Welcome to Culin-Air Travel
May I introduce myself? I’m Roy Voogd – a choral conductor, food lover, traveller and photographer who can’t resist a good story on a plate. I’m fascinated by how local dishes, markets and recipes reveal the soul of a place. With Culin-Air I travel the world in search of culinary heritage: food traditions that tell you something real about a culture, its people and its history. If you’re curious about the stories behind great meals, you’re in the right place.
In my life I’ve explored over 40 countries across all continents, always with one key question in mind: what does this culture taste like? Along the way I’ve collected experiences in kitchens, vineyards, markets, street stalls, opera houses and art venues – all of them feeding into the way I look at food, travel and culture today.
When work meets passion
Before Culin-Air, my professional life moved in several creative worlds at once. I trained as a choral conductor, worked for over two decades as a graphic designer and marketing consultant, and, in between, cooked obsessively as a hobby chef. In 2016 I sold my marketing and communications agency after 22 inspiring years of creative work – and decided to design a “second half” of my working life around my four great passions:
- Music & the arts
- Cooking & gastronomy
- Travelling
- Photography
Music was my first love and I still conduct choirs after my conservatory studies. Cooking quickly became the second: experimenting at home, then diving deeper into gastronomy and fire cooking. That led to a year-round project on cooking with the Big Green Egg, a cookbook, and eventually to my catering and workshop company BBQ52.
Together with my wife Ingrid I launched a new, small-scale opera organisation, staging outdoor opera on rural locations in the Netherlands – a place where landscape, music, food and atmosphere all come together. Step by step, those projects showed me one thing very clearly: when I combine my passions, I feel most alive.
Why Culin-Air Travel?
Culin-Air is where everything connects. Armed with my cameras, notebook and an open appetite, I travel to destinations with a strong culinary and cultural heritage:
from the Italian food valleys and Tuscan hill towns, to Spanish coastal paradises, African landscapes and beyond. I’m interested in places where food isn’t just “good”, but meaningful – where recipes are shaped by history, migration, environment, religion, art and everyday life.
My goal?
To bring you to influential food cultures and gastronomic hotspots – some famous, some hidden – and show how they shape the wider world of food. Not just where to eat, but why it matters.
What you’ll find on this blog
On Culin-Air you’ll discover:
- Travel stories that follow my journeys through food and culture
- Visual reports full of photography – markets, plates, people and landscapes
- Background articles on culinary heritage: ingredients, traditions, history and local customs
- Profiles of places and people – from small producers and chefs to artisans and artists
- Occasionally, recipes and ideas to bring a taste of these journeys into your own kitchen
I’ll take you along to vineyards in Abruzzo, tapas bars in Barcelona, markets in Cape Town, bakeries in Altamura, quiet Tuscan towns like Arezzo and many more destinations that leave a deep impression on both palate and memory.
Come taste the world of culinary heritage with me
If you’re the kind of traveller who wants more than just a checklist of sights – if you like to eat with curiosity, learn the stories behind your plate and discover how culture, art and food all intertwine – I’d love you to join me on this journey.
Save this blog, subscribe, or follow along on my channels, and let’s Taste the World of Culinary Heritage together – one destination, one story and one unforgettable bite at a time.
