Most guidebooks tell you not to go to Stabroek. Not just the market, but the entire area of Georgetown, Guyana. City tours will drive you past the market, but they tell you to not get out and keep your hands in the car. Stabroek market is indeed chaotic. Tends of thousands are streaming in and out of the market and wandering the surrounding streets at any given time, preventing most traffic from inching forward, giving it the feel of a festival.

The Mercado Central in Cuzco is in giant warehouse a few blocks away from the main plaza.  Unofficially, it also stretches towards the railway tracks, becoming more gritty as it does. The warehouse houses a lot of food stalls, with large sections devoted solely to either fruit drinks, snacks and… Read More →

For more than 120 years Mendoza, Argentina’s Mercado Central (central market) has occupied the same place a few minutes from the center plaza. Not overly polished or touristy, it’s an inexpensive break from the slick eateries that dominate central Mendoza. There’s no glossy finish, just the raw, grit deal. Butcher’s chop up bloody innards. Spice stalls intoxicate. Old school yellers push fish or meat or slices of pizza.

Peru’s capital of the south of Arequipa, the country’s second largest city and an agricultural powerhouse, is part of an extremely gastronomically unique region. Arequpeñan cuisine is renowned the country over for its high quality prawns, rocoto peppers, cheeses, piscos, oilves and olive oils, beans, grains, and alpaca meat. The city is full of great restaurants and talented chefs, but it’s the San Camillo market that really grabs the pulse of the city. The sprawling market that sits just a few blocks from the Plaza de Armas is one of Peru’s most lively.

The markets of Oaxaca, Mexico draw tourists from across the world who come to shop for the unique and wide array of traditional Mexican crafts, foods, and to soak in the enchanting atmosphere.

Not far from the Señor Frog’s restaurant and jewelry shops where the more than one ginormous cruise ship docks each day in Cozumel’s main town of San Miguel, there’s a small market serving the local population. Few tourists venture past Avenida 10, so the market sits several blocks beyond the border of where real Cozumel begins.