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Belgium Archives - Taste Vacations

Mar 04
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Belgium Travel Tips

Belgium Travel Tips: Know Before You Go

By Beer, Food, Travel Tips No Comments

What Belgium lacks in size (its about the size of the state of Maryland), it makes up for it in beautiful architecture, intriguing culture, complex history, legendary beers, and delectable cuisine.   To give you a little background and to help you have the most enjoyable trip possible, check out a few factors that are useful to know before you go:

Belgium Travel Tips:
LANGUAGES SPOKEN IN BELGIUM

Due to Belgium’s complex history, it has three official languages. If you are in the northern Flanders region, the top language is Flemish Dutch.  In the southern region of Wallonia, most people speak French. In a smaller region in the east, German is the main language. Even though English isn’t an official language of Belgium, it is still spoken by 55% of its people. The city of Brussels is considered bilingual as many languages are spoken there – and it’s home to the European Union headquarters and NATO. Check out our additional tips on how to travel to a country where you don’t know the language.

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Jun 07
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Zephyr Introduces New Beer Marketing & Tourism Conference

By Beer, Taste Vacations 2 Comments

Today we at Taste Vacations and Zephyr Adventures announced a brand-new Beer Marketing & Tourism Conference, which will take place March 28-30, 2017 in Asheville, North Carolina.

As you might or might not know, Zephyr has two sides to its business: tours (here at Taste Vacations and with our sister company Zephyr Adventures) and conferences (run by Zephyr Conferences). The BMTC is our seventh and newest conference.

Why does this interest you as a traveler with Taste Vacations? Simply because it reflects our growing connection to the craft beer industry, which will lead to new and better active beer tours in the future.

The BMTC is an industry conference and we think it is timely. Craft beer has been absolutely exploding in the US and now throughout the world. In fact, the growth has been so impressive many breweries simply sell out of their product without doing much marketing.

But there are now over 4,400 breweries in the United States with more coming online every single day. This results in competition – for tap room visitors which are oh so important to small breweries and for shelf space, which is not growing to keep up with beer production. Hence, marketing and tourism are becoming increasingly important.

As the organizer of the conference, we at Zephyr have the great pleasure of interacting with many of these breweries and those connections (and friendships) allow us to provide you with special experiences on our beer tours.

Want to see? Come join our Belgium Beer Tour or, coming soon, a beer tour in Colorado.

Dec 16
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Belgium Top Beer Tourism Destination

By Beer, Taste Vacations No Comments

Belgium is the number one destination for beer tourism in the world, according to the Vancouver Sun in British Columbia, which just posted an article on Belgium and its beers.

Joe Wiebe, the writer, attended one of our tours there last summer. Although he writes in the article that he attended a Taste Vacations’ tour, he actually attended our sister company Zephyr Adventures’ active Belgium Hike, Bike, & Beer Adventure.

No matter – if you are interested in taking a beer vacation, the article does a good job of giving you that flavor. Please consider joining us on either our Taste Vacations or Zephyr Adventures Belgium tours in 2015:

Taste Vacations Belgium Beer Tour: July 26 – August 1, 2015: This tour does not have the biking and hiking and so focuses on the local culture, food, and beer. We agree with Joe that Belgium is the top destination for beer tourism and this is the only beer tour on our schedule. You can book your own private tour on any date you choose with a minimum of six people.

Zephyr Adventures Belgium Hike, Bike, & Beer Adventure: August 30 – September 5, 2015: This trip combines beer, hiking, and biking but is suitable for most activity levels. The trip ends in Brussels just prior to one of the biggest beer festivals in the world, the Belgian Beer Weekend, so you can combine an awesome tour with an incredible consumer fest.

Photo is from Joe Wiebe and the Vancouver Sun. Brussels’ Restobières features a gourmet menu where beer is an ingredient in every dish.