For some people, sunny beaches don't cut it, dazzling sights can't measure up and the breathtaking works of nature simply aren't the point. These people are hungry — like get-on-a-plane-and-fly-to-my-meal hungry — and they're hitting the road to be satiated.

You already know you belong to this group if you take trips built around food.

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New Orleans' port and ethnic influences played roles in the development of its cuisine. You can learn more at www.noculinarytours.com.
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The venerable travel guide Fodor's offers its top 10 culinary tours at fodors.iexplore.com/activities/food_top10.jhtml?activity=culinary — including destinations like Ecuador, Zimbabwe and Los Angeles. Similarly, away.com offers a culinary tours primer at www.away.com/activities/food_and_wine/primer.html. "You can eat your way through your vacation," it says, "and even sharpen your culinary skills on the road."

More travel agencies and companies are offering food-based tours domestically and abroad. At www.noculinarytours.com, you'll find tours that teach the history of New Orleans through its mix of food traditions. It's the same story at www.neworleanscookingexperience.com.

Those with sweet teeth (if, indeed, you can pluralize that term) will love the possibilities at www.intrend.com, which features "chocolate-lovers' paradise tours" in Belgium.

Food tours abound in Italy and France, of course — too many to single out here. Just search for "culinary tours" and the name of the country and you'll find choices galore.

Food travel clearinghouses like Beverly Gruber's Everyday Gourmet Traveler — www.gourmetravel.com — arranges small tours in Italy, "with occasional forays into France," while Epiculinary — www.epiculinary.com — casts a wider net across Europe. The International Kitchen — www.theinternationalkitchen.com — bills itself as a pioneer in "cooking-school vacations" to France and Italy.

An Australian experience can be found at Gourmet Safaris — www.gourmetsafaris.com.au — and eating tours through San Francisco's Chinatown abound at WokWiz — www.wokwiz.com.

If doing it yourself is more your speed, there are sites devoted to specific foods in specific geographies. Consider the Original Belgian Fries Web site — www.belgianfries.com — which rhapsodizes about that variety of deep-fried potato and its spread around the planet.

Openair offers a series of links to sites about street food around the world at www.openair.org/opair/strtfood.html#sites, and www.waitrose.com/food_drink/wfi/foodissues/foodtrends/0105068.asp is a nice little site of bits and bites about eating globally.

Finally, if you're not yet interested in booking a tour or hitting the road, www.worldfood.com is a good starting point to teach you about the kinds of things you want to put down your gullet — and allow you to order some of them to decide if, eventually, you will take your own trip.

— Ted Anthony, Associated Press

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