Why We Visit Farmers’ Markets When We Travel
Because slow travel is about experiencing a place, not just seeing it.
by Lindsay Eldridge · Sun 9 Aug 2026
There’s a reason we’ll plan an entire retreat around a Saturday farmers’ market.
Farmers’ markets are one of the easiest ways I’ve found to connect with a place. In a single hour, you can see what’s growing, eat what people are making, talk to locals, support small businesses, and get a much better sense of everyday life in a community.
This is true whether you’re halfway around the world or in your own hometown.
Years ago, I used to take my lunch break to go to the farmers’ market in Raleigh, North Carolina. I would chat with people who made jellies and buy cucumbers and tomatoes directly from farmers. I’d see which flowers were blooming in the surrounding areas and what people were most proud of bringing to market that week.
I could spend one hour there and somehow feel more connected to North Carolina when I left. And I always left with a jar of the best salsa.
You don’t have to talk to anyone or know anything about agriculture to get that feeling. You can people watch. You can take in the sights and smells. You can try homemade bread or local cheese. You can notice what people are lining up for or what everyone seems excited about.
There’s a lot happening in one small place.
Our recent trip to Kauai
My family recently spent a week on Kauai, where we rented a truck with camping equipment and moved around the island.
Our very first stop was the Anahola Farmers Market, which takes place on Monday afternoons. Right away, we were talking to people.
We talked to local artists about their work. Our kids got to interact with them and look through the things they had made. We checked out a kombucha bar, ate Hawaiian food from a food truck, and had a long conversation with the person from Paradise Pancakes, who wanted to know all about where we live in Colorado.
Then it started raining.
Nobody cared.
The live guitar music kept going, our kids played on a nearby playground with other kids, and everyone just continued with their day.
It was a fantastic introduction to Kauai.
At the Saturday market in Hanalei, my parents and I tried handmade mochi, made with local taro root (poi).
My partner, Ryan, met a designer who we may collaborate with in the future. I bought a skirt from a local woman and learned about how she dyes her clothing.
Our kids had their own experiences.
We usually give them a certain amount of money and let them decide how they want to spend it. Sometimes they buy a juice, cinnamon roll, or smoothie and are disappointed because it doesn’t taste like the version they’re used to.
And that is exactly the point: things are different in different places.
Even something as simple as ordering a smoothie gives them a chance to experience that for themselves.
That’s one of the things I love about farmers’ markets. Everyone can experience the same place differently. One person might spend 20 minutes talking to a farmer. Someone else might listen to music. A kid might spend their money on a pastry. Someone else might sit and people watch.
You’re together, but nobody has to experience it in exactly the same way.
Why we include farmers’ markets on our retreats
All of this is exactly why we go so far out of our way to include farmers’ markets on Away Retreats.
Sometimes we’ll plan an entire day, or even an entire retreat, around making sure we can be there.
We also think carefully about when during a retreat we go.
If we’re in another country, I don’t necessarily want to take everyone to a market immediately after they arrive. I want people to have a chance to get their bearings first.
A few days into a retreat, people know each other better. They understand the currency. They’re more comfortable walking around. They have enough confidence to approach someone and ask a question, try an unfamiliar food, or buy something without worrying quite so much about how the interaction is supposed to work.
That’s when a local market can be really good.
There’s also something different about these interactions compared with a lot of traditional sightseeing. You’re talking to someone about something they grew, baked, designed, or made. You already have something to talk about, and it makes connection easier.
It’s also one of the reasons farmers’ markets work so well for the kinds of groups we bring together. People can wander, eat, shop, talk, sit, listen to music, or simply take everything in.
And then everyone comes back together with their own little story about what they found.
Sometimes you can actually see the community happening.
In Northern Kauai, weather changes quickly and at the Hanalei market, the wind started becoming fierce.
The vendors’ tents started moving, and people who had simply been wandering around the market started grabbing onto them and helping hold them down.
Nobody organized it. People just helped.
That moment stuck with me because it was such a simple example of what I love about these places.
A farmers’ market can be about food and shopping, but it’s also about people choosing to come together in the same place at the same time. Farmers bring what they’ve grown, bakers bring what they’ve made, and artists bring what they’ve created. People from the community show up to support them.
As travelers, we get to step into that for a little while.
There are plenty of ways to see the sights when you travel. Farmers’ markets give you a chance to see something else: what people are growing, making, eating, and excited about right now.
There’s a camaraderie in coming together on purpose, at a certain time and a certain place, to share your gifts.
That’s why you’ll almost always find us at a farmers’ market when we travel and why we’ll keep planning retreats around them.
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