Last year, just as Cleetus Friedman's biodiesel bus full of urbanites pulled into La Pryor Farms, 80 miles southwest of Chicago, a cow went into labor. The unscheduled bovine birthing was just the type of convergence of farm and city that Friedman, a comedian turned chef, lives for—one that lets busy city slickers know they're way out of The Loop.

Each summer, Friedman leads a one-of-a-kind, day-long guided tour of a suburban Chicago farm. His dedication to a good time is clear from the onset, when snacks and local beers start flowing on the bus.

Once you arrive, Friedman cooks a bounteous meal, with sides like squash and rainbow chard salad. Each course is paired with local beer, and after dinner, Friedman builds a campfire and a bluegrass trio strikes up. Throughout the evening, you connect not just with the land but also with one another: "I tell people we're gonna be home by 11," says Friedman, "but they always want to stay."

—Julia Kramer

This quiet beach town is building a steady buzz—and not just in July, when you might spot summer resident Mario Batali finding inspiration at the National Cherry Festival, or stars swooning over cherry crumble pies at the Traverse City Film Festival, organized by documentary filmmaker and local resident Michael Moore. Destination diners are now flocking to the Midwest's northern foodie frontier year-round to discover dishes that are homegrown and rustic, yet worldly and sophisticated.

"It's like Napa Valley in the 1970s," explains chef Eric Patterson, who moved to Traverse City in 2008 from Las Vegas' Michelin-starred Andre's with co-chef Jennifer Blakeslee. Their restaurant, The Cooks' House (try the poached duck egg with prosciutto, nasturtium leaves, and dried cherries), seats just 25 in a converted clapboard house. But, as he says, "With area wines winning international awards and the artisan food scene taking off, we knew we'd arrived at the beginning of something big."

Bike 15 miles to Suttons Bay along the Leelanau Trail, and you'll pass rolling dunes, pine cottages, and farmstands stacked with cherries and sand-grown tomatoes. A 5-mile ride up the Old Mission Peninsula leads to 2 Lads Winery for hilltop bay views with a crisp rosé of Cabernet Franc.

For uncommon dining, head to The Village Commons, Traverse City's gourmet complex. You'll find Left Foot Charley blending the next acclaimed Island View Vineyard Pinot Blanc, Pleasanton Brick Oven Bakery baking crusty sourdough from organic Michigan-grown grains, and Trattoria Stella chef Myles Anton earning his next James Beard nomination.

—Alison Bing

Texas' microdistillers are mounting a seriously tasty challenge to Kentucky’s whiskey supremacy, with visionaries from the Hill Country to north Texas producing extraordinary spirits that pair wonderfully with the local beef-centric cuisine.

Visitors to the Garrison Brothers Distillery, located an hour west of Austin, are treated to a "corn to cork" overview of how the distillery is harnessing Texas' heat to add richness and spice to its bourbon.

Up the road in Waco, Chip Tate has turned a ramshackle warehouse under a highway bridge into his world-renowned Balcones Distillery, the first craft distillery in Texas to make whiskey. Balcones' single-malt, which finishes with notes of wood and toast, recently bested Scotland's heaviest hitters in a prestigious blind tasting. To get a gander at Tate's mad-scientist setup, give the distillery a call a few days in advance.

Taste Balcones spirits in a cocktail at legendary Dallas chef Stephan Pyles' new Stampede 66, where the Cowboy Old Fashion mixes Balcones Rumble—made with Texas wildflower honey and Mission figs—with vermouth, bitters, and Fever Tree soda. The menu is a tribute to Texas cookery, with pickled eggs, a swanky Freeto-Chili Pie, and beef brisket tacos.

And over in Fort Worth, tour-goers at Firestone & Robertson Distilling Co. can acquaint themselves with the wild Texas pecan yeast used to ferment bourbon made from Texas-grown corn. There's always a bottle behind the bar at Reata, celebrated statewide for its bone-in rib-eye and—to complement the corn in your cup—jalapeño cheddar grits.

As for a whiskey-trail travel strategy, you need a designated driver or a driver for hire; even if you "spit" while tasting, spirits this good go right to the head.

