If you’re like me, you have a food experience you associate with summer: a neighborhood ice cream shop, a crab shack, a fruit stand. So on your next trip, check out a food trail that shows you the mom ‘n’ pop shops where the locals like to go.
Now, food trails are part marketing stunt, part guidebook. The way it works is that local businesses create a map that gets you from point to point, where you taste their signature dishes along the way.
Connecticut has an Ice Cream Trail with more than 40 parlors, farms, and roadside stands. This is about more than just tasting ice cream—this is how you get to meet the locals and find places that are off the tourist path.
Nova Scotia is known for its seafood, so what you really want to do is follow the Chowder Trail. We’re talking little-known restaurants and inns from Halifax to Cape Breton Island.
And nothing says summer like an old-fashioned barbecue. Every state will claim they make the best barbecue, so test it out yourself on barbecue trails in Texas, Tennessee and North Carolina.
For more information, visit the Culinary Travel archives.
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