This year globetrotting travel writers Lara Dunston and Terence Carter have traded hotel rooms for holiday homes, in partnership with HomeAway Holiday-Rentals, to embark on a grand tour called Grantourismo. Their aims are to travel more sustainably, learn to live like locals, and do and learn things, with the aim of exploring more enriching ways to travel – and inspiring other travellers to do the same.

One strategy they’re using to spread their message is a monthly travel blogging competition they’re hosting on Grantourismo. Their hope is that the travel stories and images that their readers enter, which entrants are also required to post on their own blogs, will inspire others to explore more authentic ways of travelling.

Each month there is a different theme for the contest and for May it’s ‘Food and Travel’. Entrants must create an inspiring blog post consisting of 500 words of evocative food and travel writing and one mouth-watering photograph. Entries could be about a memorable local dish tried for the first time, an exotic street food experience, or a local cooking course – anything food- and travel-related really.

If the entry also touches on some of the project’s other themes and motivates people to travel more meaningfully, to get beneath the skin of a place when they travel, to learn to live like locals, and to travel more slowly and more sustainably, then Lara and Terence, and HomeAway Holiday-Rentals, will all be very happy.

In addition to HomeAway Holiday-Rentals, Lara and Terence have partnered with Context Travel, Viator Travel and AFAR magazine for the contest. Prizes include a stay at a HomeAway Holiday-Rentals property anywhere in the world valued at UK£500 (US$750), a Viator tour voucher worth £100/US$150 and an Olympus FE-4040 compact camera for the 1st prize winner; a Context tour voucher worth US$100 comprises 2nd prize, while an annual subscription to AFAR magazine is the 3rd prize. See http://grantourismotravels.com/2010/05/05/grantourismo-travel-blogging-competition-may/ for more details.