Exotic Culinary Tours

Courtesy of Jody Eddy

There are few better ways to understand a new place than by tasting—and cooking—its food.


“Food in India is such an enormous part of daily life,” says the Utah-based corporate-event planner. “Families spend hours a day preparing dishes and eating together…the colors and the smells of cooking are just everywhere.” Consequently, she made sure that the bespoke itinerary organized for her by Micato Safaris included such memorable food experiences as cooking demonstrations, trips to local spice markets and meals that showcased chefs’ distinct regional specialties.

“It was a full sensory experience,” Sommer says of the culinary forays. “I know we all came away with a deeper appreciation of where we’d been.”


“Even people who eat adventurously at home find that their experience is completely different” when traveling to a cuisine’s native country, says Marion Miller, Micato’s director of operations. “Ordering a dish in an Indian restaurant is one thing…but going into an actual kitchen in India, seeing all the steps that go into creating that dish, smelling the aromas and then sitting down to enjoy it with, say, a view over the Taj Mahal—that elevates eating to a new level.”