Hi, I’m James, a professional chef and world foodist with a career spanning 20 years and 2 hemispheres. When I’m out of the kitchens, I run this recipe, world food and travel blog as I’ve travelled the world broadening my culinary expertise and learning new and traditional ways with food. As a travelling chef, I learned a lot, and tasted some of the best, and worst, food in the world, while working in two continents.
Busy at work with reef fish at a local resort.
Prior to becoming location-independent or nomadic, I worked in 5-star hotels in London, some of the city’s top restaurants, and was an executive chef at a luxury resort in Port Douglas Queensland.
Today I sometimes work as a private chef on luxury yachts, villas, and private parties near me. A few days a week I keep my skills sharp in a small restaurant in Port Douglas Australia. You’ll usually find me around the marina if I’m not at sea.
I also have experience as a deckhand on the Great Barrier Reef, and as a surf lifesaver.
If you reach out, I may be able to cook for your party, cruise, BBQ, or special event. My contact email is below.
My Years Of Travel
Getting my kids cooking Thai food, at a cookery school in Thailand. Kids love these classes and so do I.
I’ve visited well over 50 countries with my wife and kids alongside me. We travelled for 6+ years with our children, prior to that we took a 12 month RTW as a young couple. I am the dad at World Travel Family travel blog.
My wife runs our family travel blog and covers many aspects of travel, most related to children. I have some skills in website and content creation too.
We will continue to travel until there’s nowhere left to go, just as soon as the world opens again.
What Do We Cover on World Travel Chef Blog?
This site will help you know what to eat and where, we also like to explain what dishes are, because people aren’t born knowing what idli or mo mo are.
We can help you with foodie travel practicalities too plus tips on becoming a travelling chef.
Alternatively, indulge in armchair food travel or get busy in your kitchen, recreating the dishes we discover and share with you as we travel the world using our recommended Chef’s gadgets.
I’m passionate about food and fitness as well as being my family’s travel organiser.
I take care of the nuts and bolts of how to get from a to b, currencies, visas, and all the usual dad stuff. I’m dad and husband first, foodie and sportsman second.
World Travel Chef, the website, covers:
World Food. Because food is my passion and we travel, at least in part, to taste every authentic dish we can find. We publish recipes to help you replicate the dishes you enjoyed in far-off lands, at home. In every country we visit we take cooking classes and aim to try every authentic, traditional, weird and unusual dish we can find.
Being a Chef. There are a few posts on being and becoming a chef as well as experiences of travel as a chef. Want to know how to become a chef? We’ve got that covered. How about the secret life of chefs? Check it out.
Travel – with a leaning towards travel organisation. How I look after my family on the road, make our travels run smoothly, get from a-b and arrange currencies, visas and insurance. We have a travel tips and destinations section. We have had the odd travel related mishap, like that time I ended up needing emergency medical care in Thailand, those stories make it onto the site too.
Fitness and international triathlon, because I compete around the world in Ironman, marathon and ultramarathon, as well as being a keen scuba diver, trekker and skier. My nutrition is a serious business and my love of food is tied into my sports performance. You can read about my first Ironman, and many Ironman competitions around the world on my site.
How to get from A to B posts are a favourite of mine, as that’s what I like to organise for my family, so for instance, we have how to get from Hue to Hoi An, and information on the Hai Van Pass.
So the World Travel Chef is a bit of a weird mix of topics, but rendering it down, the base of this dish is world food and travel.
My Story as a Travelling Chef
Travel has been a huge part of my life, I took my first RTW (round the world trip) back in 2000 and in 2013 I became a full-time traveller.
My family and I were on the road, more or less continuously, from 2013 to lockdown in 2020.
My wife is a travel blogger, my children are homeschooled. It’s a great lifestyle and learning environment for the kids.
My wife runs the family travel site, this is my angle on travel and world food, recipes and travel tips. Hi from World Travel Chef, welcome!
Hi, I’m a Chef, a Traveller, a dad, a husband and an Ironman Triathlete.
Welcome to World Travel Chef!
A travelling chef gets to work and learn in diverse locations, but mostly my lifestyle is about having fun, learning as much as I can about food and cooking, seeing the world and spending more time with my family.
That and a huge helping of sport. I’m an Ironman triathlete and a marathon runner.
I’m learning new cooking techniques and trying new dishes along the way and, of course, I’ll share the world’s food with you.
As Dad of our travelling crew, I take care of routes, visas, practicalities and making sure my family is safe. On this site, I give you a Dad’s perspective on travel. Sure, plenty of women handle this stuff too, but in my family, I’m the organiser because I enjoy it and my wife doesn’t.
Where have we been so far? We’ve visited over 50 countries in Southeast Asia, Europe, Australia, and the Americas. I can talk to you about Thai Food, Romanian food, Vietnamese food, Nepali food (dal baht is my favourite but I’m a huge momo fan too), Indian food, Egyptian Food, Sri Lankan food, just about any cuisine you name, or even, the classic French-inspired dishes that I cook professionally. Australian food is my home turf, of course, we cover that too.
A Travelling Chef Career
Food has been my passion for as long as I can remember. Like a lot of chefs, it started with helping to cook the family meals at home.
After numerous work experience stints in kitchens, while I was still in school, I landed my first job washing dishes at a hotel. The big city Sydney apprenticeship followed, then the one-way ticket to London.
In London, my eyes were opened to the culinary world.
