We’re often asked if it’s difficult to travel full time while being vegan, and so we wanted to share how we travel the world on a plant based diet! We both started our journeys toward eating vegan a number of years ago (for Steph it was 10 years ago, and for Kaitlin it was 7). We’ve seen the food industry change and evolve a lot in that time. Cities all over the world are now catering to vegetarian and vegan diets, and it’s easier than ever to eat plant based foods while globetrotting! Keep reading for our thoughts on veganism, as well as our top tips for eating vegan on the road.
Why We’re Vegan
People become vegetarian and vegan for a variety of reasons, and we both committed to plant based diets because we feel it is the best choice for ourselves as individuals. Food choices are very personal, and we respect that everyone has their own reasons for the way they eat. This is what works best for us! We also recognize that vegetarianism and veganism comes with a certain economic privilege, and we are grateful to be in a position where we are able to make the food choices we do. We both transitioned to be fully plant based over time, starting with cutting out meat, then dairy products, eggs, and finally fish and seafood. Our reasoning falls into three categories:
Health
We both choose to eat plant based diets full of whole, unprocessed foods, because we believe it has a positive effect on our overall health, and we want to be good to our bodies. We feel our best while eating a vegan diet, and we have both noticed significant health benefits since cutting out animal products. The main improvements we’ve noticed have been: better digestion, increased energy levels, and a strengthened immune system.
Compassion
We are both animal lovers, and don’t believe in supporting the inhumane practices of the commercial food industry. By cutting animal products out of our diets, we can feel better about the ethical impacts of our food choices. Neither of us miss eating meat or consuming other animal products. We feel much more strongly about the impact of our choices than we do about the ease and convenience of being omnivores.
The Environment
It’s widely recognized that the biggest individual impact we can make on the environment is the choices we make regarding the food we eat. The production of animal products in the commercial food industry has enormous effects on the planet when it comes to greenhouse gases, water consumption, and so much more. We believe in eating a plant based diet to help lower our carbon footprint, and take responsibility for our personal impact on the planet.
Our 3 Tips for Travelling on a Plant Based Diet
Do Your Research
Eating a vegan diet when you’re travelling requires research! The more prepared you are, the easier it will be to find healthy plant based food options wherever you go. In the past 10 years, we’ve seen massive changes in the food industry, and it’s never been easier to eat a vegan diet. We travel all over the world and are continually surprised and impressed by the food options that we find. Our favourite tools for doing research on a trip are using Google Maps, Happy Cow, and Yelp. These three apps and websites help us find vegan and vegan friendly establishments all over the world!
Google Maps
We use the Google Maps app on our phone to search for plant based options everywhere we go. If you open up a city or region on the map and type “vegan food” in the search bar, it will provide you with a list of vegan and vegan friendly cafes and restaurants in the area. Some of them will note in the description that they are vegan, and we will also check through the reviews to see what people said about the vegan options. You can search the reviews for “vegan” as well to narrow the results. If nothing comes up in the reviews you can also check the website for a menu! The other thing we love about Google Maps is that you can star your favourite businesses. We will do this before a trip, so when we arrive we already have a list of ‘go to’ places on our map.
Happy Cow
Happy Cow is a website and app that acts as a resource for finding vegan and vegetarian businesses all over the world. You can search a destination and it will give you a list of vegan friendly establishments including cafes, restaurants, grocery stores, specialty markets, etc. It’s a really great tool for finding plant based options while travelling and we use it all the time! Businesses will also usually have a Happy Cow sticker in their window that you can look out for!
Yelp
We occasionally like to use Yelp as a vegan restaurant resource, as it’s all user review based. In cities or regions where there are a lot of options, it can be nice to narrow them down based on reviews and decide where the best establishments are. Yelp has a similar search tool to Google where you can look at a certain city or destination, and use “vegan” as a keyword for your search.
