Anthony Bourdain, American chef and author, “Travel is about the gorgeous feeling of teetering in the unknown”

Traveling is not just an opportunity for self-discovery but to also gain a wider understanding of the world around us. Anthony Bourdain, the New York chef turned author and then TV show host, once said: “Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life—and travel—leaves marks on you.”

The celebrity had a love of traveling off the beaten path exploring the culture and tasting the culinary offerings. “Travel is about the gorgeous feeling of teetering in the unknown.”

He would often seek out street food, calling it the “salvation of the human race.” He felt that it was one of the best ways to experience the soul of a culture. “Good food is very often, even most often, simple food.”

He was unafraid to take risks when eating and traveling because in order to appreciate the good you have to experience the bad. “I’m a big believer in winging it. I’m a big believer that you’re never going to find perfect city travel experience or the perfect meal without a constant willingness to experience a bad one,” he said.

“Letting the happy accident happen is what a lot of vacation itineraries miss... and I’m always trying to push people to allow those things to happen rather than stick to some rigid itinerary,” he noted. “The journey is part of the experience—an expression of the seriousness of one’s intent. One doesn’t take the A train to Mecca.”

He advocated with conversing with the locals which he would often do over a meal. “Meals make the society, hold the fabric together in lots of ways that were charming and interesting and intoxicating to me. The perfect meal, or the best meals, occur in a context that frequently has very little to do with the food itself,” he observed.

Sadly, the beloved storyteller and adventurer committed suicide in June 2018 in Strasbourg, France where he was working on an episode of Parts Unknown. Despite his passing his curiosity and passion for sharing human stories and advice on food have kept him ever present to this day.

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