Since I joined Eater as Travel Editor just over a year ago, I’ve had the chance to do a lot of pretty ridiculous stuff: I’ve eaten all the carbonara in Rome. Wolfed down plate after plate of queso-smothered machaca in Texas. Consumed my weight in arepas in Bogotá. And nearly drowned in beef noodle soup in Taipei. I’ve put together stories on Mexican food road trips and $15,000 Disneyland dinners. I sent my coworker on a train trip through India (stay tuned for that later this year). All of it has been as exciting and delicious and pinch-yourself great as you would think. But without a doubt, today is my proudest day on the job yet, because I get the pleasure of sharing with you the brand-new home of Eater Travel.
I’ve based my career around the idea of service journalism — on asking the question, “What does the reader actually need and want?” and then doing my best to give them that. So when I took the reins of Eater Travel, I set out to build something with the traveler in mind first. Something that delivers all of our expert travel-related stories in one convenient place, organized by destination. The result, debuting today, is your ultimate “Where to Eat, Wherever I Am” tool, allowing you to pinpoint one of more than 100 destinations around the globe, and get instant access to a whole world of Eater’s crucial content — including our maps, guides, explainers, essays, features, and more — to eat your way through any city like a local.
That last bit is key. The core of Eater Travel — our maps — are created with on-the-ground locals as our experts, who share with us the essential restaurants in the places they call home, from Bangkok and Lisbon to Memphis and Santa Fe. Internally, we like to refer to our approach to travel coverage as a version of “The Email” — you know, that clutch novella you send your friends when they’re coming into town that breaks down exactly what to hit, what to avoid, and how to pack the most amazing meals possible into a single trip. Eater Travel is that, times 100, distilled into a dynamic, intuitive site. I’m ecstatic it’s finally here.
This is more than just a redesign — it’s a top-to-bottom reimagining of who and what Eater Travel is for. Everywhere I go, people tell me that when they plan a trip, they think about food first, then everything else. (I definitely also do this.) But we haven’t yet seen an authoritative guide dedicated to helping travelers map out this hugely important part of their journey ... [music builds] ... until now.
And what is a big, new, shiny thing without a big, shiny thing on top of it? Also dropping today is our massive, comprehensive, b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l Guide to Taipei. Ten lush, appetite-inducing stories covering everything from hot pot and boba to night markets, street food crawls, day trips, and, of course, the essential places to eat throughout the city. Self-promotion aside, I visited Taipei in November and could not get over this city. It provided some of the best eating I’ve done in my life, not to mention it was one of the more relaxing, affordable adventures I’ve been on. Trust me on this — you want to go.
I’d also like to take a moment to shout out all of the incredible work put into this by the entire Eater team, for lending their creativity, brains, and bandwidth to both mammoth projects.
And with that, I’m going to go stuff myself with dumplings and sleep for 72 hours straight. You, however, should go take a trip — and eat your way through it.