Find Eat Local is a hub for the best food and wine experiences to check and taste while you travel: the cooking classes, market walks, winery visits, truffle hunts and tastings worth booking, region by region, with the honest notes the booking sites leave out.
Why we started
We started on the Adriatic, where Italy, Slovenia and Croatia meet, with the places we knew first: the truffle woods above Motovun, the fish market in Split, Ljubljana’s market on a Friday. We kept being asked the same questions by friends who were visiting. Which wine area, if we only have one day? When is truffle season, really? Is that cooking class hands-on or a demonstration? Can we do it without a car? The booking platforms had thousands of experiences and no answers to any of that, so we started writing them down.
Italy came next, because it is where most people learn to eat: Tuscany first, then Rome and Naples, and the rest of the country region by region. The plan is the whole world, one food region at a time, in the order people actually travel.
What you will find here
Every destination has a hub and a set of pages by experience: wine tours, cooking classes, food tours, truffle hunting, olive oil. Each page compares the top-rated experiences on GetYourGuide and Viator, the two largest booking platforms, and adds what they do not: what is in season, what you will actually taste or cook, which area suits which traveller, how to get there without driving, and what it should cost. Our guides go deeper on the questions that come up every time: what to eat in Italy month by month, Chianti or Montalcino, Florence or Siena, when to come to Istria.
How we choose
We list an experience only when it clears four tests: a strong rating over a meaningful number of reviews, not five stars from six people; a hands-on format where the description promises one, we read the reviews for the word “demonstration”; small groups and family-run hosts over coach parties; and free cancellation wherever it is offered, so you can hold a date before your plans are final. Where we single out an editor’s pick, it is because we would book it ourselves. We do not accept payment for placement.
How we make money
When you book through a GetYourGuide or Viator link on this site, we earn a commission from the platform. It does not change the price you pay, and it does not change which experiences we list; the tests above do. That commission is what pays for the research and the writing.
What we cover today
- Italy: Tuscany, Rome, Naples, Emilia-Romagna, the Amalfi Coast, Piedmont, Venice and the Veneto, Milan, Lake Como, Puglia and Sicily.
- Croatia: Istria, Split, Dubrovnik, the islands and the wine areas.
- Slovenia: Ljubljana, the wine regions, Bled, the coast and Maribor.
- France and Spain: Paris and Barcelona, Madrid, Seville, San Sebastián and Valencia.
Corrections and questions
Prices, seasons and opening days change. If you find something out of date, or a place we should know about, we want to hear it; the fastest way is to reply to any of our pages on the social channels linked in the footer, and we correct quickly.