already planned.
Hi Agnes! Guilty, I definitely take pictures of my food all the time. I have my own food blog, so usually I’ll serve everyone then spend an extra 10 minutes arranging and photographing my plate…
If you are ever able to break your budget in Germany, I think I have the perfect walking tour for you: a food tour from eat-the-world. It’s a 3-hour walking tour where you sample all sorts of typical and not-so-typical treats from local restaurants and shops. And you learn about the history of the area, too. They have walking tours in Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt… 10 German cities in total. Sounds delicious, right?
Wow, thanks for the info. I will be in Europe this summer, so I might take one of these tours! Cheers!
Ooops, just saw my comment already posted and I just tried to post the same thing again, so feel free to delete that new one! The dangers of the internet!
Anyhow, do look into a food tour – they are delicious AND you won’t have to worry about how much you eat since you’re walking between all the culinary stops anyway!
Guilty, I definitely take pictures of my food all the time. I have my own food blog, so usually everyone else will start eating while I spend an extra 10 minutes arranging and photographing my plate…
Hey, if you are ever able to break your budget in Germany, I think I have the perfect walking tour for you: a food tour from eat-the-world. It’s a 3-hour walking tour where you sample all sorts of typical and not-so-typical treats from local restaurants and shops. And you learn about the history of the area, too. They have walking tours in 10 German cities in total. Sounds delicious, right? Here is the main site: https://www.eat-the-world.com/