We Are Gastronomads
We're Mike Elgan and Amira Elgan — gastronomads since 2006. What’s a “gastronomad”? Anyone who travels to seek out food and drinks and all that goes with it — community, history, culture, adventure and joy.
In fact, we love traveling so much we do it full time. How? The short answer is that we’ve pivoted our careers to location-independent work. We’re writers, and can write from anywhere.
Before traveling full time, Amira enjoyed a long and successful career in food. She worked as food and beverage director for posh hotels in Los Angeles and New York City, including Mondrian, the Bonaventure, the Beverly Wilshire Hotel Four Seasons Hotel and the Doral Hotels in Manhattan. Amira is also a board-certified holistic health counselor is the creator of The Spartan Diet and has been writing about food, nutrition and health for decades.
Mike is a technology and culture journalist, who writes about artificial intelligence, robotics, spatial computing and cyber security for a variety of publications. He also publishes a newsletter called Machine Society, and wrote the book, “Gastronomad: The Art of Living Everywhere and Eating Everything.”
In the year 2006, we started experimenting with full time travel, while working from abroad. We went pyramid hopping in Central America and Southern Mexico. We spent months exploring Greece and a dozen or so Greek islands. We lived in Kenya, Turkey and Morocco for months at a time, seeking out farmers and winemakers and chefs and bakers and cheese makers and other food producers. We’d occasionally post pictures of our food adventures on social media, and people would constantly say: “Wow, that’s beautiful. I wish we could join you.” After hearing that many times, we thought: “Maybe they can!”
So we created The Gastronomad Experience — intimate gatherings where we welcome adventurous food-lovers in some of our favorite places on earth — Sicily, Provence, Venice, Barcelona, Morocco, El Salvador, Mexico City and Oaxaca. Gastronomad Experiences are master classes in how to live life to the fullest. We skip the tourism and immerse our Gastronomad friends directly into the communities and homes and gathering places of our amazing local food- and wine-making friends.
We create and host magical, life-changing culinary experiences in our favorite places around the world. Can’t picture Gastronomad Experiences? Here’s what they look like.
We’re not tour guides and this isn't tourism. We take you inside places like Italy’s Sicily, Venice and Prosecco Hills, France's Provence, Spain's Barcelona Cava wine country, Mexico City, Oaxaca, El Salvador and all over Morocco where you'll be embraced as friends and enjoy the best and most authentic food and drinks in epic meals and magical gatherings. You’ll meet the most extraordinary food artisans, world renown chefs and visionary winemakers. We'll cook, learn, explore, taste and experience the best secret food spots, markets, bars, wineries, history, culture and more. Here’s what people who have enjoyed Gastronomad Experiences say about them.
We say we travel “the world.” In fact, we really explore the world’s greatest food and wine locations. As passionate foodies, we care deeply about how food is grown, produced, and made. We seek out kindred spirits in the world of food — the greatest chefs, winemakers, artisans and farmers in every food region we travel to. We believe in sustainable farming practices — organic, biodynamic, permaculture and ancient practices — which can better support humanity, showing respect and care for the health of our planet and future generations. Over time, our deep friendships enrich our lives beyond measure. We become “temporary locals,” who live and shop and cook and eat like our neighbors in those places.
To stay connected and follow our travel adventures, and to be the first to know about Gastronomad Experiences, we invite you to sign up for our free email newsletter. Also: Please follow our Gastronomad Instagram. And drop us a line anytime.
Bon appétit and delicious travels,
Mike & Amira Elgan