Cook When You Can
While it’s becoming much easier to find vegan options in cafes and restaurants around the world, it obviously isn’t very cost effective to eat out for every meal while travelling. We tend to book accommodations where we can cook some of our own meals, so we know that we can prepare healthy, plant based food for ourselves. Our favourite way of doing this is by booking an Airbnb rather than a hotel. If you’ve never used Airbnb before, you can click here to save on your first stay! By having access to a full kitchen with cookware, and sometimes even basic ingredients, we can set ourselves up to prepare meals while we’re travelling. We often make breakfast at our accommodations, and then pack something for lunch before heading out for the day. That way we don’t always have to find something vegan friendly while we’re out, and we don’t have to keep going back to the same places that have plant based options.
When you’re travelling to different countries and exploring new places, food can also be such a big part of the culture. If you aren’t able to find any vegan options within the traditional cuisine, it can be nice to pick up some local ingredients and cook for yourself! That way you don’t miss out on the local culture, and you can try the traditional food of the place you’re visiting. Sometimes it’s as simple as swapping out a couple of ingredients, or just taking the meat out of a dish.
If you’re new to eating plant based in general, it can be really helpful to use vegan recipes to give you some inspiration and ideas for meals. We love using our favourite vegan cookbooks for inspiration! Of course if you don’t want to bring cookbooks with you while you travel, you can buy the e-book version or snap some photos on your phone of the recipes you want to try.
Here are our favourite cookbooks for amazing plant based food:
Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World
Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar
Vegan Richa’s Everyday Kitchen
Minimalist Baker’s Everyday Cooking
Bring Tons of Snacks
A serious key to success when travelling on a plant based diet, is to ALWAYS have awesome vegan snacks with you. There is nothing worse than getting hungry (or hangry), struggling to find somewhere to eat, and having no snacks around! Of course you need to check when crossing borders if you’re allowed to bring in food items, but if you are, bring all the snacks you can! We love to have healthy energy bars on hand, as well as dried fruit, nuts, vegan jerky, biscuits, etc. There are plenty of great brands out there with plant based snack items, and it can also be handy to just go to the bulk section of the grocery store before a trip and stock up there.
Here are some of our favourite vegan snack brands:
There are also snack subscription services that are a great way to try different things! We love Naked Snacks, a Canadian brand that offers a lot of healthy vegan snack options. Use our code ‘stephanief4f’ for $10 off your first box!
5 Dry Ingredients to Bring on a Trip
If you’re able to bring food with you on your trip, it could be useful to have a few dry ingredients on hand for preparing meals. We always bring some essentials with us, and it makes cooking so much easier! This way we aren’t searching for basic ingredients at the local store wherever we are, and we always know we can at least make a few easy meals.
Chia Seeds
We always bring a bag of chia seeds with us! You can find them at any health food store, and they are the perfect dry ingredient for making breakfast while travelling. Mix them with canned coconut milk or any plant based milk to make a chia pudding, and then add granola and fresh fruit, or whatever you like! (There are tons of great recipes out there for chia breakfast bowls).
Brown Rice
Sometimes it can be tricky to find brown rice or wild rice in certain places, so we like to bring a small bag of brown rice with us on a trip. Cook it up with some local fresh produce for an easy rice bowl to have for lunch or dinner.
Quinoa
Not only is quinoa a really versatile grain, it’s also a complete protein all by itself. We always bring some with us, and it’s the perfect ingredient to have available for great plant based meals.
Vegetable Stock
Soup is definitely the easiest thing to make while we’re away! We always bring a few cubes of veggie stock so that we can cook up some soup for a meal. Put in some rice, lentils, potatoes, carrots, squash, onion, or whatever fresh produce you can find, and it’s a perfect plant based dinner.
Dry Lentils & Split Peas
We love to bring some dry legumes with us to either throw in a soup, or cook up with some brown rice. Lentils and split peas are both high in protein and fibre, and are a great addition to any meal.
Vegan City Guides
If you’re looking for some recommendations for great plant based establishments around the world, head to our Instagram page for our Vegan City Guides! In our ‘Plant Based’ story highlights we have guides to cities all around the world, featuring our favourite vegan and vegan friendly cafes and restaurants. If you have a city in mind, but you don’t see it there, let us know! If we’ve been there and have some recommendations, we will post a Vegan City Guide for it!
If you have any questions about plant based eating that we didn’t cover in this post, let us know in the comments and we’re happy to answer them for you!
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6 comments
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