5 tips that have helped us maintain our healthy eating habits while traveling

It’s challenging to maintain your diet while travelling. But if being constantly on the road has become your lifestyle – like in our case – sticking to your eating habits can make you feel so much better! Also, hard doesn’t mean impossible – only that you’ll need to take a few extra #nontoxicsteps to protect your wellbeing. Below you’ll find 5 simple steps that we’ve been following in our family while being on a long-term travel!

1. Eat at least one home-cooked meal a day

For us it’s almost always is breakfast. If staying at a hotel, we always look for a room with a kitchenette as quality of hotel breakfasts can vary a lot – especially given that we follow a plant-based diet. We eat a huge plate of fruit (Theodore eats a small papaya and Benjamin gulps down two mangos) followed by a fiber-rich oatmeal (with ground linseeds, chia and hemp) or any other porridge topped with nut-butter. Ideally, if staying longer at the same Airbnb we’d cook either lunch and dinner ourselves. Why? Because it helps us avoid any transfats, preservatives or non-organic ingredients that you get when dining out. We keep a small travel bag with some non-perishable items like pasta, rice, spices etc that come very handy when the kids are hungry, and it’s too late to look for a descent place to eat. 

2.  Buy your groceries at a farmer’s markets when you can

It can be a lot of fun for the kids, and you get to support farmers selling high quality locally grown produce (see picture #)

3.  Be picky when dining out

Whenever possible, we try to spot cafes or restaurants that serve vegan-friendly wholefood meals. Happy Cow or even Google Maps is a helpful tool.

4. Try local delicacies as often as you can

Eating a diverse diet is as important as what you eat. When it comes to the kids, our approach is this: you don’t need to eat it if you don’t like it but you have to try it. After a few attempts like this, the novel item doesn’t appear that strange anymore and is normally accepted.

5. Bring your water filter with you

Ideally, if you can fit it, bring your water filter with you – it’s way more sustainable, will save you money, and you’ll not have to rely on bottled water that almost certainly contains traces of plastic particles, BPA/BPS, various contaminants (if it’s bottled tap water – it happens), high sodium levels, potentially flouride etc. We tried badly to fit our Aquatru filter but had to give up. In the end we ended up buying a new one anyhow.