The people you wouldn't expect to meet on holiday

Filling up on local produce and immersing yourself in foodie experiences with a seasoned pro is the order of the day on Intrepid’s Real Food Adventure to Northern Spain, which sees clients discovering Barcelona’s vast, modern Santa Caterina market alongside chef Sarah Stothart (above). The Australian-born cook has lived in Barcelona for more than 27 years, opening her restaurant Tapioles 53 in 2005 to rave reviews. She now works as a restaurant consultant and food tour guide.

After a morning spent sipping coffee and gorging on tapas for breakfast at a family-owned market bar, Stothart takes clients past colourful, clamorous Catalan stalls brimming with crumbling cheeses, olives and the freshest fish. They have the chance to chat with Stothart and hear her tips on how to pick the best ingredients. Then they are invited back to her home for more tricks of the trade with a cooking demonstration, all topped off with a belt-stretching seasonal lunch.

“We regularly receive feedback from clients that their experience with Sarah was the highlight of their Real Food Adventure and the perfect introduction to Spanish cuisine,” says Erica Kritikides, Intrepid’s food product manager. “The tour is a truly local insight into day-to-day life in Barcelona that most tourists to Spain would never experience and our travellers are treated to genuine Spanish hospitality too.”

Book it: The 10-day Real Food Adventure to Northern Spain starts from £1,715pp, excluding flights, departing May 9, 2017. intrepidtravel.com

Twenty-five years ago, G Adventures founder Bruce Poon Tip visited Ecuador and met Delfin, a shaman living in the Amazonian jungle. Despite the language barrier, enigmatic Delfin made a huge impression, with Poon Tip struck by the shaman’s affinity with “Pacha Mama”, or Mother Nature.

Delfin became Poon Tip’s first business partner and he went on to invite a small group of tourists to visit his home to meet his family, experience life in the jungle, and discover the wonders of the Amazon.

The meeting was so successful that G Adventures made it part of the Local Living trip to Ecuador. To this day, the tour includes a four-day homestay in the Amazon with Delfin, plus culture nights and jungle walks. Clients are boosting the local economy, and funds have helped to build a school for the village children, who are now learning to read and write.

Delfin says: “Over the past 20 years, our lives have changed for the better in so many ways. Travellers have helped me support my family and have improved life in the jungle for us.”

Book it: The seven-day Local Living Ecuador – Amazon Jungle trip starts from £429pp, excluding flights, with year-round departures in 2017. gadventures.co.uk

Local Guern Molly Bihet was nine when the Nazis arrived on her island home of Guernsey in 1940, and she still lives in St Peter Port today. On Back-Roads Touring’s London to Paris via The Channel Islands trip, groups will meet Bihet and hear her powerful story of five years of German occupation.

Janine Salame, managing director at Back-Roads Touring, says: “Molly Bihet has written books about life during the Occupation and she talks through her experiences for an hour with the group. It’s a unique perspective she gladly shares with visitors, answering questions and sharing family photographs – a memorable experience for travellers.”

Clients will hear Bihet’s description of the hardships of life at the time, from listening to covert radios and the plight of the resistance movement, to the deportations to mainland Europe and, between August 1944 and May 1945, the threat of starvation.

Book it: The 11-day London to Paris via the Channel Islands tour starts at £2,426pp, from May 10, 2017. backroadstouring.com