2025's top foodie destinations for sustainable travel
Start your holiday planning with inspiration for sustainable travel—explore eco-friendly destinations and make mindful choices on your next adventure
Travel ‘trends’ are not very sustainable, they often encourage everyone to visit the same place at the same time, which isn’t good for the traveller or the destination. If you’re not pinned to school holidays then consider ‘shoulder season’ travel, when there’ll be fewer crowds and the weather won’t be so very hot, or cold. Flying does, of course, come with a carbon footprint but when you reach a destination you can choose to make your stay as planet-friendly as possible by looking for hotels with sustainable practices such as using green energy, turning off lights and air-con when not in use, using water carefully, employing local people and giving back to their environment. When you are out and about, it’s hard to avoid single-use plastic in some countries, especially when eating street food – a stall or small restaurant that uses washable plates and cutlery can be a better bet. Local transport can be bikes, electric vehicles or public transport. In all destinations, local people care about their environments and there will be good choices to make.
1. Ho Chi Minh City
Bánh mì & history
2025 is the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon so Ho Chi Minh City will be newsworthy. In truth, it's always a good year for a trip to this food-centred destination. You could, if you wanted, live on bánh mì for three meals a day, the modern version was invented here: fried egg-stuffed baguette for breakfast, roast pork, pâté and the works for lunch, then a Southern Vietnamese version filled with veg and herbs for dinner. At the other end of the super sandwich scale, this city has three Michelin one-star restaurants, and 24 small establishments of street carts awarded a Bid Gourmand, often serving a singular dish well, such as exceptional chicken pho, xôi (steamed sticky rice) and Vietnamese pancakes. Go for the historical significance and eat well as a big bonus.
2. Istanbul
Regional cuisine & green fine dining
The reinvention of ancient into modern is a trick that Istanbul pulls off well; hotels reside in old palaces, warehouses and factories and new public spaces are breathing life into buildings that may have been shuttered for years. This city was the most visited in the world in 2023 according to Euromonitor International, and new spaces for tourists to visit help with congestion and allow the exploration of different neighbourhoods. Turkish cuisine in all its regional variations has always been championed by venues like Çiya Sofrası in Kadıköy and more recently in elevated form at venues like two Michelin-starred Turk Fatih Tutak. Chef Maksut Aşkar’s Neolokal has a Michelin green star denoting sustainable practices and his kitchen aims for zero waste while using local suppliers and producers. Visit in shoulder season, explore widely and use public transport like the ferry system and trams rather than adding to the city traffic.
3. Gozo
Island adventures & feasting
With an ambition to be carbon neutral by 2030, Malta’s little sister island Gozo has a trump card when it comes more sustainable travel, as it’s slightly off the beaten path and as a venue for outdoor pursuits it is, by the very nature of its offer, less spoilt. Salt is still harvested in the old-fashioned way, by hand, and Gozitan produce includes olive oil, citrus fruit and wine as well as Ġbejna cheese, craft beer, pizza-like ftira bread and, of course, fish and seafood. Gozo has beaches, walking trails, kayaking and diving on offer, the buses are free to use with a Tallinja card and you can hire electric tuk tuks. Go for a quieter holiday and join the drive for sustainability.
4. Greenland
Icebergs, midnight sun & seafood
Diverse landscapes of towering mountain peaks and icebergs, unearthly green-blue glaciers and surrounding seas make this, the world’s largest island, an extraordinary place to visit for more intrepid travellers. From a climate perspective, Greenland is at the cutting edge of global warming, and flying anywhere isn’t carbon-neutral, so staying at venues that aim for a sustainable footprint like Ilimanaq Lodge in the UNESCO world heritage park, reached only by sea through Ilulissat Icefjord, or at Glacier Lodge Eqi, both owned by World of Greenland, helps keep your footprint lower while showing you the reality of global warming. Power is solar, water is from glaciers and food is very local, foraged, caught off the coast or from the land; expect prawns, snow crab, halibut and lamb as well as musk ox and whale (controversial but traditional). The new international airport at Nuuk opened at the end of 2024 with direct flights to Copenhagen and in 2025 will connect with New York. worldofgreenland.com
5. Swiss Alps
On the Bernina Express
From Chur in Switzerland, take the Bernina Express to Tirano in Italy and enjoy the views while you travel through the UNESCO World Heritage site of Rhaetian Railway and traverse the Alps. At the Montebello Curve there are views of the Bernina massif, the Morteratsch Glacier, lakes Lej Pitschen, Lej Nair and Lago Bianco. Railway architecture fans will appreciate the 65-metre high Landwasser Viaduct, the 55 tunnels en route and the 196 bridges between Chur and Tirano – best of all is the single-track Brusio Circular Viaduct, built to mitigate the steep gradient. The journey takes four hours, but you can split it across three or more days if you like, stopping in San Moritz and/or Poschiavo. Before you set off from the medieval town of Chur try churer fleischtorte, a pie filled with bread, bacon and mince and grab some Bündner
pear bread from bakery Merz for trip snacks – they also have a café so you can eat breakfast or lunch there. The San Moritz Gourmet Festival (at the pricier end of the scale) is in January in high skiing season; as would be expected there are excellent restaurants here, or for a more budget option, take the Suvretta- Randolins chairlift to mountain restaurant Trutz and enjoy the view with some rib-sticking food. In Tirano, Italy meets Switzerland in dishes such as pizzoccheri, a buckwheat pasta usually served with cabbage and Bitto cheese or polenta taragna, a buckwheat polenta dressed in butter and cheese. Visit seat61.com for information to get from the UK to the Alps.
