One Year of Travel. Food Highlights

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We’ve just completed one year of non-stop family travel. We made it from Australia, to Asia, to Europe, to Central and North America and back to Europe. We are very into food, my husband is an exec chef, I’m just a big food freak. We’ve tried some amazing new dishes, but what were our food highlights from one year of travel?

food highlights from one year of world travel
One year of travelling around the world. Where and what was the best food? The photo above is of a noodle dish in Vietnam.

In no particular order, here are a few of our favourite new finds from around the globe.

Delicious red Thai curry
This tom yum goong was one of the best dishes I’ve ever eated in my life. Thailand certainly has some of the best food in the world.

Food Highlights from One Year of Travel

Pupusas, refried beans, huevos and queso in Central America

Food highlight Guatemala egg, guacamole tortillas
Food in Antigua Guatemala. This cuisine was very different to our norm, and we loved it!

Central America doesn’t have the most exciting cuisine in the world but to us it was new. We complained at the time about the constant daily intake of eggs, beans and guacamole, it gets repetitive and it’s fairly bland, but it’s a new style of eating and cooking and a lot of the recipes we’ve tried in Central America will make it onto our home-cooking menu.

We’ve been getting cravings for re-fried beans. I’ve got huevos rancheros on the stove right now!

Thailand, All of It!

Delicious red Thai curry
This tom yum goong was one of the best dishes I’ve ever eated in my life. Thailand certainly has some of the best food in the world.

Thailand has some of the best, healthiest, lightest, most flavour-packed dishes in the world.  Sure, there is a lot of bland, junky Thai food turned out for tourists, but find something amazing and it will stay with you forever. I still think of this tom yum gai as one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. Check out our guide to Thai food here.

Strange, Bacon-Related Sweet Treats

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Bacon chocolates in Charlotte, bacon maple donuts in Lancaster Markets, bacon dipped in chocolate in the Amish town of Intercourse Pennsylvania and bacon praline in New Orleans. The wave of sweet bacony goodness sweeping the USA was incredible. All were good, very, very good. I should mention Marmite fudge from the UK too, similarly salty-sweet and delicious.

Incredible Wild Mushrooms in Laos.

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We were in Laos for the mushroom season, to see what would cost hundreds of dollars in the west in the street markets, freshly gathered from the countryside, was pretty amazing. See more of the markets of Luang Prabang here. To eat those mushrooms in all sorts of Laos meals was even better. We found them in everything from curries to baguette pizzas.

Real Southern Style Cooking in the USA

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When it’s done well, it’s amazing. We had our fair share of dodgy biscuits and gravy in cheap motel chains, so dodgy we couldn’t eat them, but when we found Mother’s restaurant in New Orleans, we found out how it should be done!

Steamed shrimp and potatoes, baked ham, collard greens and crawfish, it’s all good! Southerners are also masters of hot sauce, heaven !

A New Dish for us, Shakshuka

Saksuka Vang Vieng Laos

Laos isn’t particularly famous for its own cuisine, but what we found in Laos was a profusion of dishes gathered from all over the world and done remarkably well.

Shakshuka (we were told) is an Israeli egg and vegetable dish spiked with fresh chili  It goes well with those lovely Vang Vieng baguettes and was one of our breakfast favourites. Read more about Global Breakfast here in our most popular post ever.

Great American Junk Food

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The US got me eating meat again. I’m as vegetarian as I can be normally, but I crumbled in the face of tasting chili cheese dogs, Philly cheese steaks and sloppy joes. It may surprise American readers to know that we’ve never seen any of those dishes before.

Boy were they good! I can see why the US loves them so much. But now I’ve tasted them, that’s it, no more. I have to try, but it won’t become a cheesy-meat habit.

It’s all part of the crazy Disney theme park experience to try the junk food, you won’t find this mum packing carrot sticks for a day that’s supposed to be all about fun. Food should be fun, all food, not something to stress over.

Poutine and Chips and Gravy

Chips and curry sauce

More junk, I’m loving my junk today. Two very similar dishes from two continents. Welsh chips and gravy or Canadian poutine, same with the addition of a squeaky curd cheese. Just yum. Ultimate comfort foods for cold weather, best consumed at snowy Niagara falls or on a windy Wesh seafront.

Sensational Seafood in Catalonia

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Chef says the seafood here was the best he’s ever tasted in terms of freshness. I’d agree, the mussels tasted of the sea and the squid was fresh and perfectly cooked. D (9) discovered that he loves Langoustines, they’re more fun than prawns because of the claws, so he says.

South Indian Food in Malaysia

 South Indian Food Malaysia Kuala Lumpur

We love Indian food and South Indian is our favourite, it’s lighter, fresher, more vegetarian and just yum. We found it in profusion in Malaysia. See our post on South Indian Food here.

Breakfast in Sri Lanka

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Possibly my favourite thing in the world at the moment. We loved smooshing those string hoppers into the dahl, curry and sambol with our finger tips. You can read more about Sri Lankan breakfasts here if you’re new to it.

Want to see more of our ONE YEAR of TRAVEL round-ups.

What did One Year of Travel Cost

The Homeschooling Highlights

The Crappy Bits

The Best Bits.

If you'd like to hire a car during your stay, use this car rental comparison tool to find the best deal!

We also suggest you take a look at this company to get a quote for all kinds of the more tricky adventure or extended travel insurance.

Try Stayz / VRBO for an alternative way to find rentals on homes/apartments/condos in any country!

About the author
Alyson Long
Alyson Long is a British medical scientist who jumped ship to chase dreams. A former Chief Biomedical Scientist at London's West Middlesex Hospital she started in website creation and travel writing in 2011. Alyson is a full-time blogger and travel writer, a published author, and owns several websites. World Travel Family is the biggest. A lifetime of wanderlust and over 6 years of full-time travel, plus a separate 12 month gap year, has given Alyson and the family some travel expert smarts to share with you on this world travel site. Today Alyson still travels extensively to update this site and continue her mission to visit every country, but she's often at home on her farm in Australia.

3 thoughts on “One Year of Travel. Food Highlights”

  1. I have to agree, C. American food can be quite bland and they don’t vary a lot in ingredients. I love beans but I can’t eat them everyday like them! All the food looks amazing especially the one from Thailand. This is one of my favorite parts of travel, the food! Yum!

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