Food in Jordan overflows with the flavours and colours of the Middle East. Served in large dishes and designed to be shared, its success lies in using ever-so-fresh and finely chopped vegetables, lashings of sesame-style tahini and plenty upon plenty of honey. Don’t limit yourself to the tourist taverns, though. Sign up for a cooking class at Beit Sitti, a grandmother’s kitchen in a real Jordanian home.

To dig deeper into the concept of ‘experiential travel,’ we asked the WHL Group’s partners – local travel experts from around the globe – to tell us how life feels in their destinations. We asked them to get sensory about it. Find out which of the five senses is most heightened when you open your eyes, nose, mouth, ears and hands in a new place.

Buzz from travellers about Tamarind Café’s cooking class flew around Luang Prabang’s easy-going and placid streets, chatter tagged with words “authentic” and “real local food.” The course includes a morning market tour, the chance to make (and eat) six dishes and an education in the food of Laos. And an education is needed. Lao cuisine is mysterious.

Yes, we did use spirits while making small delicious cheese pies, called ‘kalitsounia,’ in a traditional hillside village of western Crete, Greece. Koula Barydakis, our ebullient chef instructor, began our local cooking lessons by pouring a shot of raki for herself and her students as we toasted the traditional Cretan diet, one of the healthiest in the world.