A big part of your travels is eating.

I just love eating in Europe. I didn't always love eating well, but I've evolved and appreciate good food on the road.

One of my favorite things to do when I'm researching is run around town with a food guide in the evening to check out all my hotels and all my restaurants.

I spend about 100 days in Europe, probably a third of that time, I'm working on our tour bus program. A third of that time I'm making TV shows, and a third of that time I'm researching our guidebooks.

Every day with my guidebook work, on my schedule, it says, “G10” and “G6” -- a guide at 10:00 for the daytime activities, and a guide at 6:00 for the evening activities. And that evening guide is a food guide going to all the restaurants. And I've learned a lot.

One thing which is kind of common sense: if you're a smart eater, you don't go to the most crowded, touristic, high-rent square and look for a restaurant that says in big English letters: “No frozen food” with a preprinted menu in three languages that has lots of courses and stays the same all year long.

Everything's wrong about that. And if you go in there, it's just going to be a crowd of tourists because no local would ever eat there. And that's bad, also.

I like to go three blocks away, find a little no-name place on a low-rent location, thriving with an enthusiastic local clientele. And I look for a small handwritten one-language menu. Okay, if it's a low-rent place filled with locals enjoying a great time and it's serving what you're looking for, and it has that simple, handwritten one-language menu, it's great. It's going to be a good meal. It's a small menu because they are interested in serving food profitably, but at a good price.

It is handwritten because it's shaped by what's fresh in the market this week. And it's one language because they're targeting locals rather than tourists.

I love it, okay.

You go that way, and then also, you remember in Europe it's really important to focus on good ingredients. Europeans love top quality ingredients, and as a budget traveler for years, I would not be aware of that.

If I'm going to Spain and I want a plate of ham, I'll pay $5 for jamón serrano. It's just a mediocre ham, whereas if you pay $12 you get a plate of jamón ibérico. Now that's a huge difference.

Life is too short to eat mediocre ham when you're in Spain.

I mean, serrano, ibérico.

Excuse me, I just want a quiet moment with my ham.

That is one of the best deals going, and it's not cheap. You know, spring for quality ingredients: foie gras, escargot, jamón, cheese, everything.

When you're out in the market, the Europeans know good quality, and they're willing to pay for it.

I think that's very important. Eat with the season.

Zucchini flowers. I didn't even know what that was until I was in Italy during zucchini flower time, and it's everywhere.

I remember thinking the daily menu, the daily special was the push list that they were just trying to move a lot of old produce, you know?

No, that's what’s seasonal. That's what the chef is excited about you trying.

Go for the seasonal menu, go for the seasonal menu.

I love the idea that a smart eater can go to a good restaurant and look at the menu and know what month it is and where they are. You see, that's really cool because Europeans are into this idea of a zero-kilometer meal. It's just the enthusiasm for eating with the season and eating local.

A big deal in my guidebook research for restaurants is finding splurge-worthy restaurants. And I don't like to list a Michelin star restaurant.

I mean, it's great, but it cost 100 bucks. You got to dress up and you got to book it weeks in advance. And it's pretentious. But I like a Michelin-rated restaurant, a more casual gourmet restaurant.

There's even a word for it in some countries: Bib Gourmand.

And when I'm doing my research, I'll ask my staff to list me all the Michelin-rated restaurants, not the Michelin star restaurants, in the city, and then I'll look at it when I'm there and depending on what neighborhood I'm interested in adding restaurants to, I'll visit the Michelin-rated restaurants, and invariably I'll find a couple that are great for my listing.

This is a restaurant I went to in, Toledo in Spain this spring, and it was a wonderful restaurant, beautifully presented food, wonderful clientele. I love to eat with a sharp, smart, local clientele instead of a noisy bunch of tourists, when I'm having a nice romantic dinner in Europe.

Also remember, if you're on a budget, you're inclined to go to a mediocre restaurant because the prices are better and then you order recklessly.

I would rather spend the same money going to a nice restaurant and order sparingly. And a lot of tourists, they don't think you can do that. But there's nothing wrong with two people ordering two appetizers and splitting one entrée and splitting a dessert and having a glass of wine each.

