Never been on a cooking holiday or cooking vacation? Are you one of those trying to escape the microwaves? They say that the best meal you'll ever taste is the one you cook yourself. Not quite true. A better meal would be the one you prepare under the guidance of a master chef.

And that's exactly what a cooking holiday is all about. It's a chance to immerse yourself in the flavours and the culinary traditions of the world's great cuisines. Your partner and guide will be a chef who loves those traditions with a passion - someone for whom the words 'cooking' and 'life' are interchangeable.

But don't forget these are small personal holidays or tours organised locally and run by one or two individuals. They will guarantee you far more support and more individual attention than you would experience with the bigger more traditional tour operators. Because they are not big tour operators it makes it important (as it is with any holiday) that you arrange your travel insurance as soon as you are ready to make your booking.

A recipe for relaxation

Make no mistake: a cooking holiday really is a holiday. Regional cuisines are inseparable from the farms and the vineyards, the shops and the markets, and the climate and location from which they sprang. Mouthwatering food and breathtaking scenery have a tendency to go together.

You'll be staying at the most delightful chateaux, hotels, farmhouses, restaurants, and beachside villas that the region has to offer. Generous luxury and an easygoing ambience characterise the chosen venues, while guest numbers remain small and intimate.

Life is by no means confined to the kitchen. It spills onto the terrace at every opportunity; for swimming, for cocktails, or for open-air pizza-making. Your days are varied and inspiring: tours of local wineries; excursions to historic towns where you can choose your own fresh ingredients; lazy days in cafes and restaurants during which you can compare your new-found skills with those of the locals.

The world is your oyster-knife
With CookingHolidays.co.uk the world is your stock pot and your vegetable steamer. The tours and the kitchens featured extend across a growing number of countries and cuisines. From the herb-filled fragrance of Provence to the cypress-clad hills of Tuscany to the palm-fringed beaches of Thailand, there's a myriad of flavours to experiment with.

In glorious locations like these, you soon develop the easy familiarity with which your guides handle their ingredients. Their relaxed approach is an inspiration. With them, cooking is a real pleasure, creative and instantly rewarding.

Whether it is culinary tours to Italy or cooking tours to Italy, gourmet food or wine tasting in France or a cooking tour or culinary vacation in the far east you will find something for everyone. Just click on a link and browse the wonderful array of culinary tours and cooking tours (also referred to as cooking holidays or cooking vacations).

So what is a cooking holiday or vacation like?

The only way to truly find out is to go on one! However, to give you a feel for what you might expect we have put together a couple of pages:

• Cooking in Provence . . . the idyllic life of the high flyer
  Roswitha Remling and Scott Ashkenaz took asabbatical in 2000, part of which was a week's cooking holiday at Le Baou d'Infer in Provence with Chef Alex Mackay. They havekindly given us permission to reproduce the photographs they took to give you an insight into what a fabulous way this is to enjoy yourself.

• Cooking in Tuscany . . . enjoying the food and the romanticism of Italy
  This is a photographic account of a cooking holiday in Tuscany that was hosted by Hub-UK during the summer of 2005 and was the inspiration for this web site. Following our arrival at Rome's International Airports - needless to say we all contrived to arrive at different times and airports - we were met and transferred from Rome to Tuscany either in an air-conditioned minibus or one of the high speed air-conditioned trains.

And on the basis that every picture tells a story . . .