Ten years ago, city food tours were not really a thing. Now every city of any size has some sort of food tour BUT most of them are not vegan.
While we wait for a vegan world, we are excited to share with you some 100% vegan city food tours that exist in North America. Yes! That’s right! Many local vegans are creating fun and interesting tours where you get to sample a wide array of the sights, sounds, and vegan food of Northern American cities in just a couple of hours!
What are features of vegan city food tours:
- They are run privately or on an ‘on request’ type of arrangement, or they have group trips where you can just join on to a scheduled departure.
- They will have some sort of guide. Sometimes the guide will be an official guide that has an encyclopedic knowledge of art history, architecture, and the culture of the place you are visiting, on other occasions perhaps not so much. They will probably be good storytellers and be able to manage groups well.
- The tour will probably require to you travel around the city, probably on foot, but other types of transport might be required. You might pass by important monuments and spend some time learning about the city as well as visiting many places to try different foods and specialties. Sometimes the portions will be smaller so you can fit more places in.
- The cost of the tour includes the food that you will eat.
- They are usually between 2-3 hours in length.
We really love vegan city food tours because:
- We’re vegan (obviously)
- They are really good if you love trying food from the area you are visiting.
- Vegan city tours are fantastic if you are short of time – You’ll get to learn something about the city you are visiting and get to visit 4 or 5 different eateries.
- They’ll get you into places that might be hard to do on your own – for example, on our France trips we worked with a vegan city tours company and they were able to set up a cheese tasting with champagne where we got to sample about 6 different cheeses (including the most amazing Brie you have ever tried)
- Your guide is a fantastic source of information about the city. They’ll be able to recommend other amazing places to eat during your stay.
So where can you find these vegan city food tours?
Well, you can often find vegan city tours by simply searching CITY NAME + vegan food tour on your preferred search engine, you can check Instagram and social media and Airbnb Experiences often will help you discover them. Alternatively, you can simply read on, because we have researched and created a list of food tours just for you for your next visit in North America!
Updating this post
We would love to keep this post updated, so as new tours open up, and others get started, make sure you let us know by contacting us and we will add it to our list.
United States
New York
At Vegan Tours NY, you get to see the vegan side of New York City. While New York is known for being a vegan-friendly place, it is sometimes hard to find the best vegan eats and shops – or you simply don’t want to eat a full meal at multiple restaurants. This is exactly what Vegan Tours NY does: they offer tastes from around six different places on their tours in the East Village/Lower East Side and Williamsburg/Greenpoint neighborhoods of the city. All tours are led by a knowledgeable, local guide who knows the city inside and out. Whether you get a glimpse of student life in the East Village or a view of the Manhattan skyline in Brooklyn, you will certainly experience the city like on no other tour.
Starting in April ’22, you will even be able to bring your dog on some of the tours offered, including a dog-friendly brewery crawl!
Vegan Tours NY was started by Verena Erhart in 2019 and, even to her surprise, most guests on the tours are not even vegan. Some travel with a vegan or vegetarian and some are just curious about the vegan offerings in New York. A roughly three-hour tour can, of course, only offer a small taste of everything there is to try in NYC, but it is one of the most fun and convenient ways to taste our way around New York.
Las Vegas
Lance offers three vegan tours of Las Vegas. The first of Chinatown, a second, a more general SouthWest Vegan Food Tour and his latest offering Downtown and the Strip. On the Chinatown Vegan Food Tour, you’ll sample everything from mouth-watering sushi and orange chick’n to milkshakes. Starting at a world-famous Asian vegan Restaurant, in Koreatown, you’ll have a seat and sample a wide variety of dishes. After finding some ice cream for dessert, you’ll end the food tour at one of the largest Asian Supermarkets in Chinatown and learn about various exotic fruits, grains, and vegan meats.
For the more general of Lance’s tours, you’ll sample delicious foods from comfort to upscale from around the world but in the convenience of the Southwest area.
The tour will start at a cozy vegan Italian spot before heading over to a local juice bar and you’ll learn about the benefits of juicing and smoothies.
You’ll finish up at a plant-based Mexican eatery for a feast of tacos and beans! His Downtown and The Strip tour includes a mix of different cuisines and foods.
