Miss Kim owner Ji Hye Kim (front row, far left) led a trip to South Korea in June for Zingerman’s Food Tours. A growing list of local companies are offering their own boutique tours, ranging from global cuisine to literary explorations of Paris, up-close explorations of Ireland, and even some led by public media personalities. | Courtesy of Zingerman’s Food tours
One photo showed more than a dozen varieties of kimchi, the fermented vegetable condiment. Another displayed jangjorim, beef braised in soy sauce. And a third showed a tall monk helping himself to lunch during a visit to a temple.
A dozen fans of Kim’s Kerrytown restaurant signed up for the ten-day trip. Though Kim is a multiple nominee for the prestigious James Beard Award, this was her first time as tour guide, and the first Korean travel organized by the seven-year-old Zingerman’s Food Tours. Yet this year’s tour, which cost $12,500 plus airfare, sold out in days.
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Zingerman’s is one of a growing list of local companies offering their own boutique tours. They range from global cuisine to literary explorations of Paris, up-close explorations of Ireland, and even some led by public media personalities.
This October, bookstore co-owner Hilary Gustafson will lead the first-ever Literati Tour, to Paris. While other literary tours feature locations related to Jazz Age authors Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gustafson says she wanted Literati’s to be broader. The six-day trip, which starts at $6,000 per person plus airfare, promises a deep dive into the city’s rare book shops. A dozen travelers will also learn about Parisian publishing, World War II, feminist and food writers—and yes, hear stories about Hemingway and Fitzgerald.
Gustafson says Literati plans two more Paris trips in 2026, with future destinations to be determined based on travelers’ interests and the availability of literary partners.
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When Michigan Public—then called Michigan Radio—offered its first tours in 2017, organizers thought they might host one or two trips a year, says Suzanne Belanger, the media outlet’s marketing and communications supervisor. They proved so popular that Michigan Public now conducts eight to ten annually, working with three different tour companies to customize trips based on the interests of its members and on-air hosts. Zoe Clark, Michigan Public’s political director, led a trip to Washington, D.C., including a visit to NPR headquarters, and took London visitors to visit BBC headquarters.
Recently, a group led by reporter Steve Carmody traveled to Costa Rica, while upcoming trips include Yellowstone National Park and other western historic sites with reporter Dustin Dwyer. Michigan Public receives a commission from each trip booked. “It’s a fundraiser as well as a way to meet our listeners,” Belanger says.
Michigan Public’s trips are larger than most, often thirty-six to forty-eight people. But they often sell out, Belanger says, in part because families turn them into multigenerational holidays. “It can be a grandparent, their son or daughter, and their son or daughter,” she says. “Sometimes, it’s a graduation present” or a celebration of a milestone birthday.
Zingerman’s led the way into the travel business: in the 1990s, cofounder Ari Weinzweig and ZingTrain’s Maggie Bayliss led a tour to Tuscany, where travelers visited producers of some food items sold at the deli. The tours were sporadic until 2016, when Kristie Brablec returned from a business trip there and proposed spinning off travel as a separate company; Food Tours officially launched in 2018, with Brablec as managing partner. Along with Korea and Tuscany, this year’s tours include Sicily, Paris, Denmark, the Basque region of Spain, and Oaxaca, Mexico.
Although most of the tours are created and led by Zingerman’s personnel, they sometimes work with another local travel company, Bog & Thunder, which specializes in Ireland.
Founded by Kate McCabe—whose husband, chef Max Sussman, is culinary director—the company focuses on small groups who want to go beyond typical sites, meet locals, and see where work is being done. This fall, they’re offering a weekend residency in Connemara with chefs Abra Berens of Granor Farm in southwestern Michigan and Aishling Moore from Goldie, a restaurant in Cork. Next year will bring a trip to western Ireland, with chef James Rigato of Mabel Gray in Hazel Park.
Typically these trips aren’t for bargain hunters. Compared to Literati’s six-day Paris trip starting at $6,000, for instance, Road Scholars offers nine-day tours of that city for just under $4,000.
It’s apples and oranges—accommodations and amenities differ—but it’s clear that Ann Arborites are glad to pay for the chance to travel with trusted local guides.