—Hanna Raskin

The gorgeous greenery that's the backdrop to any southern Appalachian road trip is equally appreciated by the region's cows and goats, whose sweet milk is the foundation for superb butters, milks, and cheeses that are establishing the region as a leading dairy producer. At Cruze Farm in Knoxville, Tennessee, dairy wunderkind Colleen Cruze churns out mango lassi and kale ice cream from the Jersey herd responsible for her father Earl's famous buttermilk.

Approximately 75 miles south of the Cruzes' spread, the newly minted Western North Carolina Cheese Trail (wnccheesetrail.org) picks up in Robbinsville at Yellow Branch Farm, one of the region's oldest artisan cheese-making operations, then heads an hour-and-a-half drive's east through Asheville and Looking Glass Creamery, honored by the American Cheese Society for its ash-coated goat's-milk cheese. Taste it and other Looking Glass offerings on chef Adam Hayes' menu at Asheville’s Red Stag Grill.

The trail winds 15 miles east to Round Mountain Creamery, which offers its Grade A goat's milk as part of a local home-delivery service (farmtohomemilk.com); and Mountain Farm, a pocket-sized dairy that offers goat-farming workshops. Finish the trip with dinner at Climax's Goat Lady Dairy just south of Greensboro, where the meal starts with rosemary chèvre served on the porch and ends with chocolate goat cheese truffles.

—Hanna Raskin

You'll want to hit the hay early at Windrose Farm: Roosters replace alarm clocks on Bill and Barbara Spencer's 70-acre Paso Robles farm and organic apple orchard. After the noisy sunrise, tag along on Barbara's herb-harvesting rounds, bite into a just-plucked Red Dragon carrot, or take a hillside stroll with the couple's pasture-raised sheep. For dinner, head downtown to taste the fruits of your labor at Artisan, where chef Chris Kobayashi's menu features Windrose's organic produce and lamb.

For the softer side of the farm stay experience, head 25 miles south to Rinconada Dairy in Santa Margarita. There you'll find a cozy guest room in Jim and Christine Maguire's Spanish ranch-style home, or a private apartment in the barn. During milking season (spring through summer), more than 100 ewes and goats will be standing by in the morning. Refuel with breakfast cooked by Christine, who attended Manhattan's Natural Gourmet culinary school. Henhouse eggs, garden produce, homemade jam—even the bacon is sourced from ranch-raised pigs.

By afternoon, nearby hiking trails, more than a dozen Santa Ynez Valley wineries, and the Maguires' favorite locavore restaurant, The Range, await.

—Jenn Garbee

Chinatown is the devil on the shoulder of Philadelphia's Center City. It's the place you go to stay out late and sing too loud. It's compact and crowded, and smells of a million things. To spend time there is to find a strange second heart of the city—an organ that kicks into life after dark, loud with sizzling neon, Sriracha, and overproof rum.

At Ting Wong, the regulars forgo the menu and order the incredible Hong Kong noodles. On 10th Street, the light and the heat pour out of the windows at Penang, where the wise order two Tsing Taos and two orders of the wisp-thin, impossibly crisp roti canai and then ask what everyone else at the table will be eating and drinking.

On Race Street, behind an unmarked door in what appears to be an abandoned storefront, hides one of the greatest cocktail bars in America—Hop Sing Laundromat, where a thousand bottles sleep on the bar and a thousand stories about its enigmatic owner, Lee, flavor every breath. Order the maddeningly simple (it's made of nothing more than 15-year-old El Dorado rum and fresh-squeezed grape juice), brilliantly balanced Henry "Box" Brown. That's just wisdom.

When you're done, Chinatown will still be waiting outside, neon burning, as you stumble off into the night for karaoke and salt-crusted shrimp at Shiao Lan Kung or noodles and the late-night scene at David's Mai Lai Wah. Eventually, dawn will chase you home.

—Jason Sheehan

If you love the idea of catching seafood but go green about the gills thinking of the open ocean, try Dungeness crabbing. You can do it without leaving dry land in the salty fishing town of Garibaldi on Oregon's Tillamook Bay.

Check in at the Garibaldi Marina store to pick up tips, buy a license and bait, and rent gear. It's a short drive past glassy inlets and windblown pines to a prime crabbing spot, an old wooden public pier that was formerly a Coast Guard station.

