7 Great Hotels Where You Can Cook Like a Local

by McLean Robbins on

One of the best parts about a vacation? The food. We love trying local delicacies and adding to our recipe books with tips and techniques learned from our travels. Immerse yourself in native cuisine with these seven great cooking experiences that combine luxury travel with fun, hands-on cooking classes.

Time to Thai in Bangkok
Learn traditional Thai cooking in Bangkok at Lebua. You’ll cook a five-course meal with a Thai chef in this three-hour class taught in both English and Thai for the exceptionally affordable rate of $160 per person. Combine it with an overnight at this all-suite luxury property for a true one-of-a-kind experience.

Game & Guinness in Ireland
Fish for wild trout and learn to make homemade chowder at the Guinness family’s 18th C estate-turned-hotel in Cong, Ireland.

Green Gardening in Jordan
Garden alongside locals at the bio-garden at Radisson Blu Tala Bay Resort in Aqaba Jordan, then learn to cook traditional Jordan dishes like Mansaff (roast lamb in a saffron yogurt sauce) using the fruits of your labor.

Shopping and Tapas in Barcelona
Shop Barcelona’s legendary Boqueria with Spanish Chef Roberto Holz, then prepare a Mediterranean lunch at Hotel Arts Barcelona.

Surf n’ Seafood in Nevis
“Dive and dine” for your own spiny lobster at Four Seasons Nevis, then prepare it at a traditional Caribbean barbecue.

Food Safari in Australia
Discovery the bounty of Australia’s Kangaroo Island at Southern Ocean Lodge. The hotel hosts an annual KI Food Safari. Activities during the six-day journey will include hands-on classes with the island’s purveyors, who operate on a mostly small scale, sustainable and personal basis while tasting the unique products straight from the source.

Say Olé in Mexico
Learn the secrets behind perfect salsa, ceviche and more at one or three-day cooking classes (shown in the photo, above) at the luxurious Capella Pedregal in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. We’d suggest the three-day class – it includes a trip to a local farmers market.

Photo Of The Day: Gold Coast Surfers

by Alex Robertson Textor on

In the hands of Flickr user verargulla, these Gold Coast surfers seem to exist in a silver-gold haze – a dreamy netherworld of mist, skyscrapers and cooperative waves. It’s enough to make the idea of surfing attractive even to those who’ve never successfully ridden a wave.

Upload your best images of surfers, skyscrapers and dislocated fantasies to the Gadling Group Pool on Flickr. We select our favorites from the pool to be Photos of the Day.

Spiderwebs blanket Australian tourist stopover

by Libby Zay on

Unless looking to relive a scene from Steven Spielberg’s “Arachnaphobia” (1990), travelers should be wary of a visit to Wagga Wagga, Australia anytime soon. One of several towns affected by the recent floods in southeast Australia, Wagga Wagga is experiencing a curious phenomenon: thousands upon thousands of spiders looking for higher (and drier) ground are working together to weave massive webs across sticks and bushes. In some cases, the webs have grow so large they cover entire fields.

The strange spiderweb blankets were first reported by the BBC. According to the news outlet, approximately 9,000 people in Wagga Wagga been forced to evacuate due to flooding. Wagga Wagga is a popular stopover for people heading between Adelaide, Sydney or Melbourne. What would you do if you were on the road and survived a flood but were then greeted by thousands of hairy-legged spiders? Just the thought gives us the creepy crawlies.



Photos by Lukas Coch, EPA / Landov.

Underwater bollywood dancing on the Great Barrier Reef

by Jessica Festa on



While it isn’t hard to find countless videos on the web showing you the beauty and marine life of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, it isn’t that often that you find the location being the set of a choreographed, underwater dance number. The video is actually a contest entry for the Tourism Tropical North Queensland’s bollywood dance competition submitted by Seawalker, an underwater diving company that allows you to walk on the ocean floor. Despite having gravity working against them, the Seawalker team actually does an impressive job at mastering the dance moves, and are clearly having a great time doing it.

Karl of Seawalker commented post-production, “It’s a very unusual experience trying to dance underwater in a helmet, as all you hear is bubbles, no music, and yourself counting out the moves in a 4/4 count just hoping that everyone around you are in time. Thus, [it took] about 15 takes to get it right.”

Check out their finished product above.

How hikers in the Tarkine Rainforest can help save the endangered Tasmanian devil

by Jessica Festa on




Visitors to the Tarkine Rainforest in Tasmania, Australia, can now help save the endangered Tasmanian devil. Scientists have set up 45 motion-sensitive cameras along the trails and are asking hikers to help them to collect data and track local populations of the marsupials.

Right on the Tarkine Devil Project’s mission, it states they would like to “actively engage the broader community with the research. We will offer a direct hands on experience with the science via Tarkine Trails infrastructure, walks and custom built experiences”.

While for a long time there was speculation about whether Tasmanian devils even lived in the Tarkine, there is now proof. What’s really amazing about the discovery is that the Tarkine population seems to be void of the common facial tumor disease that causes most Tasmanian devils to starve to death, presenting a unique opportunity for researchers to learn more about the disease and to breed healthy devils.

If you’d like to sponsor a camera, click here for more information. To learn more about the project itself click here or check out the video above, which is part information, part guided tour as you get to experience the beautiful scenery of the Tarkine Rainforest in Australia.