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The Fair Tourism Foundation, based in the Netherlands is an organisation that helps local communities to develop small scale tourism activities that help alleviate poverty, improve gender equality and conserve nature. Our award-winning sustainability reporter, Keeley Warren speaks with the founder and CEO of the Fair Tourism Foundation, Charlotte Louwman-Vogels.

– Journalist Belinda Jackson who has reported for us from a range of interesting and exotic locations over the past year, but recently she decided to take a short break up in Victoria’s High Country where she hired an e-bike to ride along one of the region’s bike trails along disused railway lines. It would be an ideal trip to take if you have a day spare and enjoy the autumn colours that are magnificent around Beechworth and Bright. Belinda gives Graeme Kemlo a How To with great tips on the best way to travel, where to stop along the way and what you can expect from food, to wine, even where to shop for home furnishings. More: Belinda is @global_salsa

Wok n Roll Taipei Food Tours is a fun English-speaking culinary guided adventure exploring local streets and sights and now Taiwanese Indigenous culture - Bridgett Leslie interviewed the owner, Chiao Cheng, about the growing reputation for, and interest in, Taiwan’s indigenous foods.

The story begins with the audio track from a short video from Penfolds featuring footage of Max Schubert is the legendary winemaker who created Penfold’s Grange, arguably Australia’s most awarded red wine. Bbut there’s a story not widely known about Max who defied direct instructions from the Board of the company to stop making this wine in the early 1950s. Max continued to make the wine, aged it in barrels and hid the bottles around the cellars. When the European wine press and his Board finally realised this wine needed time to develop, Max unveiled his secret vintages receiving an unprecedented number of awards and the reputation was born. Reporter Carolyne Jasinski went to the home of Grange, the Penfold’s Magill Estate in suburban Adelaide to hear the story of Grange from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. She spoke to Penfold’s ambassador Sam O’Connell in the very cellar used to hide the secret vintages. Photo: Sam O'Connell by Carolyne Jasinski

Culinary Editor Rita Erlich chats with Graeme Kemlo about the announced closure of Noma Restaurant at the end of 2024. Noma has been rated #1 of the world's Top 50 restaurants on five occasions, most recently in 2021. It will become a food lab, Noma 3.0, when it closes.

It has been a big year for Victoria’s second city Geelong. It is finally getting the convention and exhibition centre it has been planning for, it has been chosen as the major hub for Melbourne’s Commonwealth Games, it is now the home port of the ferry linking Victoria to Tasmania and the city is seeing some major infrastructure development. We sent reporter Belinda Jackson down the highway to check our Geelong, which she did from the waterfront Novotel Geelong. Belinda speaks with hotel General Manager John Dickson about the excitement building and why you should pay a visit.

Melbourne-born Chinese Australian Chris Chun is a textile designer and the man behind an exquisite exhibition of Zodiac animals now on at Melbourne’s Chinese museum in perfect time to welcome in the Lunar New Year – the year of the rabbit. Chris explains to Rita Erlich what we can expect this year from the rabbit – a calmer year he says in contract to last year’s aggressive water tiger. So Happy Lunar New Year to all our listeners – Here’s Rita. Photo - Cheng (Chris) Chun by Rita Erlich

Reporter Kristin Henning loves Spain and on her latest visit with husband Tom they hired a car and travellerd around the south west of Spain, including visits to the white villages, such as Ronda which was famous for its links with \Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso. Tom and Kris are also leading a small group tour of Spain in April - they have only three places left. More: https://travelpast50.com/rental-car-road-trip-andalucia-spain/ Photo by Kristin Henning

Our Culinary Editor Rita Erlich visited the Huecho en Mexico restaurant chain, which is growing in Melbourne, to discover what makes Mexican food special. Rita spoke with the group;s operations manager Rob Meldrum and business development manager Jimena Munoz who first came to Australia from Mexico as an exchange student in 2014 and worked as wait staff. Rob came from the food supply side of the industry and owned a restaurant franchise.

Two of our TWR intrepid reporters have just been on one of Australia’s iconic rail trips … again. Three years after the inaugural journey from Adelaide to Brisbane, Carolyne Jasinski and Helen Hayes decided to see how the Great Southern was travelling. This time they travelled the 2885km in reverse from Brisbane to Adelaide. On board the 687metre long train with 29 carriages were 178 guests and 38 crew. And apart from stops in Coffs Harbour, Maitland (near the Hunter Valley in NSW) and Melbourne … which we will hear about later … one of their favourite parts of the journey was the mobile gourmet feast. But how do the chefs manage to cook and plate these exquisite meals while the train is clickety clacking on the track. They spoke to Rudy Heng, the chef du partie to get the gourmet goss.

