Frequent traveler Claudette Spinelli-Schwartz loves exploring new restaurants, cafes, and food cultures when traveling. When you want to taste the best that a town or city offers, it takes pre-planning. How do you know where to go when you’ve never visited a place before? She’s learned a few tourism planning tips that anyone can use to discover the favorite cafes and restaurants of the locals before you even set foot on a plane or train.
Start by Exploring Food Delivery Apps
Sure, when you open GrubHub or DoorDash, it shows your local choices, but with a few finger taps, you can change the settings to show the choices in any city served by the platform. Search for Paris, France, or Paris Island, SC, before you depart for it. Start your research at least two weeks before your trip, but make it one month if you want to dine out at eateries that require reservations.
Learn the Vibe and Best Dishes on Social Media
Food delivery apps offer menus, prices, and ratings for delivered food. That doesn’t tell the whole story of an eatery. To find out about restaurant decor, proper dress, and the top dishes a restaurant serves, search for each of your delivery app options on Instagram and Pinterest. According to The Kitchn, local residents and food bloggers post photos and descriptions of their meals and dining experiences. This process lets you learn ahead of time if a particular spot serves delectable food with the worst service on earth. You can opt to have it delivered and dine on your hotel balcony.
Put Google and Bing to Work
As a final step, search for each eatery that seems a viable choice using Bing or Google. Both search engines prioritize map-connected websites. If a business uses local SEO on its website and creates a Google My Business listing, it shows up on the city map the search engine provides at the top of the results. Each result shows its rating and location, which makes it quick and easy to find top restaurant locations near your hotel, a particular day’s meeting, or where you’ll see the sights. Visiting each eatery’s website lets you learn about its policies, hours, and special events.
Options for People Who Haven’t Time for Research
Perhaps you want to just go to a city and wing it but with a guarantee of great food. Check the Internet for food tours of the city you will visit. Start with the AARP list of 10 city food tours that covers major U.S. cities like New York City, Houston, San Francisco, and Philadelphia. For a flat fee, a tour guide introduces you to the top food purveyors in the city, and you dine at one of them. Dessert might take place at that cafe, or the tour might continue to another location for another course. On the other days of your trip, you try the other restaurants.
Food Advice from a Foodie
You don’t have to wait until you reach your destination to find the most delicious food options. A little research goes a long way, and so does booking a food tour for your first day of the trip.
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