FoodSided had the chance to chat with the Traveling Food Dude about his adventures across the country, seeing new places and munching delicious food.
Adam Vosding, better known as the Traveling Food Dude, is a blogger and a huge sports fan, particularly of Florida Gators football, Tampa Bay Rays baseball and Tampa Bay Lightning hockey, who travels around the nation seeing as many games as he can with his dog, a Labrador mix named Holland.
Along the way, he’s been sure to sample interesting items from a variety of places, everywhere from barbecue at an Arrowhead Stadium tailgate to local seafood in the southern Florida area.
Growing up in Ontario, Canada before moving to Florida when he was 12, he’s worked in a variety of roles within the food industry, including working for two decades for the Publix grocery store chain, which led to an interest in traveling internationally, even visiting the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
We had a chance to chat with him earlier this week to hear about the latest adventures.
FoodSided: How did you get the idea to start adventuring around the country (and the world) and documenting your travels?
Traveling Food Dude: A friend of mine posted on Facebook about asking for a “guinea pig” to help give her feedback on a course she was going to create on how to start a blog. I saw the post and it caught my interest and after a few lunches and coffees with her, my eyes had opened to the world of blogging and learning that you could possibly turn it into a career so I was hooked and with the support of my family I made the decision to spend some time giving it a shot.
It has now been over a year and a half since I took a break from the corporate world and I have loved all the traveling and hope I can keep it going! I’m in the infancy of launching my website and YouTube channel and will be creating a YouTube series of all my travels over the past 18 months (and maybe even some past travels) to showcase my journey.
Have you always been an adventurous eater, or is that something that came gradually?
I was a very picky eater as a child. It wasn’t until college when I became more adventurous and on my first big trip overseas to Singapore and Malaysia I really started to realize that food was a great way to experience a new place. Not only just overseas, but within our own country as well. There is so much diversity in the cuisine around the USA. It’s fun to learn about the food from different regions and share my discoveries with my followers. I have found festivals and farmer’s markets are a great way to learn about local food.
What’s the strangest food you’ve come across on your travels so far?
I’ve seen a lot of strange things, especially in Asia. The two craziest things I have tried (and won’t try again) have been chicken intestines and Rocky Mountain oysters. I don’t get a big rush trying crazy things like that, but sometimes it’s hard for me to say no to something when it’s offered to me. Sometimes you just have to be polite and go with the flow I guess!
Everyone needs a sidekick, and for the Traveling Food Dude, that means Holland the Pup.
FoodSided: What’s been your favorite experience so far on the journey?
Traveling Food Dude: There have been quite a few, but one that stands out was when I was driving up the Pacific Coast Highway on my way from Los Angeles to San Jose (following my beloved Lighting on a West Coast road trip), I randomly pulled over at one of the hundreds of beautiful places there are to pull over and took my dog down to the beach only to find a sign covered in stickers along the path down to the beach. I stopped to check to some of the stickers and one in particular caught my eye..it read “BBQ Surfers.” When I got down to the beach (it’s almost a hidden spot some world famous surfers frequent), I saw a little tiki hut with some guys, a BBQ and a dog.
Sometimes I never know if I’m welcome, but I went up anyway and said hello and was greeted by one of the nicest guys who chatted with me and explained all about this group called the BBQ Surfers. They served me lunch and I was able to get some cool videos of some surfers and my dog had a blast fetching sticks out of the Pacific Ocean. It was a magical couple hours there and I was bummed I had to leave and get back on the road. We exchanged contact info and several months later on my way back down the PCH, I actually stopped in again and joined them for lunch again. That was definitely one of my best experiences (of many) on this journey so far.
Is it true that BBQ sauce may have played a role in the adoption of Holland the Pup?
I have always had the thought in the back of my head that it would be cool to have a dog, but with my frequent work travel I knew it wasn’t possible for me. Once I was in job that didn’t have weekly travel I did convince myself to “swing by” the Humane Society if I was ever in the area. One day I was getting some BBQ from a local Tampa BBQ joint that wasn’t too far from the Humane Society so after lunch I stopped in and saw this cute little black pup (among many others) that caught my eye. From the sign on her cage I was informed that she was 2 years old and so I knew she was full grown and at 37 pounds, she was a good size that wasn’t too big for the small apartment that I had.
I spent about an hour with her at the Humane Society and kept asking myself if I really wanted to do this and couldn’t give myself a really good reason not to. I was also worried that if I slept on it for a night, she might not be there when I got back. The Humane Society had named her Jeanette, and I decided to change her name to Holland when I adopted her to pay homage to my Dutch roots. I have had her for almost 5 years now and she has been the best companion I could have ever asked for. She is super chill…very mild mannered and she gets along great with other dogs and kids and she has only barked 4 times (yes, only 4 times) since I adopted her so that’s a big bonus for me! She has always impressed the folks where I have stayed and was an honorary ranch dog at the Bar Lazy J Guest Ranch in Parshall, Colorado where I spent last summer, and will spend this summer, working as a sous chef in the kitchen of an authentic dude ranch in the Rocky Mountains.
You worked for Publix grocery stores for a while, has that industry changed in any significant ways over time?