The 16-hour days and 6-day weeks meant that there was ample time to hone my skills and learn some new ones. My apprenticeship taught me enough to be dangerous, but not to be a polished chef.
London was also where I started my travels around the globe. What could be better than travel and food experiences all rolled into one?
Travel became part of my professional career as a chef. The guinea pigs of Peru, the mouth-numbing chicken skewers of China and the Thai, Indian, Vietnamese, and Cambodian cookery courses I’ve attended.
The world is a constant source of culinary delights to amaze and tantalise your taste buds.
Our most recent long-term location, Far North Queensland, offered an abundance of fresh and delicious food experiences.
As an Executive Chef at a resort hotel, I was able to really take advantage of this and expose our customers to local delights, from fresh prawns from the trawler to the volcanic, grass-fed beef from the tablelands.
The local cheesemaker and herb growers had a starring role on our menu, too.
This brings us to the blog, World Travel Chef. Why, after another busy day, will I sit down and write about all things food, fitness, and travel?
The food landscape is changing. Social media and television programs are altering the ways in which we interact and access information on culinary topics.
I can now share my passion, experience, and recipes with everyone at the touch of a button.
Who wouldn’t take advantage of that?
Also, of course blogging is lucrative, it earns us an income and gives us an amazing lifestyle.
How To Partner with World Travel Chef
There are a number of flexible ways you can partner with the World Travel Chef website:
Other than being a triathlete, ultra-runner, and full-distance Ironman. I’m also fanatical about trekking, skiing, and scuba diving, I like to share my hobbies and my passions with the world to help others get involved in sport or stay fit as they travel.
If you’d like to work with the World Travel Chef website, please contact us using the email address above.
Nice Post, you know traveling and eating is my hobby. Mostly I prefer to go Italian restaurants to eat Italian food this is one of my favorite in the menu list.Your blog is informational thanks for this.
Hey James
I loved reading your story. I am truly inspired. Just recently I had a backpacker that I met through couchsurfing stay at my apartment in Nazare, Portugal where I currently live. Meeting him has given me ideas that are now flowing through my mind so I searched up backpacking and hitchhiking which this friend is doing. My research brought me to your site as I saw that one can make money while travelling. I have 10 plus years experience cooking as a line cook and commis chef. I did work in England, Canada and on a cruise ship. I travelling and experiencing new foods that are beyond my comfort zone. I want to enhance my world of food and discover what I want as a chef. Like do I want a restaurant, a small bistro, or whatever. I am considering backpacking around Europe to gain that experience I need. I need some advice in how to start. I am a Canadian/Portuguese citizen so I can travel and work anywhere in the EU to work without any hassle, well other than the language barrier. I guess I need to start by making sure I leave money for rent so that I don’t lose my apartment since it’s under contract. I will learn to blog my journey and record everything I do and learn and see. I just need some guidance to start.
I found your website while browsing for a Ema datshi recipe and World Travel Chef came up. I must say, I hope we’re doing great in SEO as much as you guys are, haha! Huge respect for your accomplishments.
We work in the same space (food industry) and recently we’ve been working on improving our marketing efforts. We’ve been thinking about doing something like affiliate marketing, podcast guesting, or content collaboration.
I think maybe there’s a potential for us working together in the near future?
Thank you for your reply in advance and I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Email link not working above
Thanks Fred, Appreciate the heads up.
It’s not a link Fred, it’s just an address. Cheers.
Hey,
Nice Post, you know traveling and eating is my hobby. Mostly I prefer to go Italian restaurants to eat Italian food this is one of my favorite in the menu list.Your blog is informational thanks for this.
Good Post, Mostly I prefer to go Italian restaurants to eat Italian food this is one of my favorite in the menu list
Hey James
I loved reading your story. I am truly inspired. Just recently I had a backpacker that I met through couchsurfing stay at my apartment in Nazare, Portugal where I currently live. Meeting him has given me ideas that are now flowing through my mind so I searched up backpacking and hitchhiking which this friend is doing. My research brought me to your site as I saw that one can make money while travelling. I have 10 plus years experience cooking as a line cook and commis chef. I did work in England, Canada and on a cruise ship. I travelling and experiencing new foods that are beyond my comfort zone. I want to enhance my world of food and discover what I want as a chef. Like do I want a restaurant, a small bistro, or whatever. I am considering backpacking around Europe to gain that experience I need. I need some advice in how to start. I am a Canadian/Portuguese citizen so I can travel and work anywhere in the EU to work without any hassle, well other than the language barrier. I guess I need to start by making sure I leave money for rent so that I don’t lose my apartment since it’s under contract. I will learn to blog my journey and record everything I do and learn and see. I just need some guidance to start.
Hey James,
I found your website while browsing for a Ema datshi recipe and World Travel Chef came up. I must say, I hope we’re doing great in SEO as much as you guys are, haha! Huge respect for your accomplishments.
We work in the same space (food industry) and recently we’ve been working on improving our marketing efforts. We’ve been thinking about doing something like affiliate marketing, podcast guesting, or content collaboration.
I think maybe there’s a potential for us working together in the near future?
Thank you for your reply in advance and I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Regards,
Vernard Luz
VP of Marketing
My wife is the SEO wizard Vernard. She handles all that.
Thank you so much for replying. I’m glad to hear from you James, and maybe we can work with you?
Regards,
Vernard Luz
VP of Marketing