Find a sunny spot (yes, the sun shines on the Oregon coast occasionally) and within a few hours you've usually caught the limit: 12 crabs. On the way back, nip into the Food Basket for everything you need to craft a simple feast: lemons, a baguette, and a shell cracker. Back at the marina, they'll cook up that sweet, snowy crabmeat while nearby picnic tables beckon.

If crabs fail to crawl into your trap, you can always stroll across the marina to the Tillamook Bay Boathouse and buy fresh cooked crabs and a few cans of local albacore tuna and smoked salmon. Either way, you're guaranteed a fresh seafood picnic with a stunning view of the bay.

—Ivy Manning

The borough that Manhattanites once loved to ignore is now America's HQ for lovingly crafted foods—a vast larder of more treats than you could taste in a lifetime of food blogging. No food lover should miss spending Brooklyn's best artisan shops.

Start in Park Slope at Bklyn Larder, a lovely gourmet grocer, for Brooklyn-made bitters and bacon peanut brittle. Next, walk to Bierkraft, an early stockpiler of hard-to-find craft beers and still exceptional.

Pick up some baked goods at Bien Cuit and Runner & Stone. The former is a Cobble Hill favorite. The latter, in Gowanus, features head baker Peter Endriss, formerly of the Michelin-starred Per Se.

When lunch hits, head to Court Street Grocers in Carroll Gardens. The "mother-in-law" combines slow-cooked beef, kimchi, and broccoli into a sandwich so juicy it soaks through its bread. Go a few blocks north to Brooklyn Farmacy. There are few things more Brooklyn than an egg cream—and the Farmacy's best version is made with small-scale ingredients like organic maple syrup and local Hudson Valley milk.

—Alan Sytsma

Milwaukee's beer culture is legendary: It once had more than 80 breweries, and was the largest beer-producing town in the world. Today, the city has a thriving microbrewery scene, and the best way to celebrate it is by boat. Riverwalk Boat Tours' Sunday Brewery Tour meanders through the heart of town via the Milwaukee River, where you'll tour and sip from three breweries: Lakefront Brewery, Milwaukee Ale House, and Rock Bottom Brewery.

Begin your tour at Lakefront, where brothers Russ and Jim Klisch fought so hard about who brewed better beer that they called it a draw and opened their nationally known brewery. Sample the Wisconsinite, a summer Weiss made with 100% Wisconsin-grown grain and an indigenous yeast strain. Next up is the Milwaukee Ale House, where you can grab a mug of Sheepshead Stout, a roasty chocolate Irish-style stout. Round out your trip at Rock Bottom with a pint of Iron Horse Pilsner, a tribute to the Milwaukee-based Harley-Davidson Company.

After a leisurely four hours, you'll certainly be ready for some food. Stop by Sanford Restaurant, where chef Justin Aprahamian (a 2013 James Beard finalist for Best Chef Midwest) takes a particular interest in beer and food match-ups, including pairing menus with several beer varieties that Aprahamian has cellar-aged. A recent pairing dinner included a Belgian-style abbey ale with local lamb and turnips in a pumpernickel reduction.

—Robert Lillegard

An asphalt road winding through a land of serene verdancy abruptly ends at a cluster of live oaks thick with Spanish moss. A low-slung eatery appears as the only sign that you've arrived in the wee fishing village of Spring Creek in Florida's Wakulla County. For 36 years, the family-owned Spring Creek Restaurant has prided itself on seafood fresh from local fishermen. Bring them your catch, and they'll fire up the grill and serve your seafood unadorned—letting the delicate flavor speak for itself, but for a lemon wedge. If oysters are more your thing, head to Ouzts' Too Oyster Bar and Grill for bivalves just off the boat.

To explore local waters yourself, board a 24-foot Carolina skiff with Captain David Fife or Captain Jody Campbell. They both ply the placid waters of the Apalachee Bay and its myriad creeks and marshes. They'll have you baiting the line and casting for redfish, sea trout, or flounder. In July and August, tote your snorkel gear and you'll easily grab a net bag full of bay scallops from along the grassflats.

—Jeanine Barone