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Aug 04
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Jenny and Kris - Spain Food & Wine Tour Taste Vacation

Tasty Bites Chat: Spain Food & Wine Tour

By Food, Taste Vacations, Wine No Comments

We created Taste Vacations to celebrate the food, wine, and beer in premier vacation destinations around the globe. The unique food and drink experiences we instill into each tour ensures your vacation is interesting, educational, inspiring, and fun.  To help provide some more details about our upcoming Spain Food & Wine Tour, recently hosted a 30-minute Q&A session with Jenny Siddall, our local Rioja guide, and Kris Keys, our tour operations manager who organized the tour.

In case you missed it, we’ve provided the recording below.  If you have any questions about our Spain Food & Wine Tour, please feel free to leave them in the comments below or reach out via our Contact Us form.

Jul 27
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Be In The Know: Spain Food & Wine Tour Q&A

By Taste Vacations, Wine No Comments

Interested in our Basque Country & Rioja Spain Food & Wine Tour, but have questions?

Join us for a Q & A Session with Jenny Siddall, our local Rioja guide, and tour organizer, Kris Keys. They will be providing an overview of the tour and discussing Spanish food, wine, culture, and anything else you’re interesting in hearing more about.

Spain Food & Wine Tour Q&A Session

Upon registering, we will send you the dial-in information to use on August 3rd.  Hope you can join us!

Jul 10
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New Colorado Beer Tour

By Beer, Taste Vacations No Comments

Great American Beer FestivalColorado is one of the top craft beer meccas in the world. Not only does it boast over 300 breweries including five of the top 50 craft breweries in the United States, but it is also home to the Brewers Association trade group and the American Homebrewers Association.

Even more enticing, Colorado hosts the largest beer festival in the world – the annual Great American Beer Festival with over 700 breweries and 3,500 different beers. The GABF is a three-day event and spawns many affiliated parties, including the amazing Denver Rare Beer Tasting with rare, vintage, and exotic beers from 54 craft breweries from around the country.

Our new Colorado Beer Tour, set for October 6-9, 2016, includes the GABF and the Denver Rare Beer Tasting. But it includes much more. In addition to Denver, we visit the beer cities of Boulder and Fort Collins and have tours and tastings at major breweries including Wynkoop, Avery, Boulder Beer Company, Oskar Blues, and New Belgium. All dinners are included and two of these will be special beer pairing events.

On a beer tour you, ahem, need to be into beer. But we also take walking tours of all three cities, have a bit of downtime, and learn quite a bit about the state and its beer as well.

Please note registration must be completed by July 31 as GABF tickets for Brewers Association members (we have special access) go on sale August 2 and sell out to the public the following day.

And if you can’t imagine vacationing in Colorado without being active or seeing the mountains, consider joining our sister company Zephyr Adventures’ Beer, Hike, and Bike Adventure from October 3 – 7.

Photo copyright Brewers Association

Jul 05
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Beer Tourism: On the Hunt for the Perfect Beer

Beer Tourism: On the Hunt for the Perfect Beer

By Beer No Comments

With the craft beer scene continuing to boom, beer tourism has found a solid spot in the travel industry. It has evolved quickly over the past several years so much so that it has begun to rival wine tourism. People love to search out new beers to taste and new beer adventures to experience. They want to see how the beer is made and speak to the people who make it. They want to discuss the specific hops used, where they were grown,and the thought-process the brewmaster had while creating a specific beer.

Being a beer tour operator ourselves, on top of organizing the Beer Bloggers & Writers Conference and the new Beer Marketing & Tourism Conference, may make us partial to traveling to seek out delicious brews. But we think beer tourism is something a large number people can enjoy – here’s why:

Discovering Rare and Unique Beers

Many times breweries treat their own tap rooms as their testing lab. They serve up some of the craziest and peculiar beer concoctions that might not ever be distributed to the stores or bars. It’s fun to try new and interesting flavors, even if they aren’t quite ready for the public’s taste buds. But who knows, you may have the chance to be one of the first to taste that brewery’s next big hit.

