Three Reasons a Cooking Vacation is Perfect for Solo Travel

Are you a solo traveler looking to travel with other interesting people? Have you thought about taking a cooking vacation? We think it’s one of the best ways to travel solo, and here’s why.

What is a solo traveler? First, solo doesn’t necessarily mean single, just that you are traveling on your own. Many of our solo travelers have left a partner at home, some are singles, some divorcees, widows, or widowers.

See a list of trips that are good for solos.

Second, solo travel doesn’t mean you’re looking for romance. Ours are not dating vacations, there are other tour operators specializing in that sort of thing! But if you are looking to take a solo trip and meet like-minded people, interested in food, wine, art, history, and culture, a cooking vacation is an ideal option.

Browse all our cooking vacations.

3 Reasons a Cooking Vacation is Perfect for Solo Travel

1. First, a cooking vacation provides activities that make it easy to meet people and make friends. How often have you been to a party where people end up congregating in the kitchen? Or a dinner party where everyone pitches in and helps? Picture the same thing, but in Tuscany, with a chef (preferably handsome or beautiful!) leading you and others in a fun, hands-on cooking class. You may have a glass of wine in hand, you may be sampling some antipasti, home-cured salamis, or cheese. You are of course wearing an apron that says “The International Kitchen“! After a single class—even a single hour!—you feel comfortable with the group and all awkwardness is gone.

See some of our favorite trips for solo travelers. 

2. Reason number two: you don’t have to eat alone (unless you want to). Whether during the meals following the cooking classes or during meals out at restaurants, you will have the opportunity to eat together, talking about each course, each class, each experience. Of course, if you want some time away, that can be arranged, too, but many travelers who don’t mind visiting a museum by themselves would rather not sit at a restaurant table alone.

3. Finally, the whole point of a cooking vacation is to give you an “in” to the local culture, to make you feel at home as part of the group. So within a short period of time, you should no longer feel like a solo traveler, just a someone from another land visiting friends.

Check out one-day classes that are perfect for solo travelers.

So are you a solo traveler? We have specially-designated”Women Only Weeks (WOW)” that specifically designed for solo women travelers (although girlfriends and mother/daughter groups also join in). But of course, solo travel is not only for women! We have a lot of male solo travelers, whose wives or partners are either unable to travel at the same time, or who simply aren’t interested in taking the same type of trip. One of our former clients, famed author Bob Spitz, took a dozen of our cooking vacations over the course of many weeks and turned his experience into a book, The Saucier’s Apprentice!

Most of our cooking vacations are available for a minimum of 2 people, but that doesn’t mean you need to have someone ready to sign up with you. As long as you have a bit of flexibility regarding your dates and destination, we can find a great cooking vacation for you to join. So contact us and let’s start talking about what options work best for you!

By Peg Kern

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