Driving Home for Christmas? Eat Well on Route With a Foodie Travel Guide to Britain

Let's face it: Long, wintry motorway drives (and the food you find along them) can be soul-destroying. 

This festive season, make your trip better - and support local farms and food businesses along the way - by stopping at excellent cafés, farm shops, and pubs with one of their three foodie travel guides to Britain.

The Extra Mile: Delicious Alternatives to Motorway Services, an Amazon #1 bestselling guide, as discussed on BBC Breakfast TV, Aug '24

The Coastal Café Guide: Eating on the Edge, an Amazon #1 bestseller, as featured in The Times Weekend in July '24

The Farm Shop Guide: Farm to Fork Food, an Amazon #1 bestseller, as featured in Waitrose Weekend in Oct '24

Make long drives better by going The Extra Mile

The Extra Mile: Delicious Alternatives to Motorway Services is the ultimate book gift for drivers, food lovers, and anyone who dislikes predictable motorway services food. Use the book's striking motorway-based maps to seek out new culinary adventures on every road trip, with unusual cafés, restaurants, pubs, and pit-stops across Britain. 

Change up that same old commute with a detour into a farm shop, gallery café, or spectacular country estate for a bite instead, to make your journey more memorable. Edition 4, 2nd reprint, August 2024.   

Buy local: support British food and farmers

The Farm Shop Guide makes a great gift for anyone who cares about buying local food and supporting British food and farmers. It features 165 farm shops, many with cafés or restaurants. Helpful icons tell readers if the place is dog-friendly, family-friendly, or organic, or if it offers farm experiences, EV charging, pick-your-own (PYO) fruit, veg or flowers, and more. 10% of Printslinger's income from The Farm Shop Guide will go to support the work of the Sustainable Food Trust. If visiting friends, family, or staying in a self-catering place in a new area this festive season, seek out the best local food with The Farm Shop Guide. Edition 1, published Oct 2024. 

Support seasonal cafés along the British coast

The Coastal Café Guide is the ideal book gift for sea swimmers, wild swimmers, surfers, coast path walkers, and coast-loving holidaymakers around the UK. It showcases 150 smaller, independent cafés, kiosks, seafood shacks, bars, restaurants and more around the coasts of England, Scotland, and Wales. If heading for a New Year swim, festive holiday or wintry road-trip, sample the best local flavours with The Coastal Café Guide. With a foreword from the RNLI,The Coastal Café Guide will donate 10% of its income to Surfers Against Sewage. Edition 1, published July 2024. 

FACTFILE: 

Printslinger is the independent publisher behind this trio of foodie travel guides. Its ethos is to support small, independent food businesses and low food miles. Its guidebooks encourage travellers to leave the motorway and avoid multinational and chain food brands, and to seek out, support, and celebrate local and often family-run food businesses and local farm shops instead. 

https://theextramile.guide/product/three-book-bundle-the-extra-mile-the-coastal-cafe-guide-and-the-farm-shop-guide

Surf, Turf, and Tarmac: The Three-Book Gift Bundle for Foodies at Christmas

Printslinger/ The Extra Mile Guide

The Farm Shop Guide is the second high-calibre guidebook to be published by Printslinger in 2024. It joins The Coastal Café Guide – a summer bestseller – to create a pair of foodie guides dubbed 'Surf’n’Turf' by the publisher. 

The Farm Shop Guide (the ‘turf’) launched this week on Amazon and was a #1 Hot New Release, while The Coastal Café Guide (the ‘surf’) hit shelves in July as a #1 Hot New Release and a #1 Beach Holiday Bestseller. This striking duo joins Printslinger’s flagship title, The Extra Mile: Delicious Alternatives to Motorway Services (the tarmac!), to create an invaluable trio of guidebooks for foodies and those who like to support local food businesses while exploring England, Scotland, and Wales.  

Printslinger’s Kerry O’Neill, said, “People seem keener than ever to avoid the services and soulless, big-brand food chains. Our books help them seek out and celebrate smaller, local cafés and food businesses. Our two new Surf’n’Turf titles help people discover authentic farm shops and seasonal coastal cafés they might otherwise have missed, and The Extra Mile already helps turn their car journeys into culinary adventures by helping them avoid the dreaded services.” 

The Farm Shop Guide: highlights (Oct 2024)

165 farm shops and their cafés and restaurants  

Seasonal farm events including Easter, Halloween, and Christmas activities 

Info on pick-your-own (PYO) crops, food festivals, and farmers markets 

Icons to help trip-planners, i.e. dog-friendly, family-friendly, EV-charging, parking 

Eight geographic sections, with separate chapters on Scotland and Wales 

254pp with nine striking full-colour maps 

15 food-related charities featured, including Nature Friendly Farming, Pasture for Life, and the Sustainable Food Trust (who receive a donation per book) 

The Coastal Café Guide: highlights (July 2024)  

150 coastal cafés, restaurants, beach bars, seafood cabins, and pubs, on or near the coast 

Symbols for dog-friendly and family-friendly places to eat, often with a sea view 

256pp with 10 striking regional maps 

Low food miles, local food places to help you support Britain’s food businesses 

Places in England, Scotland, and Wales (inc. Isles of Scilly, Wight, Man, and Skye) 

Features on coast-relevant charities including the RNLI, the Marine Conservation Society, and Surfers Against Sewage (who receive a donation per book)

The Exrtra Mile Guide: highlights (2023)  

275 cafés and alternative food and drink stop-offs near motorway junctions

Symbols for dog-friendly and family-friendly places to eat, rest, walk and play

11 motorway-based maps and six broader, regional maps

UK map of pit stops with EV chargers

Independent cafés, restaurants, pubs and bakeries

Local food at farm shops and farm shop cafés

384 full-colour pages: search by place name, region or motorway 

Praise for the books 

Guy Singh-Watson, veg box pioneer and founder of Riverford Organic, said, “Proper farm shops – ones that actually grow, rear, or make most of their own produce with love, attention to detail, and a genuine connection to the land – are a beautiful thing. [The Farm Shop Guide] will help you find them.”  

Jane Gray is Director of Broom House Farm, Durham, whose shop features in The Farm Shop Guide. Jane said, “So many farm shops like ours are slightly off the beaten track, with holidaymakers stumbling across us just as they're going home. This guide will be such a help.”  

Lucy Kerr is from Kishorn Seafood Bar in Scotland, a restaurant featured in The Coastal Café Guide. Lucy said, “A guide featuring the distinct local flavours and colourful characters from around the whole coast makes for a visual feast and a fascinating read. It’s also a great gift for coast-path walkers, day-trippers and motorists, as well as those who simply love the sea.” 

Series edited by Alastair Sawday 

Printslinger is owned by travel publisher, Alastair Sawday, an environmental activist and longstanding campaigner for local food, low food miles, and sustainable travel. Alastair said, “Buying and using our books is a great way to find and support Britain’s small food producers, farms shops, cafés, and restaurants (and my goodness, we need our farms and farmers).” 

How to buy Printslinger books 

2024’s new books, The Farm Shop Guide and The Coastal Café Guide, join The Extra Mile: Delicious Alternatives to Motorway Services, as part of Printslinger’s growing list of titles. Visit the online shop to buy direct. Find Printslinger books in High Street and independent bookshops, and on Amazon and other online outlets.  

https://theextramile.guide/shop/