Many people around the world make cooking travel a part of their recreational or vacation adventures. People explore the many facets of cooking, and may mix in a dose of travel. Culinary adventures can include not only what to taste, but where to taste and food preparation.

Day trips might be a jaunt across town to explore a new or favorite restaurant. Other trips might be more extended and out of your residential area. Sampling and comparing food items can be a fun way to sit down and make friends, a timeless method for fellowship whether in your city or around the world.

Not all foods are created equal in the kitchen, nor are all cooks cut from the same apron. A crab cake on Barber Street in New Orleans might be different than one in another part of the city. A Philly cheese steak in California might taste differently in San Diego versus Stockton, California. Philly and New York City make unique cheese steaks unlike anywhere else. A pizza in Rome or anywhere else in Italy is unlike the average pizza in the United States. Alaskan king crab legs in Anchorage, Alaska are remarkably different than outside of Alaska. A fried waffle with icing in Amsterdam, red bean ice cream with jelly in Japan, or a slab of 7-up Cake in Georgia can tempt taste buds hungry for dessert.

Food preparation often entails the idea that you may want to prepare a meal to share with others, from a dinner for two to a larger group. People may enjoy a meal to the extent that they want to import their culinary experience home to their kitchen. Perhaps a dish rekindles or lends a particular flavor or presence to a dining event. Home made guacamole dip rather than store bought can go a long way toward bringing an authentic Tex Mex flavor to tortillas. Jambalaya might be just what your Mardi Gras theme party needs.

Food preparation might include observing cooking demonstrations, participating, and tasting food. Demonstrations in restaurants might be merely watching the chef cook and lecture, with the end result meal plated for student consumption. Other demonstrations allow students to watch, participate and complete the meal for restaurant guests.

Classes might be taken on a local level as a one time class or a series of classes. You can enhance culinary skills with lessons from a local community colleges, culinary schools, colleges, or from restaurants or professional chefs. You can take classes based on the type of food, such as pastries. Regional cuisine such as Thai dishes, or Southern food, can be a part of your learning plan. Vegetarian, healthy, low carbohydrate, low cholesterol or other specialty cooking are often part of curriculum. Soups, Christmas dinners, Valentine goodies and Halloween treats could be seasonal tweaks to meal skills.

If you expand horizons, national or international culinary education might prompt you to pack your bags and prepare to fly on an culinary expedition. Schools abroad, classes abroad, or sampling local fare in another country adds broader strokes from the global culinary palette.

Globally, cooking travel is a regular past time. Media often mention the international past time of eating. The variety of food is as rich and diverse as the people preparing and eating it in all parts of the world. For those seeking culinary adventures to taste or prepare food, the world, as well as your own community, is your oyster.