For the best coffee, you might have to look a little further afield than your hotel 漏 Ekaterina Smirnova / Getty Images
What鈥檚 it like to travel as someone who doesn鈥檛 drink alcohol? For one thing, it can mean feeling like you鈥檝e missed out on a whole side to a destination. No bar crawls, no searching out the local speakeasy, no making friends with locals and other travelers at some underground nightclub. Booze is, as we all know, a social lubricant, so not partaking can leave us teetotallers feeling left out. But there is a solution.
If you鈥檙e anything like me, traveling sober means visiting coffee shops. Lots of coffee shops. Cafes, and the people you meet and talk to while in them, are a valuable resource when travelling 鈥 they can give precious local insights, and spending time in coffee shops is a great way to get a feeling for a city鈥檚 atmosphere and culture.
As someone who used to work in the speciality coffee industry 鈥 as a barista, a coffee roaster, and a marketer 鈥 I鈥檓 familiar with the urge to visit every coffee shop in a given city. I鈥檝e even planned trips around coffee. But even if you just like the drink (and want to take some Instagrammable photos of latte art) it鈥檚 worth contemplating how coffee shops can enhance and improve your trip.
Coffee is a truly universal beverage, and it can now be found in nearly every corner of the world. The growth of high quality speciality coffee over the past decade has been staggering, with most cities now hosting a thriving scene. As a bonus, the caffeine will give you the energy you need to get out into your destination and really explore it.
Here are some tips and ideas on how to use coffee as the ultimate travel guide, companion, and social instigator.
(A quick note before we get going: this article is focusing on speciality, or third wave, independent coffee shops. Think exposed ductwork, lo-fi indie soundtrack, a tousle-haired barista or two, and locally-sourced or otherwise high quality coffee. If you鈥檙e looking for your nearest Starbucks, they have . Or you could glance twenty feet to your left 鈥 there鈥檚 probably one right there.)
Coffee guides and trip planners
Once you鈥檝e decided on where you鈥檙e going to visit, a good first start for finding coffee shops is your favourite search engine 鈥 although be aware that searching 'Los Angeles coffee' will bring up a lot of choices, most of which won鈥檛 be worth visiting. Searching Instagram hashtags is another easy place to do some research (, , for example) but can be a rabbit hole of staring at beautiful cafe interiors, so be careful there as well.
Next, there are a few helpful guidebooks, websites, and apps geared solely toward finding the best coffee shops in a given area. In the United Kingdom, the publishes one guidebook per year for the various regions, as well as Ireland. and have their own guidebooks, because you'd need good luck navigating their innumerable cafes without one.
is a website and app that is constantly updated with new cafes chosen by coffee experts, and covers many cities around the world from Auckland to Madrid to Singapore. The app isn鈥檛 free, but it鈥檚 a great resource if you鈥檙e visiting any of the cities it covers. If you鈥檙e headed to Australia, is the app for you.
Going a bit more in depth, the website (disclosure: I鈥檝e written a few of them). These articles go into more detail than most, offering five or more of the best cafes in a given city, with info including what coffee is served and how it is brewed. is another good resource, covering Europe, North America and East Asia with in-depth articles, maps, and photo galleries.
Plan your trip around coffee
In the summer of 2016, my wife and I took a road trip from Michigan up to 惭辞苍迟谤茅补濒 via Toronto, down through New York state to Washington, DC, then all the way south to Savannah, Georgia, before heading to Alabama and back home through Tennessee. A good portion of the stops on this trip were coffee-related: Toronto and Montreal both have stellar coffee scenes, for a start, while pretty much every city we stopped in, no matter how small, had something to offer coffee-wise.
Visiting coffee shops and chatting with the baristas who work there is a good way to get to know a city and get recommendations on where else to visit. For example, we found in Savannah because a barista at a previous stop raved about it. Inside a big brick warehouse, tucked into a nondescript neighborhood far away from the more popular tourist destinations, we found a crew of people eager to chat and give us additional Savannah-based recommendations 鈥 plus a seat at the bar, a refreshing cold brew, and a view of the roasting operation in full swing.
Likewise, while in Glasgow, Scotland, a barista at one coffee shop told me about a cafe on the south-side of the city that had only just opened and was therefore not yet showing up in search results. The shop is called , and it turned out to be one of the best coffee experiences I had while in the city. What started life as a pop-up at events around Scotland proved so popular that a brick-and-mortar cafe was quick to follow. Using a multi-roaster model, where coffee from roasters around the country is rotated weekly, It All Started Here approaches the craft with meticulous care and focus, serving coffee and an ever-expanding food menu that sparkle with originality and flavour.
The lesson here: talk to your barista, ask questions, and always, always, tip.
How do I know this coffee shop is good before going?
This is an important question, because there are so many coffee shops in any given city that there鈥檚 always a chance the one you鈥檝e chosen might be a letdown. So how can you decide beforehand? Here are some tips:
What鈥檚 their Instagram like?
If you see a lot of artfully-taken photos of latte art and kettles pouring hot water over ground beans, chances are it鈥檚 worth visiting. There is definitely an element of self-parody to some of these photos, but if nothing else it鈥檚 at least a sign that the company cares enough to put effort into its account.
Has anything been written about them?
Another shameless plug, but the coffee tours of various cities in Sprudge are all visited and vetted before being included (I spent a day in Grand Rapids, Michigan, drinking far too much coffee, while researching for that city). If a coffee shop shows up in one of these articles, then it might be worth visiting.
Who roasts their beans?
If they roast their own, then there鈥檚 a better chance of the coffee being decent (or at least fresh). If they鈥檙e a multi-roaster, look to see who supplies them 鈥 is it big name speciality roasters like (in the US), (in the UK), or (in Germany)? That鈥檚 a good sign. Is it a local micro-roaster whose website features a tattooed arm swirling some roasted beans around in a cooling tray? Even better.
What kind of espresso machine do they use?
This is a massive generalization, but my rule of thumb is that if a cafe I want to visit has a , then it鈥檒l probably be at least worth a look.
Can鈥檛 I just drink the hotel coffee?
Well you can, but it probably won鈥檛 be good. Some hotels are starting to take coffee more seriously, and a few even have full-blown cafes in their lobbies, but your best bet if you鈥檙e trying to save money is to pack your own beans, a hand grinder, and some kind of transportable brewer (the is popular among travelers for its quality and robustness). Or, if that seems like too much effort, there are a number of companies producing speciality instant coffee, such as and .
With options like this, and the growing ubiquity of great coffee all over the world, there鈥檚 really no excuse not to drink good coffee while traveling. And if you鈥檙e trying to do so sober, coffee shops make for a great alternative to pubs and bars as a way to meet new people and scope out the local culture. Trust me, I鈥檝e been doing it for years.
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