Philadelphia
Created by blogger and certified vegan lifestyle coach, Deanna offers tours of this fascinating city that take you around all the vegan food hotspots. Beginning in the famous Rittenhouse Square of Center City Philadelphia, you’ll learn the history of Philly, and stroll by at least five of Deanna’s favorite local restaurants and taste multiple delicious vegan dishes. I will share the restaurant owner’s inspiration for opening and why they decided to focus on vegan food. Like many vegan food tours, the price of the tour includes food tastings at each stop. Your tour will end in the award-winning Reading Terminal Market.
Asheville
Asheville’s Vegan Food Tour is a four to six-hour completely customizable tour, offered by request when you contact Kim Giovacco at Veg Jaunts and Journeys. Participants are picked up at their accommodation, or an agreed-upon meeting point. The shorter tour takes visitors to downtown Asheville and the more vegan-friendly and less touristy neighborhood of West Asheville. The longer tour also visits Asheville’s beloved animal sanctuary, Animal Haven of Asheville, founded over 20 years ago.
The tour can be customized for both cuisine and gluten-free options. Participants visit five or six restaurants, as well as a super vegan-friendly market, where hard-to-find vegan items could be purchased to take home. Another stop is one of Asheville’s newest businesses, a stall in a very cool arts-filled building. Here can be found gifts and food items from Asheville vegan makers, including jewelry, tee shirts, kitchen towels, and napkins.
Stops include a vegan coffee with very creative coffee drinks and high-quality breakfast treats, including empanadas and cheese-filled hand pies. Another stop offers Southern comfort junk food such as tempeh wings and queso dip. Every spot in Asheville offers a Tempeh Reuben sandwich, and foodies will get to sample that too.
Portland
Portland has often been rated the #1 vegan-friendly destination in the US, so what better way to experience the vegan of this city than with an epic vegan food tour. Chloe shows off her herbivore heaven with her travelers by meandering through a southeast neighborhood, making 4-5 all-vegan stops along the way. from a Sri Lankan worker-owned coop to an all-day breakfast food cart. Chloe highlights quirky facts about the City of Roses throughout the tour and she is hoping to expand to other neighborhoods soon! From gourmet vegan donuts to vegan bao buns, Chloe will show you the best of the best in this vegan city.
Seattle
Will hosts his Seattle vegan city for tours on Airbnb Experiences and you won’t be doing a lot of walking, because his tour focuses on the world-famous Pike Market. Learn more about the market’s history while visiting (and sampling the food from) more than 10 different food stalls. Gluten-free or have another allergy or sensitivity? Will tries his best to accommodate you.
Encinitas, California
Hosted by Ben on Airbnb Experiences experience the world famous Southern California food culture, through a delectable 6-course plant-based meal from local eateries!
Learn all about the history and culture of North County San Diego, while sipping on local beer and munching on cultural cuisine in the laid-back beach town of Encinitas.
Being the birthplace of the California yoga movement, with its coastal surf vibes and glamorous celebrity history, Encinitas has become one of the best places in the world for gourmet plant-based cuisine.
Canada
Vancouver
Vancouver is rapidly becoming one of the most vegan-friendly places in the world and the incredible diversity of the city means that you can find vegan versions of so many different cuisines from Ramen, middle eastern and so much more. A non-vegan city food tour operation has added a four-stop tour to their offerings that will take you around Gastown so if you want to follow a local, they’ll hook you up!
Mexico
Playa Del Carmen
Eating with Carmen offers a number of food tours around Tulum, Cancun, and Playa Del Carmen and this is their vegan offering. Join them on this fun walking tour around the city starting at a classic Mexican fruit market where you can taste and drink the most diverse tropical fruits. You’ll continue your vegan journey by eating some authentic Yucatec dishes followed by a delicious vegan ceviche and too-good-to-be-true Vegan tacos.
Mexico City
This four-hour food tour starts and finishes at Roma Norte where you will drink some coffee and enjoy PINK tortillas and learn the nixtamal process as well as corn-made drinks and takes you through the Jamaica market where you will taste quesadillas, mole, and tepache. Then you will head over for a Pulque tasting. Visit a 100-year-old pulqueria and learn the process for making pulque, taste a variety of curados (pulque mixed with fruits) before heading back to Roma Norte for an icecream all while learning how to ride the subway in Mexico City and all the tips and inside information for eating street food in Mexico City.