Welcome to Travel Writers Radio Summer Series here on SoundCloud. During the Australian summer holidays many of our reporting team are taking a well-earned break. However we continue to produce one or two new stories every week to keep our audience informed and entertained on food, wine lifestyle and travel. This week reporter Belinda Jackson visited the well-known Balgownie Estate, a business and leisure retreat and winery in the Yarra Valley where she spoke with Operations Director, Grant Flack. He explained that Balgownie had been closed for part of 2021 during the pandemic, but it was not CIOVID to blame but a fire in their kitchen.Belinda Jackson's reportage can be found @global_salsa

Our special reporter on sustainable and regenerative travel Keeley Warren speaks with the Product Manager for World Expeditions , Isabelle Hardinge,. Since World Expeditions was established in 1975, they have always practised a simple philosophy; to provide high quality adventure holidays for small groups of like-minded travellers with a strong alignment to responsible tourism and a commitment to supporting local communities.

In our longform interview tonight Graeme Kemlo speaks with the CEO of Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, Peter King, who has successfully steered this venue through the pandemic when it was unable to facilitate the business for which it was designed – staging meetings conventions and exhibitions, But if people thought Peter King was simply going to take things lying down they were wrong. When it was safe to do so he opened it up to the community transforming cavernous exhibition space into a city drive-in theatre; he partnered with the Royal Children’s Hospital and other charities to help their money raising; and he also went out on a limb in partnering to establish The Lume, one of the most successful immersive art exhibitions in Melbourne and the envy of others around the world. You may not know that Peter King was also a State cricket player, captain and coach of Melbourne Cricket Club and as he steps down from the job, Graeme asks him what parallels there are between leading a cricket team and doubling the revenue of a multi-million dollar facility such as MCEC.

- Despite the pandemic Melbourne still saw 10 five-star hotels added to the room-stock over the past three years. More recently hotel developers have begun to look at four star options, outside the city centre, but still carrying recognizable brands .Some of these new hotels have been built in corporate campus environments, others are positioned for the local leisure market, but they all offer a lower room price than the CBD. Belinda Jackson swapped her suburb for the Sebel Hotel Ringwood and she spoke to Graeme Kemlo about her stay. Photo by Belinda Jackson @global-salsa - Yarra Valley smoked trout, lattice, cream fraiche and Shiraz caviar.

Thousands of Australian tourists are readying themselves to descend on the Indonesian holiday island of Bali, but recent legislation passed by Indonesia’s parliament in Jakarta is set to clamp down on extra-marital sex. So Should Australian couples be concerned if they are not married. Graeme Kemlo speaks with Bali correspondent Suzanne Hart about the impact of this law and also about a warning of a new scam on foreign tourists in Bali.

It was quite a way to start the day, judging 16 cakes. But someone had to do it, and Rita Erlich was up for the challenge, supported by two renowned food writers, American Joan Nathan, and Australian Alice Zaslavsky. It was the start of the first Jewish Food Festival, and as Rita knows, food is a serious business.

Here is what you will find on our last showfor 2022. Over the Australian summer we will post some stories to our SoundCloud site, plus there's more than 2400 stories here that you can listen to at your leisure. TWR is a production of PALAT - the Professional Association of Lifestyle and Travel Writers. Tp get in contact email- info@travelwritersradio.com

Melbourne journalist Belinda Jackson was recently in Sarawak, the largest state in Malaysia on the island of Borneo – She talks to Graeme Kemlo, who has also visited Sarawak a number oc times, about the best reasons to visit this largely tribal State that was once run by a British soldier who became the white Raja having helped the sultan of Brunei to win a war. Belinda describes what she loved about Sarawak – pafticularly its wildlife and its food, some of which is only found in the jungle. Photo: Belinda Jackson Kuching Sarawak

In our longform interview tonight Rita Erlich investigates a move by well known Melbourne chef Matt Wilkinson to perfect the art of bbq-ing in the style of different locations around the world – he wants to transform the Aussie BBQ and take diners to the places he has enjoyed BBQ , from the slow cooked American style to Japan, South America, to Bali Indonesia and lMumbai India to let the food remind you of your culinary travels. Sounds like fun.. www.streetbbq.com.au

Last week we feared our reporter Carolyne Jasinski was stuck on a cruise ship where more than 15 per cent of the passengers had COVID. The good news is that she and husband Rick managed to disembark at Darwin and return safely to Adelaide from where she spoke to me aboug her experience on Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth as a guest lecturer.