Where Sidewalks EndReviews of wheresidewalksend.com

I did three tours in Oaxaca and my guides (Victor, Octavio, and Laura) were all excellent! These tours are well-crafted and did an excellent job connecting me with local people and artisans. Plus, the guides are a wealth of local knowledge and additional connections that enhanced my local travel experience.

Great experience!

I've lived in Oaxaca for 6 years now, and I couldn't recommend this tour more! We started the day at the mercado, which I've been to many times and have shopped at regularly. Chef Eduardo showed me several places in the market that I hadn't shopped at before, introduced us all, and spent time teaching us what we were looking for. He taught us why these stalls had the quality, prices, ingredients, or whatever the reason was for each specific one. It was really eye opening! I've taken many cooking classes here, as well as around the world, and I found this to be the most informative of any cooking class I've ever been a part of. He has really built the course to take you through step-by-step understanding the why behind each decision. I really felt that was pivotal in learning to make these dishes. He wasn't simply teaching me a recipe, but teaching me to make decisions along the way to affect the flavors in ways that best suit me. That has to be one of the biggest takeaways from the whole day. I didn't learn to make a dish, I learned to make a dish the way I like it, can repeat it, and can change it up with different ingredients or for friends with different dietary needs. We learned a lot of history behind the dishes, interesting cooking and chopping techniques (some that will make you the hit of the next party!), and ended up in deep conversation all afternoon long. This is the 2nd tour that I've taken with WSE, and as a tour company, I truly cannot recommend them enough. WSE tours truly get you off the beaten path, give you a real chance to connect with locals, and to see a side of what it really means to live in this place. They don't provide your typical tours that just show you around and give you some fun party facts. Instead they immerse you in the world you came to see, and in places you can't always get your foot in the door. For this particular tour, we got to cook inside of a really cool restaurant, while it was closed to the public, and ended up getting to spend the whole day in a beautiful kitchen, amazing views, and getting an inside peak of what it's like to be in the restaurant industry in Oaxaca, while also learning to cook homemade meals. The food was amazing. We made 3 different salsas, using different local culinary tools like the comal and molcajete. I've used these tools at home for several years now but I learned so many new techniques and even history about these tools. We made mole, handmade our own tomales, and even our own tortillas. I can't believe how much we did in one day! Truly, if you're into culture, off-the-beaten-path adventures, and especially cooking, there is no better option that exists in Oaxaca than this tour!

They made unique experience. Also friendly and helpful. Highly recommended.

The tour and cooking class were great, I thought we were going to have a couple of hours and a selection of dishes but in the end it took up all of the morning and a lot of the afternoon and started off in one of the local markets ( which is not too touristy and a really good insight into the local way of life). There we went to various stalls and bought some of the ingredients for the later cooking class and also stopped for some breakfast. Not realising how much food we would cook and eat over the next several hours in the class I had two portions of breakfast, which I don't regret but was perhaps more food than I needed for breakfast, but delicious. The cooking class itself happens in Eduardo's custom built small and intimate cooking school with fantastic views across the city just a little bit out of the city centre, a five minute walk, but great in the sense that it is calm and also a neighborhood famous for live music. We cooked around five dishes, all of them delicious and every step Eduardo was very concise and clear with the history of the dishes and always with an interesting story behind them as well as the technical aspect of how to prepare them all done within a very comfortable and inspiring setting of his small cooking school. Really a fantastic experience from beginning to end and felt more authentic than perhaps some of the more central cooking experiences but in all honesty this is the only one that I've been on in Oaxaca and it did not disappoint. So I can't compare to other classes but sometimes the general feel of the heart of the city centre can be quite touristy, which of course is normal for such a popular place as Oaxaca.

Our guide was such an wonderful person. We learned so much about the area from him. My daughter and I had an amazing time. The whole process will remain one of the most memorable experiences of our lives

Had an amazing half day with guide Nuch who took me to see Ajarn Yod in Phuket. I was given all the information I needed and everyone was so kind and gentle. I was assisted in choosing the appropriate Sak Yant tattoo and everything was clean and well taken care of. Nuch even brought me local snacks and we had a delicious lunch afterwards. Such an amazing spiritual and cultural experience.

My guide was excellent and helped facilitate my Sak Yant experience really smoothly. I felt supported and safe but not regimented or pressured at any point. The whole experience was paced really well and I had ample opportunity to ask any questions. I would highly recommend Where Sidewalks End.