Brewery Culture

Brewery culture can be summed up as friendly people who value taste. Much of the craft brew culture of today has stemmed from the homebrewing movement that began in the late 1970s. Around that time, the commercial beer companies were consolidating into larger and larger macro breweries that focused on light and low-calorie beers and touted big marketing budgets. Many homebrewers, and now most commercial craft brewers, are just really passionate beer geeks that are a lot of fun to talk to over a tasty brew.

Support Local

Wherever I’m traveling, I love to try the local and regional beers. Not only because it’s fun to taste a variety of different beers than you can get at home, but you are also supporting the local community you are visiting.

Get Away From the Touristy Areas

Unless you’re going to some of the larger craft breweries, seeking out a local brewery to visit and potentially tour is a great way to take a break from more touristy areas while on vacation. Smaller breweries may still be busy with locals (which is a good sign actually) but it will give you a completely different feel for the local culture.

On our Taste Vacations beer tours, we visit a mix of big name breweries that everyone has heard of, with smaller, unique microbreweries to give our guests a little taste of everything.

Jun 23
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3 Reasons Why You Should Get Global Entry

By Taste Vacations, Travel Tips One Comment

I live in the suburbs of Chicago where my home airports are O’Hare and Midway… which happen to be some of the worst ranking airports in the country. Lucky me!  As some of you might have seen back in May, here is an example of just how long the lines were for the TSA check point at Midway airport. (Please pardon the expletives, but I’d probably be saying the same thing if I were him!)

Video courtesy of: Sean H.

Fortunately for me though, I applied and received Global Entry last year and have been able to avoid some of the chaos. If you are planning on traveling internationally more than once in the next five years, it’s worth the $100 application fee to reap the benefits of Global Entry status. Here’s why:

    1. Save time and hassle. When you receive Global Entry status, you are automatically given TSA Pre-Check “Trusted Traveler” status as well. This means potentially skipping mile-long lines or hassling with your belt, shoes, and computer to get through security. And that’s not just for international flights, Trusted Traveler status also includes domestic flights so no matter where you are traveling to from the U.S., you have the chance to save yourself some time and frustration. Though you should be aware that having Trusted Traveler status does not automatically let you jump the line every time, but it does significantly improve the odds of being selected for the TSA Pre-Check line.
    2. Get through U.S. Immigration and Customs much faster. As your plane approaches the familiar skies of the United States, you can sit back and relax while your fellow passengers are filling out their blue customs forms.  Then once off your plane, you can skip the processing line and head straight for one of the Global Entry kiosks.  This is where you’ll scan your passport, get your photo taken, scan your fingerprints, and answer a few customs questions via the touch screen of the kiosk. You will get a printed receipt and head to the baggage carousel to pick up your luggage. You then get to skip the next line of people waiting to recheck their luggage by heading to the Global Entry-specific queue, hand them your printed receipt and luggage, show them your passport, and continue on your way.  I can’t tell you what a welcome sight the short Global Entry lines are (if there are even any lines) once you’ve made your third transfer on an overnight flight back to the U.S. from South America.
    3. Get through other countries’ Immigration and Customs faster. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection has partnered with a number of countries to help better facilitate travel for those that are considered “Trusted Travelers.”  Each of the countries listed below has slightly different arrangements so make sure to double check before you go:
    • Australia
    • Canada
    • Germany
    • Mexico
    • Netherlands
    • New Zealand
    • Republic of Korea
    • United Kingdom

To check what the arrangements are for each country, we recommend visiting U.S. Customs and Border Protection website.

 If these benefits appeal to you, you can apply by first visiting the Global Entry website and creating your GOES account. From there, you will be provided instructions on the next steps in the application process.  Take note that you’ll want to do this well in advance of your next international trip as it may take a few months to get your application approved and your interview scheduled, depending on your location.