Just a few steps from the redwood forest, my guide, Ty Kin, started filling his basket with fiddleheads. He picked some leaves from a patch pea-green miners lettuce that looks like mini lily pads.
He handed it to me and said “Gobble up the whole thing.” “Tastes like spinach!”
No Taste Like Home
We spent a few hours in the northern part of Sonoma County in California searching for wild edibles. Sonoma County Tourism began offering the excursion earlier this year. Timber Cove Resort, where our finds would be turned into hyperlocal dishes: morels stuffed with wild onions and lemonade flavored with the tart, heart-shaped leaves of redwood sorrel.
Inside the Wild
Although the Taste of Coastal Foraging is a new tour, the concept behind it is as ancient as humanity. Recently, the ancient practice has seen a revival. This is due to an increasing interest in local foods and an increased desire by travelers to be outdoors. Tourism organizations such as Sonoma’s, high-end hotel chains and cruise ships have all created new programs.
Natasha Lloyd says that people are eager to connect with nature. Fife Arms, a hotel near Scotland’s Balmoral Castle. She takes guests on foraging hikes through areas of Braemar that are untouched by farming. Lloyd says, “It is a beautiful pristine environment.” There are probably mushrooms there that we haven’t even found yet.
The best places to forage are not just the biodiverse regions like the Scottish Highlands, or the California coastline. Steve Brill Dave Odd has been leading foraging trips in Chicago’s area since the early 1980s. Eat the Neighborhood There are tours that focus on dozens edible and medicinal plant species.
Odd: “The point is to show how much is available, even in a city setting.”
Recently, cruise lines added foraging excursions to their shore excursion offerings. Windstar Cruises, In 2026, guests in Livorno will be able to choose between truffle hunting in Tuscany and other activities. Silversea You can go foraging in rural Puglia with experts who will point out the best pickings.
Alan Muskat, founder of No Taste Like Home. In and around Asheville in North Carolina, he leads 3-hour explorations to find edible greens, mushrooms and berries. The participants can take their harvest to one of the partner restaurants for preparation. Muskat says, “You never know what you will find.” “And that makes it exciting.”
Pick Your passion
Seaweed in California
Spencer Marley was a commercial fisherman and psychotherapist. Marley Family SeaweedsBefore starting tours of the Central Coast, I sold the product at farmers markets.
Herbs in Sweden
Eva Gunnare Essense of Lapland, In Swedish Lapland she leads “flavor-walks” where she shares the tastes and stories from the Indigenous Sami Culture.
Mushrooms can be found in Wisconsin
Northern Mushroom Tours connects mycologists with enthusiasts to hunt for chanterelles, black trumpets, and other fungi in the state’s northwest.
Wild plants in Australia
Based near Hobart in Tasmania Sirocco South The company arranges small group walks to find oysters and wild plants. This is followed by an alfresco six-course lunch, which includes some of the foraged ingredients.
Berries of Alaska
Tutka Bay Lodge, on the Kenai Peninsula, can arrange chef-led walks in search of ingredients such as blueberries, rose hips, and hedgehog mushrooms.
Mushrooms and Chile
Based on the temperate central coast of Chile, not far from Santiago, Pichilemu Silvestre takes guests through wetlands and forests to hunt for wild mushrooms and other edible plants.
Austrian Remedies
Near Salzburg, Austria, Rosewood Schloss Fuschl The company has a resident herbalist that leads countryside walks focusing on medicinal botanicals such as elderberry and wild garlic.
This story was published in the September 2025 issue Travel + Leisure Under the heading “Find dining.”
