Access Culinary Trips

We just returned from our Access Culinary Tour of Croatia. This was my wife's second Access trip (Cuba) and my first. We could not have been more pleased with the experience.nPersonnel were first class (driver, guides). Accommodations were each unique and very up-scale. We arrived in Dubrovnik three day early and were able to enjoy the hotel's resources, swim in the Adriatic, and do some touring on our own (not to mention reduce jet lag).nThe culinary portions of the tour were unique and beyond what we could have hoped: Oysters and Mussels on a private island; cooking class focusing on seafood in Split; all things truffles (hunting them, cooking with the, and eating them).nFrom here on out, this is our go too tour company (and we've traveled a lot).nThank you Access Tours for a very memorable experience.

In short, the trip to Japan was amazing in every respect!nnOur guide was perfect…exceedingly knowledgeable, helpful, and professional.nnThe lodging—even the last-minute alternate ryokans due to the typhoon—was excellent throughout the program.nnThe food was spectacular, the venues fascinating, and the itinerary varied and full without being overwhelming.nnVery strongly recommend this program!

The Vietnam trip that Access Trips planned for us was truly wonderful. From start to finish, we were thrilled with how well taken care of and how organized and seamless the transitions were from one day to the next. The itinerary offered a nice mixture of culinary, tourist sights and cultural experiences and gave us a nice flavor of what Vietnam has to offer. One highlight was the exhilarating ride on the back of a Vespa scooter in crazy Saigon traffic!nWe truly loved our amazing guide, Dong Nguyen Khoi. He was extraordinarily personable, prompt and knowledgeable. He was always watching out for us and making sure we were okay. He even carried with him a miniature screwdriver to fix a pair of glasses! He had a wonderful sense of humor and made us smile and laugh all the time. By the end of the trip, he felt like a friend we had known for years.

My South African adventure with Access was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. From Soweto to the Drakenburg mountains to Durban, Cape Town, wine country, and, of course, a tack-on Safari, it was one of the most memorable trips of my life. The guides were expert, the food delicious, the activities well-planned, and the hospitality everywhere was welcoming. Put this trip on your bucket list.

My husband and I just finished our second tour with Access, first to Cuba and then to Thailand. You really cannot go wrong with these folks. There are several things that make their tours special. First, the small groups mean that you are not battling to keep up with a person leading a group of 40 or 50 people with a flag and a voicebox that may or may not work. Second, the local guides appear to be carefully selected for their local knowledge (not just food, but culture, history and language as well), their care for what they do, their attentiveness to group and individual needs, and their fun personalities. Third, the food experiences are diverse and include not just cooking classes and demonstrations, but also meals that focus on local foods, as well as visits to markets and agricultural sites. Finally, the cool thing about a culinary tour is that there is still plenty of time to visit the usual sites you would otherwise want to see in the country you are visiting. The bottom line is that Access does all of this very, very well for a fair price. We certainly plan to take yet another trip with them at some point in the future.