How to plan a food trip itinerary you can actually finish.

Seven steps

Plan the day in seven steps.

1. Pick one area and a themeStay within one neighbourhood or a short train ride. A theme — noodles, street food, a market, desserts — makes choosing stops easy.
2. Choose four to six stopsOne or two proper meals and the rest small bites: a snack, a drink, a dessert. More than six and the last stops are wasted on full stomachs.
3. Check opening hoursMany small places close one day a week or sell out by early afternoon. Put the sell-out spots first.
4. Order by walking routePlot every stop on a map and walk them in a loop or a line, never back and forth. Ten to fifteen minutes between stops helps you get hungry again.
5. Plan to shareOrder one of each dish for the group instead of one each. You taste more and leave room for the next stop.
6. Set cash per personAgree on an amount each before you start, and carry small notes. Street stalls and markets are often cash only.
7. Keep a backup listTwo extra spots nearby for when one is closed, rammed or not what you hoped.

Pacing

How many stops is too many?

The rule of thumb: never two full meals back to back. Put a walk, a museum, a park or a market browse between them.

Ordering

Share plates, not regrets.

• Order one portion per two or three people at snack stops.
• At each stop, order the dish the place is known for first. Extras only if everyone is still keen.
• Pass plates clockwise. The person who chose the stop gets the first bite.
• Water between every stop, and something sour or fizzy after anything rich.
• Leave the biggest appetite for the stop you are most excited about — not necessarily the first.

Cash

How much to bring.

Add up roughly what each stop costs per person, then add a third for drinks, the extra round and the snack you did not plan. Carry it in small notes. If one person pays for everything, write each stop’s total on your phone as you go so settling up at the end takes a minute — see how to split a restaurant bill.

Copy this

Free food trip itinerary template.

Copy the columns into a note or spreadsheet. Fill one row per stop, then re-order the rows by walking route.

Five shapes

Sample food trip day shapes.

• The street food crawl. Six stalls, all small bites, standing up. Best in the evening when the stalls are busiest — think Bangkok night markets or a taco crawl.
• The market morning. Breakfast inside a food market, a coffee nearby, an early lunch at a counter next door.
• The merienda trail. In the Philippines, merienda is the afternoon snack. Build a slow afternoon of them: something fried, something sweet, something cold.
• The one-dish pilgrimage. The same dish at three places — ramen in Tokyo, pastéis de nata in Lisbon, beignets in New Orleans — scored by everyone.
• The neighbourhood night. Drinks, small plates, a main, then the late-night spot locals end up at.

After

Keep the trip after it ends.

A food trip is a blur by the next morning unless you keep it as you go. In PlateDiary, snap the table at each stop: every dish is cut out on your phone and the day sorts itself into moments by place and time, so your itinerary becomes a real record of where you went. Capture works with roaming off. The map pins every stop, and prices stay in the local currency you paid in — PlateDiary never converts them.

Then caption it: food trip captions has a hundred and twenty to steal.