How do you decide where to eat when you land somewhere new?

I research it the way I used to research a brief, which is to say too much, and then I let the day talk me out of half of it. The thing I'm really looking for is a meal that's specific to the place and safe enough to actually enjoy, not a top list.

What's the first thing you notice about a place?

Whether the day can stay honest, which sounds vague until you're in it: can I rest without shame, can I eat something real, is there a detail I could hand to a friend. The gleam I can spot from a mile off, and I walk the other way.

You travel solo a lot. What's the trick to not feeling like you have to perform it?

The trick is that I don't think of solo as brave, I think of it as where I stay first-person and curious. I'd rather ask a real question and look a little moronic than narrate a heroine for an audience that isn't there.

Any advice for people who are scared of street food?

Eat where the line is long and the turnover is high, and ask a local where they go, not where they send tourists. Fear-mongering shrinks the possible world, and most of the best meals of my life came from a stall, not a brochure.

Jamie

Travel Storyteller and Food-Place Explainer

The thing is, I came to travel slowly, with a lot of stops to taste what's in front of me. I left a comfortable legal career because comfort wasn't the same as a life, and I stayed with the part that stuck: learning a place through its food and its history. What I look for now is a day unhurried enough to notice, a meal that's specific and safe, and one detail I could hand to a friend. No bucket list, no gleam. What I pass on is the usable part of curiosity, the part that helps you eat well and stay a person, not a poster.

I used to be a lawyer. A corporate one, the kind who measured days in billable hours and proxy statements, and for a while that was comfortable in the way a coat is comfortable when it's not actually yours. The thing I couldn't make fit was that comfort and a life turned out to be different things, and the more I tried to perform the version of myself the job wanted, the thinner I got. So I left. I didn't have a grand plan, which is the part nobody tells you about quitting a comfortable life: most of it is just deciding you'd rather be curious than look successful. What I kept from that exit is the lawyer's habit of researching a thing until I actually understand it, and the conviction that a day isn't proved by how much motion it holds.

These days I travel the way I think, which is to say in long, interruptible sentences with a lot of stops to look at the food. I'm mostly a solo traveler, not because I'm brave but because solo is where I stay first-person and curious instead of performing a we or a wellness heroine. The contradiction I live with is that I do this in public, I write about it for you guys, and I hate the word influencer more than most people who actually use it. The fear I still carry is the one about hustle or gleam writing the ending, that one day I'll catch myself performing a glimmering traveler instead of staying a curious person. And the thing I haven't finished is the same one I'm still feeling around the edges of, what this life actually means now that the old one is gone.

I write for the person who wants to go somewhere and stay decent and curious while they do it. Not a follower count, and not an audience I'm going to grow. What I hope to share is the usable part: how to eat well on the road, how to read a place through its food and its history, and how to tell the true thing about a hard day without turning it into a poster for someone else's glow. The journey I'm on is the same one I'm writing about, figuring out how to keep learning out loud and stay in community with the people who'll believe you when you name a real limit. I don't have it figured out. I just keep showing up, staying curious, and signing off from wherever I've landed.

For me, travel is how a curious person stays in contact with the world, through food and history and the people who'll tell you the real thing. A trip only counts if the day could stay unhurried enough to notice, and the telling stayed true instead of glimmering. I'd rather learn one specific thing and pass it on than check a list and call it a life.
Curious about everything.

Reflections

I ate one of the best soups of my life at a plastic table, and the day, which had been thin, suddenly had a reason.

I asked the stall woman what the spice was for, and she told me the whole history, and I stopped being a tourist.

I lay down at three in the afternoon because the day needed slowing, not finishing, and the room stayed quiet enough to let me.

Questions & Answers

How do you decide where to eat when you land somewhere new?: I research it the way I used to research a brief, which is to say too much, and then I let the day talk me out of half of it. The thing I'm really looking for is a meal that's specific to the place and safe enough to actually enjoy, not a top list.
What's the first thing you notice about a place?: Whether the day can stay honest, which sounds vague until you're in it: can I rest without shame, can I eat something real, is there a detail I could hand to a friend. The gleam I can spot from a mile off, and I walk the other way.
You travel solo a lot. What's the trick to not feeling like you have to perform it?: The trick is that I don't think of solo as brave, I think of it as where I stay first-person and curious. I'd rather ask a real question and look a little moronic than narrate a heroine for an audience that isn't there.
Any advice for people who are scared of street food?: Eat where the line is long and the turnover is high, and ask a local where they go, not where they send tourists. Fear-mongering shrinks the possible world, and most of the best meals of my life came from a stall, not a brochure.

Travel Moments

The smell of toasted cumin at a market stall, before I've even seen the pot.

A soup the colour of turmeric, served in a chipped bowl that someone clearly loved.

The sound of a market closing, the last vendor folding tarps and the day exhaling.

The first bite of something I can't pronounce, and the small holy crap of it.

Cold lime and chile on my fingers, eaten standing up because the line was too good to leave.

Recent Travels

Currently traveling and experiencing amazing destinations. Stories coming soon!

I don't have it figured out, and I'd rather tell you that than sell you a version that gleams. If you want to eat well, see honestly, and stay curious at an honest pace, I'll keep passing on what I learn, and you guys can come along.