How to Maintain a Vegan/Vegetarian Diet while traveling
I first became a vegetarian in 2021 and easily adapted vegetarianism into my diet. It was easy enough to find vegetarian options at restaurants and ingredients in my local grocery store in the United States, especially since I’m a fluent english speaker. But a year later, my partner and I began to plan our first international trip together and for the first time, I had to figure out how to maintain my vegetarianism in a place I was unfamiliar with.
While I’m a vegetarian, my partner is a long time vegan who had experience with sustaining a vegan diet and traveling. For our first international trip together we traveled to Quepos, Costa Rica and were able to find plenty of restaurants with vegan and vegetarian options, and even a fully vegan restaurant. We also rented an Airbnb with a kitchen, and cooked a lot of our own meals. Later that year my partner and I decided to travel full time for a year, and we managed to maintain our vegan and vegetarian diets. Eating vegetarian or vegan while traveling is very do able, but it is important to research and plan for beforehand.
If you’re planning on traveling and are worried about figuring out how to eat while traveling, here are some tips I have based on my own experiences.
Research vegetarian/vegan options throughly before your trip
-Research what options you’ll have in the airport, train station or whichever mode of transportation you plan on using
During our year of full time travel, we flew from Europe to Asia and Asia back to Europe. During our journey from Rome to The Philippines, we had a 16 hour lay over in Istanbul. In the Istanbul airport there were vegetarian options for me, but there were hardly any vegan options for my partner. We were able to secure dinner, but the morning before our flight my partner was unable to find a breakfast option. Unfortunately, our flight was also around 18 hours. It’s also important to remember for extremely long flights that will be serving food to contact the airline beforehand and ask them to provide you with an option that fits your dietary requirements!
-Utilize Happy Cow
Thanks to the internet, information about restaurants in any place you plan on traveling to is super accessible. My partner and I always use Happy Cow to see what restaurants have options that fit our dietary requirements.
-Search for vegan/vegetarian options in the native language of where you’ll be visiting
Instead of going to google maps and typing in English ‘Vegan/Vegetarian restaurants,’ try typing it into google translate and translating it into the language of where you plan on visiting, and then use the translation to search for more options.
-Brush up your language skills
If you don’t speak the language of where you’re visiting, it’ll be helpful to learn some food related vocabulary such as fish, meat, dairy and eggs. Study how to ask what ingredients are in your food, and how to ask if something is vegan or vegetarian friendly. It’s also just a good practice in general to know some words/phrases in the native language of the place you plan to visit!
Rent accommodations with a kitchen
Having a kitchen in your accommodations allows you to cook and prepare your own food, and also helps saves money on eating out! But there are important factors to consider if you choose this option.
-Be sure that the kitchen has the proper tools to cook the meals you want
There are listings on Airbnb that claim they have a kitchen, but sometimes that only entails a microwave and electric water kettle. During our year of full time travel, my partner and I always made sure to reserve Airbnbs with a ‘kitchen,’ but the kitchens varied vastly between our different accommodations, so take your needs into consideration. Do you need an oven? Do you need a stove top? A fridge? What cooking utensils does the kitchen have? These are all important questions to ask.
-Consider how accessible a grocery store is
Is there a grocery store within walking distance of where you’ll be staying? Will you be renting a car so you’ll be able to drive to where you can buy groceries? These are important aspects that need to be considered before just renting a place with a kitchen. While me and my partner were in Costa Rica, we rented an Airbnb with a kitchen but didn’t realize it was atop a steep hill. According to google maps, the closest grocery store was about 15-20 minutes away, but we forgot to consider how much harder it would be to carry groceries in extremely hot tropical heat, and up a hill no less! While it was easy enough for us to walk and grab groceries while in Spain, France, and Japan, it was not a similar case with other destinations. Southern Italy is not the most walkable, and we often had to walk narrow roads with no sidewalk. Thankfully, our Airbnb hosts would give us rides to the grocery store which was super helpful. In the Philippines, we were once again carrying groceries for 15-20 minutes in tropical heat, and the grocery stores didn’t have the best selection. Thankfully, there was a vegan restaurant close to our accommodation and plenty of places with vegan and vegetarian places to eat. There are so many factors to consider, such as weather, walkability, and what may or may not be available to you.
Overall, shopping at local grocery stores is a good way to get a feel of how the locals live their day to day, and I view grocery shopping in a foreign country a good cultural experience. Doing this also saves money, and is also good for budget traveling!
Stay at a resort
Even though I myself have never stayed at a resort (I’m more of a budget traveler myself), if you have the money a good option to make sure you have access to vegan/vegetarian options is to stay at a resort! Most resorts will have vegan/vegetarian options available, and there are even resorts that are entirely vegan!
Your options for restaurants and ingredients will greatly vary between destinations. For example, in the Philippines it was much harder to procure ingredients for vegan cooking but thankfully there were vegan restaurants and options available. When we stayed in Kumamoto, Japan there was only one restaurant that provided a vegan restaurant for us to eat out at, so most of our meals were made at home. Researching and planning to make sure you can eat vegan and vegetarian friendly while traveling is integral. Unfortunately, we cannot be as spontaneous as people who have non-vegan diets. But I hope my tips and experiences show you maintaining a vegetarian or vegan diet is very do-able with the proper planning!
