Travelling as a vegan often presents its challenges – not all places offer vegan options and even if they do, if you’re reading a language you don’t understand, you might have no clue what they are! I’ve been there, either stuck with no options, or reading a menu that might as well have been a blank piece of paper. But fear not, there are ways to surpass the inconveniences and live as a healthy vegan all over the world!
Research your destination
One of the best ways to ensure easy access to vegan food is by doing simple research into the local area that you’re travelling to. Check for restaurants and cafes in the area, view menus and see if your hotel offers any vegan options. You can also view our list of vegan hotels to see if there are any at your holiday destination.
One of the best ways to ensure easy access to vegan food is by doing simple research into the local area that you’re travelling to. Check for restaurants and cafes in the area, view menus and see if your hotel offers any vegan options. You can also view our list of vegan hotels to see if there are any at your holiday destination.
With the internet at your fingertips, its so easy to have a look at what you’ll find in and around your location. Compile a list of places where you can buy food, eat out or get snacks and make sure to save the address in case you have no internet – not a problem you should face these days though!
If you eat meat, you’re responsible, on average, for the consumption of 15,000 litres of water a day.
Peta
Bear in mind that if there is nothing nearby, you can always move a little further away for your stay. You can always visit the original location whilst there – and would you rather be driving a few times to see something special, or driving miles just for each meal?
Learn the language basics
Another quick pre-trip tip is to learn a few of the ingredients to look out for, in whichever language your destination country uses. Words that are important include milk, egg, cream, beef, pork, chicken and gelatine. That’s only seven words that you need to learn and it will definitely be a huge help!
What’s more is that nowadays, any of these ingredients are almost always written in bold or caps on the ingredient list. This makes it even easier to decipher tricky lists and determine whether it’s free from meat, dairy and eggs or not.
For you lazy ones out there, make sure to have Google Translate downloaded on your phone. Not only can you type words to find what they mean, but the app even allows you to photograph a whole chunk of text and have it immediately translated. Now there really isn’t an excuse for foreign ingredients lists!
Visit local, fresh restaurants
Don’t worry if you didn’t manage any research before setting off! A safe bet that should help you to avoid unwanted products in your food is to visit local restaurants who prepare food freshly. This will allow you to ask the staff if they can leave out any specific ingredients of the dish, or switch them out for alternatives.
This is where you might want to add to the list of words that you learn before you travel. Learning words like “no” or “without” can become very handy!
Many restaurants will be happy to do this, especially those that have substitute ingredients. You will often find that in many places, vegan options and alternatives are readily available. If you feel comfortable doing so, you can even offer to provide the substitute yourself. Although it seems strange to bring your own vegan cream or milk, many places will be happy to use it in their dish.
Use Happy Cow
Happy Cow is a useful app and website that shows vegan restaurants wherever you are in the world. Simply visit the website or download the app and enter your location into the search bar. With a huge list of restaurants, it’s easy to find something that will suit your needs. Not to mention, it’s free to use!
Ditching meat for a year saves the same amout of CO2 as flying 4,000 miles
Live Kindly
Cook your own food
A final tip that’s sure to keep your food vegan and diet-friendly. By cooking your own meals, you make sure what’s in them. Simple. Although it requires a little more time and effort, it might be your only option. To make sure things go quicker, you can always find a few vegan recipes that are done in under 20 minutes and use these on your trip.
Cooking food yourself is also mostly cheaper than eating out. So why not save some cash and spend it on something else like activities or tours.
One thing you will have to bear in mind when cooking your own meals whilst travelling is to make sure that you have a usable kitchen. Many hotels, hostels or B&B’s won’t come with kitchens for you to use so be careful of that if this is your plan.
If you do manage to get a kitchen and have local access to shops, markets or supermarkets, then cooking your own meals can be a great way to keep it vegan and budget friendly. And who doesn’t love that combo!
See, travelling as a vegan isn’t so bad!
By combining all of these tips it becomes really simple to travel as a vegan. Not only are there many solutions to keeping your diet green, but in todays world, you’ll more than likely stumble upon vegan options wherever you decide to go! Thankfully, the world is turning more vegan every day, with new alternatives and options in shops and restaurants worldwide. It wasn’t all that long ago that travelling the world and finding animal-free meals was a hard task! So in short, don’t let anything put you off of a place or your travel plans – you will find everything you need without a struggle.
If you have any useful tips, questions or recommendations then feel free to share them in our Facebook group here! Everyone in the vegan community can benefit from helping each other!
For more tips and information, view our other Blog Posts Here!
