LONDON—It shouldn’t work, but it does. Twenty-five Americans, most of them from the South, gathered around a breakfast table in Dublin. It’s the kind of setup that should feel like herding cats, yet, for some reason, it never feels like group travel. My wife and I don’t even like group tours. Though for nine years I’ve been leading them—almost 70 of them with over 1,500 guests—and I’m still wondering why it’s never felt like what we’ve always tried to avoid.
I finally figured it out this spring, and it has very little to do with where we go.
It all started with a Facebook post in the summer of 2017. I’d been getting messages from people who had seen photos, read this column, or followed my social media during my time in Italy and wanted to go. They asked if I’d ever consider taking a group over to show them the places and people I’d come to know—small villages, family-run trattorias, the kind of off-the-beaten-path spots one only finds by accident. I said sure, thinking a dozen folks might want to go. By the end of the day, both villas I’d reserved were full, and there was a waiting list. Before long, that list grew its own waiting list, and those initial trips turned into two more full ones.
Tuscany became the heart of it all. Everyone wants to go there. Understandable. It’s hard to beat—the food, the views, the history, the culture, the pace of life. But the bigger surprise wasn’t how much people loved Tuscany. It was how much they loved each other. Seriously. People who had never met before were sitting down and sharing a meal like old friends by the third day. That sense of connection—the same thing I’ve worked toward for almost four decades in our restaurants back home—was showing up around those long Italian tables.
Different setting, same heartbeat.
Those first trips set the rhythm for everything that came after. Somewhere in the middle of each journey, guests would ask, “Where are we going next?” So, we went. Venice, Bologna, and Milan. My friend Wyatt Waters joined me on those early trips, and we filmed three seasons of our TV show, Palate to Palette, in those same places. After Italy came Spain—then the world shut down in March of 2020.
When I started back in 2022, it was as if nothing had changed. People were still hungry for travel, connection, and something that didn’t feel like a tour. We went to Spain—with four separate groups—then back to Tuscany, Sicily, and up to the Netherlands and Belgium. England and Scotland followed. It was on that Scotland trip that I understood how deeply a place can get into you. Only Tuscany had ever done that to me before. And by the time we got home, the question came again.
“Where are we going next?”
Back in Spetember, I hosted my third group in Sicily. The first time I’d been there—back in 2011 with my family—I told myself I didn’t need to return. I was wrong. Sicily has a different rhythm now and sharing it with people who appreciate it the same way makes all the difference.
After that came a reworked northern Italy itinerary. We started in Milan, moved on to Verona, stayed in a castle above the Prosecco hills, and ended on a private island in Venice. Every hotel was outstanding, but what made it memorable wasn’t the thread count—it was the people around the table.
That pattern held again on last week’s trek through Ireland. Five great hotels, five different corners of the country—Belfast, Killarney, County Clare, Galway, and Dublin. Each morning, guests wandered down to breakfast on their own time. Every dining room had its own character, but the common thread was conversation. Plates of eggs, toast, and tea stretched into long talks about home, family, the day before, and the day ahead. Those breakfasts were as important as any castle tour or coastal drive.
Most tour companies include maybe two dinners and a lunch over a week. That’s it. The rest of the meals you’re on your own. But from the very beginning of my Yonderlust Tours, we’ve shared every meal together. Two or three times a day, we sit down—sometimes in a fine dining room, sometimes at a locals-only trattoria or pub with wobbly chairs and one tiny restroom—and eat together as a group.
In short order, a group of strangers becomes friends. That’s the same thing I’ve watched happen back home at a good dinner service—when a meal turns a table into a family. Yonderlust just happens to do it in other countries.
People connect over food. Always have. You learn more about someone over one shared meal than in a week of cocktail party small talk. These trips work because they’re built around that truth. The meals have become the heartbeat of Yonderlust Tours.
It’s taken nearly a decade, but I finally understand why these trips don’t feel like group travel. Maybe the better question all along wasn’t about itineraries. Maybe it’s been, “Where are we going next?”—not just to a new country, but to another table where strangers become friends.
It’s not something I ever planned. I wish I could take credit for it. But somewhere between breakfast in Florence and dinner in Dublin, these groups began to take on a life of their own. Couples who met on one trip now travel together repeatedly. Widows and divorcees meet new friends and gain a new lease on life. Some groups have organized reunions back home without me even knowing about them until the invitation shows up. Others have become part of each other’s lives in ways that go beyond travel—helping one another through illness, loss, and celebration.
There’s something about sitting at a long table in another country, sharing a meal with people who have a stake in your sense of wonder. It brings out the best in everyone. And maybe that’s another reason it never feels like group travel. It’s not about following a flag on a stick down a crowded street. It’s about community, fellowship, laughter, and the comfort of knowing you’re in good company.
Places like Tuscany, Scotland, and Ireland share something in common—they’re agrarian societies at heart. You can hear it in the way dinner lasts two hours and no one’s in a hurry. Family matters. Meals matter. People still take the time to sit, talk, and connect. That’s probably why my guests feel so at home there. The culture matches their rhythm, and they fit right into it.
I’ve built a life around food and hospitality. These trips have become a natural extension of that calling. I get to watch people discover new places, spend time with local friends I’ve come to know over the years, and see firsthand what happens when travel becomes personal. It’s not about checking boxes or filling a scrapbook. It’s about finding meaning in shared experience.
We have tours coming up in Greece, Puglia, Northern France, Southern France, and England, along with my six trips a year in Tuscany. There’s always someone asking, “Where are we going next?” It’s one of the best questions in the world because it means people are still curious. Still hungry to see more. Still willing to trust me to show them something worth seeing.
Every time I come home, I feel the same way—grateful. Grateful for the people who have traveled with me, for the friendships that have grown, and for the reminder that hospitality doesn’t end at a Mississippi restaurant’s door. It can stretch across continents if you let it.
Turns out it’s not about the travel at all. What makes these trips special isn’t necessarily where we go, but who gathers around the table. Traveling with twenty-five Americans doesn’t feel like group travel because it isn’t. It’s friends and family gathered around a table in a new place, sharing stories, laughter, and a little piece of the world together. That’s a trip worth taking again. And that’s why, every time someone asks where we’re going next, I already know—back to the table.
Onward.
