ABOUT SALT & WIND TRAVEL
Hello, Ciao, Hola, Grüezi, Aloha, Salut!
We’re a boutique travel company helping you taste the world! Salt & Wind Travel is a women-owned travel company crafting custom itineraries in the world’s most delicious destinations.
We’ve spent over 10 years on a mission to help food lovers explore some of the world’s top food and travel destinations, including California, France, Hawaii, Italy, Mexico, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland.
As food and travel lovers, we understand the desire to feel more connected to where food comes from and experience it all firsthand. Here, you’ll find inspiration for your next trip, including over 500 professionally developed and tested recipes, travel tips from travel experts and travel guides, and ways we can help you craft custom itinerary planning.
About Salt & Wind Travel
What’s with the name? Because we’re all about food and travel, and you need salt for food to taste its best, and wind to get an airplane off the ground!
The company was founded by food and travel expert Aida Mollenkamp in 2015 and is based in California.
After years of being asked for travel tips, vetted recipes, and itinerary ideas, we made it official. We know how frustrating it can be to plan a trip and spend a lot of money only to end up with a touristy experience, so we’re here to help solve that.
Our in-depth expertise in a select few locations ensures that our recommendations are of the highest quality. Our team of food and travel experts has years of experience traveling the world, living in the places where we work, and an extensive background in creating trustworthy, vetted content.
We’ve helped hundreds of guests travel deeper — let us help you too!
Salt & Wind Travel Team
Aida Mollenkamp, Founder and Editor-In-Chief
Aida is a food and travel expert, cookbook author, trained chef, wine expert, and Food Network personality, as well as the founder of the travel services company Salt & Wind Travel. She has made her career in food travel, media, and hospitality, and has crisscrossed the globe to find the best food destinations.
Aida honed her love for hospitality by working at places as varied as a gourmet bistro in her hometown, California Pizza Kitchen, and the Hotel Bel Air. After graduating from the Cornell Hotel School and Le Cordon Bleu Paris, she joined CHOW Magazine, where she ran the test kitchen and served as Food Editor.
Aida then transitioned to television, hosting the Food Network show “Ask Aida,” “FoodCrafters” on the Cooking Channel, “In The Pantry” on Yahoo!, and the TasteMade series “Off Menu.” Her cookbook, Keys To The Kitchen, is a go-to for home cooks who want to become more adventurous.
Aida speaks four languages, has honed her wine expertise, passed the WSET Level 2 wine exam, and has lived across the United States, France, and Italy. A native Californian, Aida resides in Mammoth Lakes and is inspired by places with the same creative spirit as the Golden State.
For more on Aida, visit aidamollenkamp.com or find her on Instagram
Kristen Kellogg, Partner
Kristen is a partner at Salt & Wind Travel. As a filmmaker, digital storyteller, and travel expert, Kristen has spent her career crafting creative content for clients worldwide. Kristen is known for her behind-the-scenes and on-camera work with clients, including Hotel Tonight, Rosetta Stone, Visit California, and Visit Los Cabos.
Before her creative endeavors, Kristen earned a bachelor’s Degree in Communication Studies from San Jose State University. She lived on Nantucket, where she learned the ins and outs of high-end hospitality while working in food and beverage operations.
Kristen has lived in California and Mexico and traveled extensively through Hawai’i and Italy. She melds her love for adventure travel, food, and hospitality to bring a unique perspective to itinerary planning.
Kristen is a certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach. She passed her Level 1 Exam at the School of Applied Functional Medicine, where she is working toward her Applied Functional Medicine for Coaching™ certification. This experience means she is an expert at helping travel clients have a balanced trip that is interesting yet relaxing.
Kristen lived in Mexico City for five years and now splits her time between the United States and Todos Santos, Mexico. When she’s not on the road, Kristen finds inspiration by exploring the tastes and sights of her backyard. Find Kristen on social at Instagram.
Salt & Wind Travel Contributors
Ligaya Malones, Hawaii, Mexico, and California Contributor
Ligaya Malones writes about bright spots in food and travel from San Diego to abroad. Ligaya was raised in Hawaii on the island of Kauai and now calls San Diego home. Her food and travel writing has appeared in publications such as Food52, Condé Nast Traveler, Lonely Planet, and Salt & Wind Travel. For Salt & Wind Travel, Ligaya writes travel tips and food stories about Hawaii, Mexico, and California.
Rachel Vermiglio Smith, Italy Contributor & Travel Planner
Rachel is an Arizona-born wanderer at heart who eventually settled down to live the pasta-eating dream in Florence, Italy. Since 2014, she has worked as an Italian culture expert, writing articles and consulting on all things Italian. When not exploring new restaurants or geeking out over art history, she can be found strolling the Arno River with her bilingual California rescue dog, Stella.
Theresa Christine, Italy Contributor
Theresa is a travel writer based in Charlotte, North Carolina. She writes about lesser-known experiences and destinations, as well as interesting locals doing extraordinary things, and design-centric places for publications such as United Airlines’ Hemispheres, Meininger Hotels’ magazine, INSIDER, and others. She has a newsletter where she sends out unique stories from her travels, and you can find her tweeting at @itsmtheresac
Custom Travel Planning Services
Our custom travel planning services help you focus on the present moment. Be it custom food tours, exclusive restaurant reservations, hands-on cooking classes, or private wine tastings – if it’s related to food and travel, we’re here to help you make it happen. To get started, check out our full list of travel planning services!
Salt & Wind Travel Philosophy
Here at Salt & Wind Travel, we are dedicated to inspiring food lovers to discover the world through its flavors. As a women-owned small business, we aim to support fellow independent small businesses. And, while doing so, we work to promote sustainable food and travel, support small businesses, and help preserve cultural individuality.
Contribute To Salt & Wind Travel
The online magazine Salt & Wind is built for and by a community of food and travel lovers. We’re always on the lookout for exceptional photographers, writers, and recipe developers. To pitch us, please review our Editorial Guidelines and reach out at edit [at] salt and wind [dot] com.
Press & Media
The Salt & Wind Travel team has been featured in various media outlets, ranging from television to magazines, including Brides, Condé Nast Traveler, National Geographic, Shape, Sunset Magazine, TripSavvy, Well + Good, and Yahoo. If you want to learn more, email us at travel [at] saltandwind [dot] com
Disclosure
The information presented on Salt & Wind Travel is for general information purposes only. While we attempt to keep information up to date and correct, we make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability concerning any of the information, products, or services contained on the website for any purpose.