Who Are The Epicurean Vagabonds?
Since we left the United States six years ago, we’ve lived in more than a dozen countries, visited another 25 and explored at least 300 cities and villages in all those locations. We’ve been roaming around the world with two laptops, a carry-on bag packed with all of our writing and two enormous suitcases filled with a couple of pairs of pants each, 12 shirts, two dozen socks, two wooden cigar boxes containing statues and icons for our makeshift altars, a handful of precious books, a priceless e-reader, two chef’s knives, a cutting board, a professional wine key (essential travel item), a cheese grater, a hand-held immersion blender, several tupperware filled with spices from everywhere we’ve ever been and a pair of shoes each.
We’re a married couple named Ryan Wildstar and Ryan Elston and we’ve spent the last 24 years together traveling abroad, living in many different countries and hosting lavish wine, food & art focused tours around the world with our business, Wildstar Wine Tours.
The Epicurean Vagabonds is our place for sharing our experiences from around the world related to travel, food, wine, art, music, literature, LGBTQ+ history, film/TV, performing arts and culture.
Every Wednesday, subscribers can expect to receive Aesthetic Arrest, our weekly podcast and mid-week compilation of all the things we’ve been reading (books, poetry or articles), listening to (music and concerts), looking at (visual art), viewing (film/TV/live performances) and tasting (all things food & wine). You can listen to the podcast and/or take a deep-dive into a curated splash of interesting cultural gems to explore — videos, music, art, articles, recipes and more (including R&R playlists and weekly words of wisdom). Something different every week!
We also regularly post long-form content (often for paid subscribers only), including travel stories, memoirs, vignettes, poetry, editorials, cultural and culinary reveries, as well as new installments to our ongoing series like “How to Vagabond Like an Epicurean,” “Snapshots,” “Conversations on Culture,” and “R&R’s Aesthetic Toolkits.”
Also check out: The Epicurean Vagabonds Bookshop at Bookshop.org!
Stay up-to-date
Paid Subscribers ($5 monthly or $50 annually) will receive:
Audio versions of selected articles read by one or both of us.
Recipes from Ryan Wildstar’s Cooking with Cultural Appreciation series.
Ability to comment on all of our content and engage directly with us and our community.
Access to discussion/recommendation threads.
Exclusive content, including excerpts from our works in progress (such as Ryan Wildstar’s upcoming memoir & poetry collection, and Ryan Elston’s upcoming novel), as well as poetry, creative writing and select articles.
The satisfaction of helping two Epicurean Vagabonds subsist in this increasingly difficult world so we can keep sharing our content with you!
Founding Donors ($150) will receive:
All of the above plus a lifetime subscription to all of our paid content.
Personalized expert travel recommendations for your next destination. No matter where. We’ll tell you what we’ve done/enjoyed, or what we would do, tailored to your specific interests.
Signed copies of our future works.
The knowledge and joy that you are a true patron of the arts and forever a member of our charmed circle of treasured friends, family and allies!
About Us
Ryan Wildstar:
Ryan Wildstar is a musician, poet, playwright, visual artist, editor, actor, theater director, translator, educator, Sommelier, tour guide and culinary/wine professional.
While living in Paris, he received his degree in French Civilization and Language from the Université de la Sorbonne and furthered his wine career, working for three years as the wine director at Café Universal, a legendary Parisian jazz club. These years as an American expatriate also included conducting an interview with avant-garde writer/director Fernando Arrabal for the DVD release of his classic experimental film, Viva La Muerta as well as writing and editing a book of poetry, And What About the Bells? by Rozz Williams, published by Eygennutz-Verlag and available on Amazon.com. He also had a series of extremely successful art exhibitions showcasing his assemblage/collage sculptures, culminating in a gallery showing of his work in 2007 at the Centre Culturel Christiane Peugeot on the Champs-Élysées.
His musical career spans more than 30 years as a composer, singer and musician featured on more than 11 albums. During the same 30+ years, he also worked as a French wine importer, a waiter, bartender and Sommelier for top restaurants in Seattle, Los Angeles and Paris.
In 2010, he and his husband relocated to the Pacific Northwest, where they created and taught The Art of Wine classes at Whatcom Community College for 5 years and launched their own business, Wildstar Wine Tours, a wine tour company with a focus on the exploration of wine, food, culture and art, all enjoyed in the lavish comfort of luxurious villas and apartments. For the last 12 years, they have created and hosted more than 26 tours in Europe and North America.
Ryan Elston:
Ryan Elston is a poet, educator, mythographer, rogue scholar, digital nomad and Epicurean Vagabond. He has a passionate love of art, literature, music, history, mythology, philosophy, food, wine, film, TV, comics and pop culture from around the globe. In addition to these subjects, he’s written a novel and published articles on topics ranging from agriculture to interior design, microeconomics to social inequality.
He has worked as a freelance writer, editor and sensitivity reader for clients ranging from small businesses to multinational corporations. His work for clients has appeared on Forbes.com, Reuters.com, Bloomberg.com, The Olive Oil Times, BusinessInsider.com, TheStreet.com and The Financial Express (India). He also co-wrote and edited the script for a television ad that aired on 4 continents and was translated into 7 languages. In addition, Ryan is a former English professor, high school English teacher and ESL teacher with over 18 years of experience teaching children, teenagers and adults.
