Three Emerging Food Destinations Worth Planning a Trip Around: Ca Mau, Oaxaca, and the Isle of Skye

Explore three distinct emerging culinary destinations: Ca Mau, Vietnam, for its shrimp festivals and cultural immersion; Oaxaca, Mexico, for its rich heritage of mole and mezcal; and the Isle of Skye, Scotland, for its chef-driven, landscape-integrated cuisine. This guide helps you choose your next food-focused journey.

Corazon Bautista

November 8, 2026 · 5 min read

If you're plotting a food-centric journey and want somewhere before the crowds arrive, three very different places are earning attention right now: Ca Mau, Vietnam's southernmost province, where the local shrimp festival is being built into a full cultural showcase; Oaxaca, Mexico, where mole, markets, and artisanal mezcal trails anchor one of the world's most talked-about gastronomic regions; and the Isle of Skye in Scotland, where a close-knit community of chefs has turned a windswept island into what Eater's 2026 "Where to Eat Around the World" guide calls a Scottish culinary epicenter. Each offers a distinct style of immersion—festival-driven in Vietnam, heritage-driven in Mexico, and landscape-driven in Scotland. Here's how they compare, and how to think about which one fits the trip you actually want.

Ca Mau, Vietnam: A Shrimp-Centric Cultural Journey

What makes Ca Mau compelling isn't just the food itself but the story the province is deliberately attaching to it. In an interview published by Báo Cà Mau, Nguyen Quoc Thanh of the provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism described a culture "formed from the long-standing connection between people and the rivers, mangrove forests, and the sea," and shaped by the "coexistence and cultural exchange of the three brotherly ethnic groups: Kinh, Khmer, and Hoa." Those values, he explained, run through art, customs, occupations, and "especially culinary culture."

The shrimp is the anchor. Ca Mau's festival programming—anchored by an opening art program themed "Illuminating Cultural Identity – Ca Mau Shrimp Reaching the World"—pairs the region's signature shellfish with a broad cultural immersion: a recreated space for the daily life, culture, and cuisine of the Kinh, Khmer, and Hoa communities; a traditional music and singing festival; performances of Khmer five-tone music; a lion dance festival; and a cultural night of the province's ethnic groups. OCOP (One Commune One Product) stalls and local specialty stalls extend the experience from tasting to learning about, and bringing home, regional products.

The ambition, as Thanh framed it, is to make culinary culture itself a distinctive tourism product: "When a delicious dish is linked to a story about the forest, the sea, the shrimp farmers, and the way of life of the people of Ca Mau, it not only appeals to the taste buds but also contributes to promoting the image of the destination." If you want your eating wrapped in festival energy, performance, and a clearly narrated sense of place, this is the strongest of the three.

Oaxaca, Mexico: A Heritage of Mole, Mezcal, and Corn

Oaxaca is the most established name on this list, and the numbers explain why. A market analysis from Grand View Research projects that Mexico's culinary tourism market will grow at a significant compound annual rate of 22.0 percent from 2026 to 2033, and describes the country's culinary travel scene as "evolving through the rise of artisanal mezcal trails, corn heritage celebrations, and regionally significant dishes rooted in cultural identity."

Within that landscape, Oaxaca stands out. The same analysis identifies it as "a major attraction for travellers interested in traditional mole recipes, vibrant local markets, and authentic mezcal tasting experiences." That's the essential Oaxacan triangle: complex, historic sauces; markets where ingredients carry generations of meaning; and a growing network of artisanal mezcal experiences that tie a glass of spirit to the land and the hands that made it.

How immersion works here differs from Ca Mau's festival model. Culinary tourism guidance from Le Cordon Bleu points toward the cooking-class-and-market-trip format—one contributor described a holiday class paired with a market visit "where we got to learn about the local ingredients and their history," an experience they valued for learning "how the locals make the dishes and the meanings behind each dish." That learning-oriented style—slow, instructive, rooted in ingredients and their histories—aligns naturally with Oaxaca's heritage depth, where the point isn't just to taste mole but to understand what's in it and why. The same guidance notes that wine, beer, and food festivals can also turn a place into a food destination, but Oaxaca's draw is fundamentally about depth rather than spectacle.

Culinary Destinations at a Glance: A Comparative Table

Setting the three side by side makes the choice sharper. The comparison below is drawn from the official Ca Mau festival reporting, the market analysis covering Oaxaca, and Eater's 2026 dining guide for Skye—and the contrast it reveals is a clear differentiation between a festival-based cultural experience, a heritage-focused trail, and a chef-driven, landscape-integrated approach.

Three emerging culinary destinations compared for food-focused travelers
Destination	Culinary Focus	Signature Ingredients & Dishes	Cultural Immersion Style
Ca Mau, Vietnam	Building a destination brand around Ca Mau shrimp and the culture of Vietnam's southernmost province, per the provincial tourism department.	Local shrimp as the promoted specialty, featured across festival programming and OCOP specialty stalls.	Festival-based: ethnic-group cultural nights, Khmer five-tone music, lion dance, and recreated daily-life spaces of the Kinh, Khmer, and Hoa communities.
Oaxaca, Mexico	Recognized as a major dining attraction within a Mexican culinary tourism market projected to grow at a 22.0% CAGR from 2026 to 2033.	Traditional mole recipes, vibrant local markets, and artisanal mezcal tasting; corn heritage celebrations feed the broader national scene.	Heritage-focused: market trips, cooking classes, and learning the history and meaning behind ingredients and dishes.
Isle of Skye, Scotland	An emerging dining destination—dubbed a "Scottish culinary epicenter" in Eater's 2026 guide—driven by a close-knit, homegrown chef community.	Hand-dived scallops, foraged seaweed and mushrooms, and locally raised lamb, cooked with extreme seasonality.	Chef-driven and landscape-integrated: chefs who collaborate across restaurants and cook ingredients foraged or gathered hours before service.

Three emerging culinary destinations compared for food-focused travelers

Destination

Culinary Focus

Signature Ingredients & Dishes

Cultural Immersion Style

Ca Mau, Vietnam

Building a destination brand around Ca Mau shrimp and the culture of Vietnam's southernmost province, per the provincial tourism department.

Local shrimp as the promoted specialty, featured across festival programming and OCOP specialty stalls.

Festival-based: ethnic-group cultural nights, Khmer five-tone music, lion dance, and recreated daily-life spaces of the Kinh, Khmer, and Hoa communities.

Oaxaca, Mexico

Recognized as a major dining attraction within a Mexican culinary tourism market projected to grow at a 22.0% CAGR from 2026 to 2033.

Traditional mole recipes, vibrant local markets, and artisanal mezcal tasting; corn heritage celebrations feed the broader national scene.

Heritage-focused: market trips, cooking classes, and learning the history and meaning behind ingredients and dishes.

Isle of Skye, Scotland

An emerging dining destination—dubbed a "Scottish culinary epicenter" in Eater's 2026 guide—driven by a close-knit, homegrown chef community.

Hand-dived scallops, foraged seaweed and mushrooms, and locally raised lamb, cooked with extreme seasonality.

Chef-driven and landscape-integrated: chefs who collaborate across restaurants and cook ingredients foraged or gathered hours before service.

Read across the rows, the pattern is straightforward. Ca Mau is about communal celebration; Oaxaca is about understanding; Skye is about proximity—to the land, the sea, and the cooks. None of the three is a better version of another; they're different categories of experience entirely.