Hard­work­ing ecom­merce man­agers, like most peo­ple, prob­a­bly dream of exot­ic vaca­tions in far-flung places, sam­pling the delights of authen­tic local cui­sine and goods as they go. But the time and cost involved in actu­al­ly going on such excur­sions usu­al­ly con­spire to per­suade most of us to take our vaca­tions a lit­tle clos­er to home. A New York start­up called “Try The World” may just offer the per­fect solu­tion for those who want to trav­el to the unfa­mil­iar and far­away but lack the time and ener­gy for long haul flights.

Far­away delights at home

For $45 every two months, the fledg­ling com­pa­ny will deliv­er a gourmet box packed with authen­tic delights from dis­tant lands. Now that hard­work­ing ecom­merce man­ag­er can taste and touch the exot­ic from the com­fort of home.

David Foult found­ed Try The World last year with his Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty bud­dy Kat Voro­to­va out of their mutu­al love of trav­el. He explains how it works:

“We lever­age the exper­tise of locals and the crowd to select the best prod­ucts from each coun­try so that our users get an authen­tic and delight­ful expe­ri­ence for all five sens­es every time they open a Try The World box. We envi­sion that Try The World will become a des­ti­na­tion for a com­mu­ni­ty of trav­el­ers to share their expe­ri­ences of dis­cov­er­ing cul­tures around the world.

Goods and culture

New sub­scribers start off with the Paris Box where they can sam­ple the plea­sures of Clé­ment Faugi­er chest­nut spread, “Fleur De Sel” (an arti­sanal and unre­fined fin­ish­ing salt), Les Con­fi­tures A L’Ancienne hot choco­late pow­der, Madame Goudig salt­ed but­ter caramels, Chabert & Guil­lot nougat, Con­fi­tures Alain Mil­li­at jams and Palais Des Thés teas. But that’s not all: each box also con­tains a mine of infor­ma­tion about the cul­ture from which the prod­ucts were sources, includ­ing trav­el tips for a stay in Paris, plus movies, playlists and poet­ry rat­ed high­ly in that infa­mous city.

If our hard­work­ing ecom­merce man­ag­er didn’t feel it was worth the both­er to book a flight to Paris, he or she may well have a change of heart after receiv­ing the box.

Cur­rent­ly, the start­up (which has sold thou­sands of box­es in its first few months of trad­ing) will fol­low up the Paris Box with box­es from Tokyo and Rio, and more coun­tries are in the pipeline.