Hungry? Hit the road!

For some people, sunny beaches don't cut it, dazzling sights can't measure up and the breathtaking works of nature simply aren't the point. These people are hungry -- really hungry, like get-on-a-plane-and-fly-to-my-meal hungry -- and they're hitting the road to be satiated.

You already know you belong to this group if you take trips built around food. Increasingly, as the world becomes one big restaurant, it's getting easier to create a road trip that caters purely to the appetite.

The venerable travel guide Fodor's offers its top 10 culinary tours at http://fodors.iexplore.com/activities/food--top10.jhtml?activityCuli nary -- including destinations like Ecuador, Zimbabwe and Los Angeles. Similarly, away.com offers a culinary tours primer at http://away.com/activities/food--and--wine/primer.html. "You can eat your way through your vacation," it says, "and even sharpen your culinary skills on the road."

More and more travel agencies and companies are offering food-based tours domestically and abroad. At www.noculinarytours.com/, you'll find tours that teach the history of New Orleans through its mix of food traditions. Same story at www.neworleanscookingexperience.com/.

Those with sweet teeth (if, indeed, you can pluralize that term) will love the possibilities at www.intrend.com/, which features "chocolate-lovers' paradise tours" in Belgium.

Food tours abound in Italy and France, of course -- too many to single out here. Just search for "culinary tours" and the name of the country and you'll find choices galore. Food travel clearinghouses like Beverly Gruber's Everyday Gourmet Traveler -- www.gourmetravel.com -- arranges small tours in Italy, "with occasional forays into France," while Epiculinary -- www.epiculinary.com -- casts a wider net across Europe. The International Kitchen -- www.theinternationalkitchen.com -- bills itself as a pioneer in "cooking-school vacations" to France and Italy.