Why Travelers Are Obsessed With Visiting Pharmacies And Supermarkets

Scrolling through TikTok or Instagram, you’ll come across dozens of travel influencers promoting what seem like very mundane locations: pharmacies and supermarkets. But visiting these two ubiquitous stores while on vacation has recently become a travel obsession.

Pharmacies have attracted attention for shopping hauls of local products not available or often priced lower than in tourists’ home countries, for unique architectural features, and even for their psychedelic flashing signage. Supermarkets act as food culture microcosms, giving insight into quotidian culinary traditions and preferences.

Here’s how these two stores captured travelers’ imagination and where you should go if you want to hop on the trend.

Why Travelers Are Flocking To Pharmacies

Popping into a pharmacy on vacation in Europe just to look around isn’t as odd as it may sound. There are dozens on the continent that date back centuries, with intriguing histories of early medical and botanical science or ornate architecture that seems more befitting of a gallery.

The Officina Profumo Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella in Florence, Italy, started life in 1221 as the workshop of Dominican friars, and opened to the public in the early 17th century. It now sells luxury fragrances and skincare within a Gothic-style interior that looks like it could be a sacred chapel.

Other famous beautiful apothecaries include the Raeapteek in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. The pristinely preserved pharmacy in the Town Hall Square has been operating continuously since at least 1422 and, alongside a modern working dispensary, has a museum displaying bizarre ingredients from medieval medicine, from dried frogs to spiced claret wine.

In Dubrovnik, you can visit the Old Pharmacy dating from 1317, housed inside a Romanesque-Gothic monastery. On display are intricately painted porcelain apothecary containers and hand-blown glass bottles.

There’s even a European Route of Historic Pharmacies and Medicinal Gardens that “recounts the development of botanical and pharmaceutical medicine in Europe through sites that played a crucial role in the history of medical knowledge”.

Recently, a much more modern feature of pharmacies, particularly in Italy, Spain and France, received a wave of ironic attention. External cross-shaped LED signs in these countries often flash with messages or geometric medical-related images in a rhythm that influencers found pairs comedically well with techno music.

Pharmaceutical products have also become no less of a fascination for travelers, particularly brands only available in certain countries or produced using local ingredients. In Greece, the Apivita range contains bee-derived extracts, while in France, cult-famous dermocosmetics include A313 retinol pomade and ‘Embryolisse’ moisturizer.

Why Tourists Are Embarking On Supermarket Safaris

A similar trend involving food outlets has been variously dubbed grocery store tourism, supermarket safaris, and shelf discovery. Skyscanner’s 2026 trends report found almost three-quarters of UK travelers always or often visit local supermarkets abroad.

“From Tokyo vending machines and 7-Eleven Slurpees to Iceland’s geothermal baked bread, gastro-tourism is changing. How people travel for food is now part cultural deep dive, part budget hack, offering a unique glimpse into local life that’s affordable and authentic,” the report states. It found 44% of travelers go to grocery stores to discover new food and drinks, 36% for local takes on familiar favorites and 33% for global brands they can’t get at home.

As vacation rental site Holidu notes, ‘Grocery store travel‘ is its own corner of the internet now, with well over 50 million posts on TikTok “showing travelers wheeling trolleys around foreign aisles like they’ve stumbled into a museum exhibit”. As well as giving visitors a literal taste of local life, it’s an activity that “costs nothing to try. There’s no entry fee, no queue, no timed ticket to book weeks in advance”.

Local snacks, regional spices, unique soft drinks, and packaged sweets from supermarkets are now popular souvenirs to take home, too. According to research by Holidu, travelers are particularly curious about Japan’s matcha Kit Kats and melon Fanta, Mexico’s chilli-dusted dried mango and tamarind candy, and Spain’s jamón-flavored crisps and artisanal turrón.

This subset of grocery store tourism even has a name: snackpacking. It refers specifically to seeking out hyper-local snacks you can’t find at home, from fluffy egg salad sandwiches in Japan to matcha lava cakes in Thailand.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com