That's going to cost you no more than ordering the full thing at a mediocre restaurant, and it's going to be an experience. They're glad you're there, and you're never going to forget that meal.

I mean, have a dessert, but ask for three spoons.

You know, ask the waiter for little plates. When I'm traveling with friends and my travel partner, we always ask for a small plate.

We have a deal where we never order the same entree, and we always try the different things.

Why not? There's nothing wrong with that. There's this notion that there is, and it's flat out wrong.

I like family style eating. Share it, have the maximum experience.

And I also like really enjoying that tapas kind of culture.

And, you know, in Spain you got tapas, in Greece, you got mezze, in Venice, you got the cicchetti.

These are all little, tiny, sharing plates. And it's just a food festival every night.

For lunch it's usually not a big deal for me. I usually just go for a salad or a sandwich or something like that.

And, salade nicoise is just great. The tasty fruits and vegetables when you eat seasonally in Europe are just amazing. I never knew what a tomato really tasted like until I went to Europe.

Americans don't realize, most of us anyways, what we're missing until we go to Europe and we see what tasty fruit eaten seasonally and eaten locally is. It's so important in our travels.

Now, having said all that about restaurants, I think a lot of times you just want a picnic. Nothing wrong with that.

You can go to a supermarket and you can eat in the park, or you can eat in your hotel room for $6 or $8.

I mean, it's expensive to go to a restaurant every night. I was just in Scandinavia and I found myself not going out to restaurants every night.

Here's a supermarket in Scandinavia. By the way, if you look at these numbers here, this is an example of being a traveler who's a little bit on the ball.

Can you imagine what those numbers are for?

The hours. That's right.

For me, I would say I've never seen that before, but it must mean something. So I look at that and I think, what could that be?

It's, it's a co-op. It's the supermarket. And it is open on weekdays from five until one in the morning, and it's open on Saturdays from seven until midnight, and it's closed on Sundays.

You see, you can figure that out.

I mean, a lot of people sort of insist on being confused when they're in a foreign country.

I mean, there's no nice way to say it. They just shut down, I'm not smarter than you. I just look at that and I say, there's got to be a reason for that, you see? And, you can do that.

You have to have that attitude in your travels, and it'll serve you very well.

The markets in Europe are wonderful. I just love the markets. And one thing great about the markets is they're becoming food courts as well.

A lot of these classic old Victorian, late 19th century industrial age market halls cannot make it as vegetable and fruit merchants selling their goods. It's just people don't shop that way anymore.

So, there's a little bit of that, but they are viable now because they are hosting great little restaurants.

Oftentimes a branch of a very respected local restaurant in the town. No chains. I mean, in the United States, it's a free market, so the chains can rule. But in Europe they protect their local economy by keeping the chains out of there.

Another trend is food tours.

20 years ago, there were no food tours. Now they're everywhere.

I was just in Morocco a couple of weeks ago, the last night we spent on a food tour. The second food tour we took on that ten-day experience.

I love food tours! A food tour’s kind of expensive, $80 or $100. It takes four hours.

You get together with eight other tourists and the local food expert, a food guide, and you visit 7 or 8 or 9 little gourmet artisan food shops.

And it's a meal. It's a mobile meal. You learn a lot with your guide. You make friends with the tourists.

You've had a $50 meal out of $100 tour, and you've learned a lot about that culture.

If you're interested in that, it's a great option and you can find a food tour anywhere.

Now somebody might ask, “Well, how do you know where a food tour is?”

You Google it, for one thing. Guidebooks have it.

Of course, if I enjoy a food tour, it'll be in my guidebook.

Well, anybody who's in business in Europe, in a tourism kind of way, has to play the game to get in with a crowdsourcing site, right? You're invisible if you're not listed on these kinds of sites.

When I'm doing my work, I'll be honest. I check out these sites to see what's available. And if it looks like something that's interesting, I'll go check it out and see if it's worth putting in my book.

Schnapps tasting, food tours, Sound of Music tour, you know, all sorts of stuff.

But you've got all those options there and you can check that out. So!

And you'll certainly find the food tours.

This was a tour I took in Nice. Wonderful local food guide, made friends with the tourists. We had a great morning visiting all these places. It was just a great idea.