How to support Grantourismo so we can keep creating inspiring and informative travel and food content: you could make a one-off donation to fund our research, writing, photography, and recipe testing; become a patron of our cookbook on Patreon; buy travel insurance, rent a car, or book accommodation, transport, tours, or language lessons via our site; or purchase our products. We’ll be eternally grateful.
If you’ve arrived here for the first time and have liked what you’ve read or you’re one of the millions of visitors over the last decade who have found inspiration in our stories and articles; have used our travel guides and itineraries to plan trips; and have enjoyed cooking our recipes, we would love you to support Grantourismo, so that we can keep creating inspiring and informative food and travel content.
Like so many working in tourism and hospitality – travel and food writers, photographers, creatives, and consultants included – when borders closed, flights ceased, and the world stopped travelling in March 2020, we lost all our income. Projects were postponed, consulting clients cancelled contracts, publications cut freelancer budgets, and editors stopped commissioning. Our income from Grantourismo also plummeted when everyone stopped travelling.
Like so many others, we’ve survived thanks to the generosity of family, friends, strangers, patrons of our Cambodia cookbook project, and readers of Grantourismo who have donated funds or extended loans to support us and our work here. It has been challenging to say the least, with the first 12 months in particular testing our mental health, strength, resourcefulness, and resilience.
To try to continue publishing Grantourismo without the pre-pandemic income the site generated through affiliate commissions earned from accommodation, insurance and tour bookings, car rental reservations, and online purchases, sponsored projects, and brand partnerships is unsustainable. We need to develop alternative means of income and are currently exploring those.
One thing that we do not want to do is to restrict your access to content by hiding it behind a paywall. Instead, we’re currently developing a Grantourismo membership programme with perks, and we’ll also be offering Grantourismo gift cards – just in time for Christmas – but until we finalise those, we’d like to invite readers to continue to support our work here so we can keep creating inspiring and informative travel and food content. Here’s how to support Grantourismo…
How to Support Grantourismo So We Can Keep Creating Travel and Food Content
Here’s how to support Grantourismo so we can keep creating inspiring and informative travel and food content…
MAKE A DONATION
The best way to support Grantourismo is by making a donation which will assist us in paying the monthly fees for our server, where Grantourismo and our other websites live, as well as our rent, utilities and expenses to run our home office, and the ingredients we buy to recipe-test and produce recipe posts (and feed ourselves!). The easiest ways for you to make a donation are: via PayPal to laradunston@me.com; via Western Union or Moneygram to Lara Natasha Dunston, Siem Reap, Cambodia; or via Payoneer or a Swift international bank transfer, which is super easy if you have mobile banking. Please contact us if you need more details.
BECOME A PATRON OF OUR COOKBOOK
The next best way to support Grantourismo and the work we do here is by making a one-off or monthly pledge and becoming a patron of our epic, first-of-its-kind Cambodian cookbook and Cambodian culinary history on the Patreon platform. This book has been our main focus during the pandemic, after seven years working on the project on and off. We’re documenting hundreds of recipes and stories from cooks across Cambodia for the first time and we’re hoping to complete the tome in 2021. You’ll receive a credit of thanks in the published book, as well as other perks in the future. If you’re not in a position to make a donation or pledge, please tell your food-loving friends about it. You can get a taste of what we’re doing from our Cambodian recipes or click through to Patreon where you’ll find some posts open to the public.
BUY GIFTS AT OUR ONLINE SHOP ON SOCIETY6
We have a Grantourismo online shop on Society6 where you can browse Terence’s beautiful food and travel photography and buy prints in various sizes, framed and un-framed, as posters, canvases, and on wood and metal, along with lots of cool products that we’re creating there from his images. From time to time we also curate selections here on Grantourismo, such as these reusable cloth face masks you’ll actually want to wear and Christmas gift ideas for food lovers. The quality of products is fantastic, delivery is fast, and we earn a commission from every purchase you make from our Grantourismo shop. You can learn more about our Grantourismo shop here.
SHOP ON AMAZON
You’ll find links to Amazon products, from cookbooks and kitchen utensils to cameras and travel gear throughout Grantourismo, and once again, if you click through to Amazon from our site, we’ll earn a small commission on anything you purchase. You could start by browsing our guide to the best cookbooks by Australian chefs , the best of the James Beard 2020 Award Winning Cookbooks, Terence’s list of Classic cookbooks for Serious Cooks (AKA his Desert Island Cookbooks), my recommended Cookbooks for Culinary Travellers – Middle East, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and Travel Books to Inspire Wanderlust. We also have a series of Christmas gift idea guides including Christmas Gifts for Asian Home Cooks, a Guide to Asian Kitchen Essentials, Christmas Gifts for Travel Photographers and Travellers Who Love Photography, and Christmas Gifts for Picnic Lovers, and we’ll continue to post more guides over the next weeks.