6. New York
Restaurant hopping
Once again topping the British Airways destination chart this year, New York never loses its allure. It will be cold at the start of the year, but New York Restaurant Week runs 21 January to 9 February with hundreds of venues offering prix fixe menus – reservations open on 7 January. If you prefer the city in summer, then round two is usually scheduled in July or August. Stay in Brooklyn for a slightly less frenetic vibe and access to the botanic gardens. Rent bikes, walk or use public transport to get from place to place, take the ferry across to Governor’s Island which is car-free and look back at the Statue of Liberty and sights of the city. There are hundreds of venues to eat in New York – eater.com is a deeply foodie site that lists many of them.
7. Bradford
Culture capital
Bradford is the UK City of Culture this year. Home to artist David Hockney, magician Dynamo and comedian Ade Edmondson, Bradford will host more than 1,000 new performances by local, national and international creatives, many of which will be free. In the autumn, the Turner Prize will head to Bradford’s Cartwright Hall Art Gallery and this spring the new dining hub Darley Street Market opens its doors. Set over three floors, the top will be a food hall, the middle is where you’ll find food shops and stalls, and on the ground floor, cafés and other shops. Last year the market square was planted with nearly 400 plants and 450 bulbs to bring greenery into the space. Bradford is famous for curries and holds its own awards each year, and there are numerous breweries including microbreweries like Wishbone in Keighley, where there’s also an excellent music and beer festival in October this year.
8. Stratford, London
Museum treasures
V&A East Storehouse opens this year, bringing more of the nation's treasures to the public, for free. The Storehouse provides a purpose-built home for more than 250,000 objects, 350,000 library books and 1,000 archives from the V&A’s collections, and will allow visitors to see behind the scenes of a working museum via more than 100 mini curated displays ‘hacked’ into the sides and ends of storage racking. Stratford is worth exploring for food options. There are many good chains including Master Bao, Hermanos coffee and Tonkotsu, and there are some neighbourhood establishments worth walking a little further for that have been ‘quietly emerging into prominence for the last nine years’. That’s how Darkhorse describes itself, a restaurant with a seasonal, well-sourced menu, not cooked over gas – dishes include roasted sea trout with spinach risotto and burnt lemon caper butter, and baked Monte Enebro with honey-poached figs. The majority of the wine is sustainable, organic, natural or biodynamic. thedarkhorserestaurant.com
9. Louisiana
Crawfish trails & king cake
2025 is the Year of Food for Louisiana, and this state has a wealth of dishes and produce to share. “The very names of our
food demonstrate our cultural influences from France, Spain, West Africa, Germany, the Caribbean and many more,” said Doug Bourgeois, assistant secretary of tourism. “Andouille, corn maque choux, jambalaya – Louisiana food not only tastes unique, but it also sounds like our storied past.” Take part in an andouille (never call it a sausage) trail in the River Parishes, or follow the Bayou Country crawfish trail. ‘Heads’ season is late winter to around April when whole crawfish are plentiful and cooked in ‘boils’, then it’s ‘tails’ in summer when tail meat is used. You can pick your own blueberries, visit farmers markets, eat oysters at Mardi Gras or purple, yellow and green king cake from 6 January through to Mardi Gras (a moveable date depending on when Easter is – for 2025 it's 4 March). Good eating is year-round in this state. Do your bit for the environment by finding restaurants that participate in CRCL’S Oyster Shell Recycling Program. Shells from New Orleans restaurants and public drop-off sites are collected (saving them from landfill) and used to build oyster reefs and shoreline habitat across coastal Louisiana.
10. Trip-chaining in Europe
Epic train journeys
100 per cent flight-free company Byway are seeing trip-chaining, a term used for combining multiple stop-offs for errands on a daily commuter route being used for holiday travel. Trips can be shorter or, use two to three weeks to get yourself from London to Madrid via Nimes and then on to Porto, San Sebastian and home via Bordeaux. Stay for a night or two in each place and make the most of local restaurants, markets and food shops. The beauty of train travel is that there is always the opportunity of a ‘train picnic’ between destinations. byway.travel
11. Thailand
Armchair travel
Season three of The White Lotus drops this year and Thailand is high in the holiday searches already. Filmed in the Four Seasons Koh Samui, Anantara Mai Khao Villas on Phuket and probably Bangkok, we will see the glamorous, gorgeous side of Thailand while being appalled by the antics of the protagonists. This is our armchair travel pick; enjoy the series, eat Thai food while you watch and make plans to travel once all the fuss has died down.
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