Oh wow, we are definitely in interesting times! I have always been a person who loved grocery shopping and going to the store to buy food, but there is definitely an advantage to being able to buy products online and more and more people are becoming comfortable buying things like groceries online. The grocery business is such a big market that it will take a long time for there to be any significant changes, but it is also a very competitive industry so grocers will have to be on top of their game. I’m still blown away by how Publix maintains clean stores with friendly staff. It seems simple, but so many grocery stores I’ve been in around the country are dirty and kind of miserable to go into, and that’s not a good thing.
I’m a huge advocate that you do need to visit local grocery stores when you travel. First of all, it’s a cheap way to do something fun and interesting and to me it’s always fun looking at the local products, and do a little people watching at the same time!
Recently I drove back to Florida from Canada right before Thanksgiving and I stopped in a Piggly Wiggly in rural South Carolina on the day before Thanksgiving and it was such a cool experience. Customers chatting it up with other customers and store employees, and checking out the local food section and the meat department really gave you an idea of what people like to eat! I’ve never seen a chitterlings section in a grocery store so big before! This Piggly Wiggly even had a restaurant/cafe in a separate area in the front of the store where you could get a home cooked southern meal before or after you shopped!
Adam Vosding, the Traveling Food Dude, sees a lot of different stadiums and arenas on the road.
FoodSided: Do you have a favorite type of go-to food to eat, generally speaking?
Traveling Food Dude: Generally speaking I’m still a meat and potatoes guy at heart, but when I go to a restaurant I try to pick something made with regional or local ingredients that I won’t find anywhere else. I was recently in Ontario, Canada where they grow a lot of cranberries and picked up some maple-cranberry sausage from a local grocery store. It was a cool local twist on plain sausage.
One of my other favorite places has been the fish market in San Diego that they do every Saturday morning. It’s a legit “sell fish right from the boat” market and there is also a food vendor there that makes fish sandwiches and fish stew with the local catch. They did a thresher shark stew with fresh California avocado that was amazing!
Why do food and sports work so well together?
To me it’s a culture thing. I still have a dream of attending a Packers game in the middle of December and checking out the tailgate scene where folks still grill out and make some awesome food in the freezing cold! I love the tailgating tradition, especially when going to various college football games and especially in Louisiana where the folks in Baton Rouge can cook up some killer food before an LSU game…even if it is barbecued alligator when the Gators are in town.
It may be kind of touristy now, but I’ve seen the Tampa Bay Lightning play in Montreal 4 times now and I always have to make sure to get some poutine while at that game! It just adds to the whole experience and of being at the sporting event and literally tasting the local flavors while watching a game.
Which stadium that you’ve visited has had the best gameday food? Do you have an ideal snack that you associate with sitting in the bleachers?
That’s a tough one. I am kind of amazed at how some stadiums or arenas have a lot of local offerings and some do not. I do see a trend where local food is becoming more popular and that’s a trend I really like to see. I’m also a big fan of “stadium friendly” food that is easy to eat with your fingers while watching the game. Some stuff can be too fancy and not too stadium-friendly to eat.
The baseball stadium in San Diego had a lot of great local food and the Los Angeles Angels had an area where actual baseball players from their team would have food offerings based on their influence or suggestion. That was really cool. One item that stands out for me was a jackalope sausage (jackrabbit and antelope) from Biker Jim’s (a local Denver place) on a fresh local roll with cream cheese and grilled onions. Hot dogs at a baseball game are always great, so this item kept with what you would want at a baseball game but had that local flair.
Adam Vosding, the Traveling Food Dude, has a handful of bucket list destinations to see before his travels are done.
FoodSided: What locations or countries are on your bucket list?
Traveling Food Dude: The list is long for sure. I definitely want to go back to Japan and I’d like to go back to Russia sometime, but there are also so many other places I would like to visit. I’m not a fan of really hot and humid weather, so that may deter me from going to a particular place during a hot season. I will be going back to the Netherlands for a month this April to travel around the country and meet some family and kind of trace my family tree since both sides of my family are Dutch. I’m really looking forward to that trip as it will have a cool twist as I try to lean about my ancestry and learn what it’s like to be Dutch.
FoodSided: What do you hope readers and followers gain or take away from your content?
Traveling Food Dude: The one thing I get a lot when I tell people what I’m doing is that they think I’m a food citric. It would make sense, but that’s not my objective at all. The whole purpose of this journey is to learn and to inspire other people to travel and try something new. With social media and technology nowadays it’s pretty amazing that the average person has the ability to share their experiences in real-time to anyone around the world. I’ve been to a few places where even locals will reach out to me to let me know that I’ve showed them a place they didn’t know about or have forgotten about I think that’s really cool.
I also love the interaction and feedback I get from people I meet along the way and I love getting suggestions on places to go or things to try. My late father had a saying to “enjoy the ride” and I guess you get to a point in your life where you really do realize life is short and you need to challenge yourself and make sure you’re living life to its fullest.
It’s been special to be able to share my journey and I can’t wait to see where it will take me over the next few years. I made a last-minute decision to visit Winnipeg last winter and want to give a shoutout to all the folks in Winnipeg that have followed along my journey since I visited there…such great people that I never would have crossed paths with if I didn’t decide to do this crazy little journey! I definitely want people to follow along on my blog, YouTube channel and Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at the handles @TravelingFoodDude as they join us for the journey!
Holland can also be followed on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok at the handle @HollandThePup.
If you could, would you go on road trips like Adam and Holland do? Where would you visit? Let us know in the comments!