BOOK ACCOMMODATION VIA GRANTOURISMO
Click on these links to book accommodation on Booking.com which has the world’s largest range of hotels, apartments, holiday houses, villas, B&Bs, cottages, cabins, and accommodation in caravan parks. We’ll earn a small commission through our affiliate partnership, but you won’t pay any more than if you’d booked directly on sites. You’ll also find links to accommodation we recommend in itineraries and our best hotels and where to stay guides under most destinations on the site. There are also booking site search boxes in all country and city destination guides. For example, here’s the Sydney travel guide where you’ll find a search box under Book Sydney Accommodation, along with guides to Sydney’s best boutique hotels and where to stay in Sydney for rooms with a view. You’ll find similar posts under most destinations.
HIRE CARS, CAMPERVANS AND MOTORHOMES
If you click on these links to rent a car for your next city break or hire a campervan or motorhome for that road trip you’re planning, we’ll also earn small commissions through those affiliate partnerships. As with the accommodation booking sites, you won’t pay any more than if you’d booked directly on their sites. You’ll also come across car rental links in most of our destination guides and itineraries, and links to our motorhome and campervan partner in road trip itineraries.
BOOK LUXURY ESCAPES FOR LESS
Click through to Luxury Escapes for everything from heavily discounted stays at boutique hotels, resorts and villas, as well as holiday packages that include extras such as a bottle of wine, meals and spa treatments. You’ll also find small group tours, luxury train journeys, expedition cruises, and scenic flights, and once again we’ll earn a small commission if you use the link above to book any of those. There are new jaw-dropping deals on offer every day that can be booked well into 2021-22, as well as Last Minute Escapes that you have to do within seven days of booking. Learn more about those on the Luxury Escapes link above.
BUY TRAVEL INSURANCE
We’re really excited about our new partnership with Safety Wing and their Nomad Travel Insurance, which is the world’s first insurance specifically created for digital nomads and remote workers. We’ll be signing up for that ourselves when we can. We also still have an affiliate relationship with World Nomads.
BOOK TOURS, ACTIVITIES, ATTRACTIONS AND EXPERIENCES
You can book tours galore – from short city walking tours and cycling tours to cruises and multi-day small group tours – along with activities and attractions on both Get Your Guide and Klook and we’ll earn a small commission if you do. Both Get Your Guide and Klook have a diverse range of experiences and tours across the globe, from Australia to the Americas, however, Get Your Guide is better when it comes for Europe (1,299 tours and activities in Rome, 753 in London, and 689 in Paris when I last checked) while Klook is your go-to for Asia. Get Your Guide is good for day trips and multi-day tours, everything from Darwin to Kakadu and Alice Springs to Uluru, while Klook has a greater range of experiences, classes and workshops: Thai cooking courses in Bangkok, sushi making classes in Kyoto, Penfolds wine blending experience in the Barossa Valley, spritz time in Venice, tapas trails in Madrid. You can also book spa treatments, massages, shopping excursions, and meals on Klook – from a Kaya Toast set at Ya Kun in Singapore such as a tasting menu at Luke Nguyen’s Botanic House restaurant in Sydney – as well as hire cars, scooters and motorbikes, book airport transfers, buy city cards, tickets for museums, cinemas, shows, and sights, discount shopping vouchers and coupons, purchase SIMs and WiFi cards, and book transport – everything from hop-on hop-off buses around the world and trains in Japan and China to Eurail Passes, the Swiss Travel Pass, German Rail Pass, and BritRail Passes.
BOOK ONLINE LANGUAGE LESSONS
Book a few languages lessons or sign up to a language course with a tutor on the online language learning website Preply and we’ll earn a small commission when you do. I’ve had the greatest success learning languages over the years by doing language classes and if you’re in lockdown there are few things that will keep you more engaged than a language course. And when this pandemic is over, you’ll be able to reward yourself with a trip to the country of your chosen language and put your new skills to the test. There are few better ways to get beneath the skin of a place than speaking the local lingo. You’ll find more of our tips to learning a language during lockdown here. And if you’re a language teacher who would like to sign up to Preply to teach, please sign up here as we also earn a small recruitment fee.
TRANSFER MONEY
Here’s how to support Grantourismo is you need to transfer funds. Click through to our Transferwise invite link and you’ll get a free transfer up to UK£500. After three of our readers sign up we’ll earn UK£ 50 and after you sign up you’ll get a link that you’ll be able to share.
SIGN UP TO OUR GRANTOURISMO NEWSLETTER
To say the pandemic has been disruptive would be a massive understatement obviously, but one of the things that we stopped doing was publishing our fairly irregular newsletter. We’ll be resuming that very soon so please do sign up to our weekly Grantourismo newsletter (in the sign-up box beneath this post) if you’re not on our mailing list already and when you receive your newsletter please do share it with your friends.
TELL YOUR FRIENDS ABOUT GRANTOURISMO
How to support Grantourismo if you’re not in a position to donate money or book or buy something? One of the easiest ways you can support our work here is to tell your food- and travel-loving friends about Grantourismo. Have a friend who is dreaming or planning a future trip or staycation, or just looking for something to cook tonight? Share a link to our site or share our recipes. Grantourismo is easy to navigate, but if you or your friends can’t find what you’re looking for on one of the menus, use the search function, leave a comment on a post or contact us here and we’ll be happy to point you in the right direction and answer any questions.
Pictured: sheep on the idyllic South Island of New Zealand by Terence Carter Photography because who isn’t yearning for simpler times.
