Meet the SAVEUR Blog Awards Finalists: 6 Essential Travel Blogs

Finalists in the Eat the World category are writers from around the globe exploring international cuisines in new and exciting ways. They wander from Italy and Turkey to Myanmar and Honduras, showing how to travel food-first.

The Blog: Food writer Katie Parla lives in Rome, and the mission of her blog is to "highlight great food and beverages, praise the people dedicated to feeding us well, and to get readers talking about what they are eating and drinking." She focuses on local food culture (and the threats facing them) and critical reviews of restaurants and trends, but you'll also find her reporting on her favorite destinations, especially southern Italy and Turkey.

The Blogger: Katie Parla is a Rome-based food and beverage educator and journalist. Originally from New Jersey, she has lived in Rome since 2003. She has written and edited more than 20 books and her food criticism and travel writing have appeared in The New York Times, Saveur, Food & Wine, Australian Gourmet Traveller, Punch, and more. Katie is the author of the ebook "Eating & Drinking in Rome," the mobile dining apps "Katie Parla's Rome" and "Katie Parla's Istanbul." and the book National Geographic's Walking Rome. Her cookbook, Tasting Rome: Fresh Flavors and Forgotten Recipes from an Ancient City, co-authored with photographer Kristina Gill, recounts the traditional and contemporary cuisine of Rome.

The Blog: Rambling Spoon: Our Food, Our Planet covers the cultures of eating, the health of our environment, and the conversations we're having about what we eat.

The Blogger: Karen Coates is an author and journalist who specializes in food, environment, health, and human rights in developing societies. She spent several years living in Asia and working as a correspondent for Gourmet before settling in New Mexico's Rio Grande Valley with her husband, photojournalist Jerry Redfern. They live on a little plot of land with gardens, grapes and fruit trees. Karen periodically teaches Southeast Asian cooking classes in the United States. Her latest book, with Jerry, is Eternal Harvest: The Legacy of American Bombs in Laos. She is a senior fellow at Brandeis University's Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism.

The Blog: Potato Chips Are Not Dinner was born out of necessity: 14-hour workdays as a flight attendant, days away from a home and a kitchen, and eating whatever packaged food happened to be rolling around the bottom of her flight bag for dinner. This is perhaps why blogger Paulina Farro became hyperaware of what people around the world were filling their bellies with as she travelled around the world. She brings this inspiration home and shares recipes, illustrations, and stories of the beautiful people, places, and things she comes across along the way.

The Blogger: Paulina has always loved cooking and bringing people together with food; she grew up watching her Grandmother cook beloved Filipino recipes and annoying her with her eager-yet-lackluster Lumpia rolling skills. As long as she's making something, whether it's a cake, an illustration of a cake, or a picture of a cake, she's happy. Traveling provides an endless sources of inspiration for these creations, and she'd be lying if she said she doesn't choose her next destination based on the food she gets to eat.

The Blog: Eating With Your Hands is an online platform focused on food you can eat with your hands. Because, let's be honest, hand food is fun food. We all love to order pizza for a fun night in, or get a mean burger after night out dancing, and what would summer be without ice-cream cones? EWYH is dedicated to bringing its readers regular hand-based inspiration and includes recipes, places, guides, and features.

The Blogger: Born in Mar del Plata, raised in Oslo, and now based in Berlin, Fernando Manuel Lopez is a web consultant, co-founder of Ouibonjour, and creator and writer behind food blog Eating with your Hands. Living and working in cities like Paris, Barcelona, and Berlin, and being married to a Persian-Canadian foodie, has given Fernando a passion and interest in food and inspired him to run Eating with your Hands.

The Blog: EatingAsia seeks to go beyond the dish to explore, in words and photographs, street food culture, markets, ingredients, and traditional foodways in Asia, Turkey and beyond. There's nowhere they won't go, because they believe that even the most well-travelled places and the most well-"understood" cuisines can offer up surprises. As much as they love a good meal, for them, food is an entree; the biggest reward to what they do is the people they are lucky enough to get to know along the way.

The Blogger: Eleven years ago this month writer Robyn Eckhardt and photographer David Hagerman moved to Malaysia; inspired by their new home's magnificent food scene they launched EatingAsia. Since then they've explored exceptional eats, magnificent markets and unusual ingredients, and highlighted praiseworthy cooks in south east Asia and beyond. Most recently they spent 16 months road-tripping in Turkey for their first cookbook, out fall 2017 from Rux Martin Books. The couple's goals for the year ahead include getting reacquainted with Penang, their home base; revisiting Asia's most under-appreciated food destination (Taiwan); and making up for a long-standing red wine deficit in Italy.

The Blog: black.white.vivid. is a colorful lifestyle blog curated by Kati for the curious traveler and healthy foodie. A love story between images and words, Kati's travel adventures take readers to unknown places, local eats, and happy moments. Aiming to capture the interest for traveling and foreign cultures, the blog curates food guides from around the world as well as recipes inspired by Kati's travels. The recipes are easy, mostly vegan and burst with colors and vitamins.

The Blogger: Kati Boden is a photographer, food enthusiast and travel lover who was born in Germany. She loves to share her adventures and the tasty finds she eats at home and away. She has travelled to 5 continents, lived in 9 countries and toured 64 nations. From freshly baked empanadas in Argentina to spicy curries in India and green tea ice cream in Japan, she has always enjoyed documenting new taste experiences. Now she's living in Istanbul and when she's not cuddling her cats, you can find her wandering through hidden alleys or devouring Turkish treats.