I love to travel. It’s one of my most favorite things to do. When I’m not traveling (which is most of the time) I’m busy planning the next trip. I often plan for trips that I am very unlikely to take anytime soon. It’s just fun to see what’s out there, explore new places virtually. Of course, I do hope that I’ll get to really visit all of those dream locations some day.

For me, one of the highlights of travel is trying new foods. In case you haven’t figured this out already, I love to eat. I like to say it’s one of my favorite hobbies. 🙂 What I don’t like is being sick. I don’t like feeling ill and I don’t like worrying that my pleasurable eating experience is going to turn sour a couple hours later. Thankfully, there are some easy to implement strategies that can help you enjoy your travels, eat well and be well. Here they are, in no particular order:

1. Take your own food – We are very fortunate to be living in a day with many, many healthy packaged food options.

• • beef jerky
  • protein bars
  • already portioned and packaged fruits and vegetables
  • packets of nut butters
  • packets of olive oil
  • packets of coconut oil
  • just add water gluten free grain bowls

I could keep going on and on with this list. If you want to take healthy foods with you, you can. They’re available to us now. We really have no excuses for choosing unhealthy options on the road.

Then there is the option of taking fresh foods with you. Hard boiled eggs travel very well. Granted, your fellow plane travelers may not enjoy the smell, but you know what, you can’t please every body all the time so I say you eat what’s healthy and just apologize if someone complains. Most people will be fine with it and frankly, they’ll probably think you’re a genius for bringing along such an easy, filling and nutritious food.

We almost always travel by car and often leave in the late afternoon, so everyone packs their own dinner for the road. Sometimes we’ll pull over and eat at picnic tables at rest areas and other times we just keep driving and eat as we go.

See these earlier articles I wrote that are full of ideas for taking food on the road with you. Paleo Travel plus Virginia Creeper Review and Paleo Travel and Easter Recipes

When it comes time to plan where to stay, I recommend looking for a place with a kitchen or at the very least, a fridge, microwave and coffee maker. That’s pretty standard these days and not hard to find. If you can at least eat breakfast at “home” that will set you up for a successful day of eating. A fridge allows you to bring along a lot of healthy options. Just make sure to bring a cooler so you can tote those foods with you throughout your day. When my family travels, we always eat breakfast at our rental, we pack a simple lunch and generally eat at a restaurant I’ve found and researched online ahead of time, which leads me to point number 2…

Before I get to point number 2 I want to say something else about packing your lunch. When traveling, it is very likely that you will not know exactly what is available for dining in every location. And who likes to be bothered with stopping the fun just because someone wants to eat? For these reasons, we almost always pack our lunch when we’re on the road so that we can be out in the middle of nowhere exploring, hiking, biking, whatever, and then stop and have lunch whenever and wherever we want. Not only does this keep us from eating unhealthy foods, but it is the ultimate in convenience. Now, on to number 2…

2. Do your research ahead of time. One of my favorite sayings is, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” This applies to just about every single situation. Of course, I am a planner by nature so sayings like this actually make me excited. Way back when my kids were little, we learned that the anticipation of the trip was half the fun for them. As we’ve planned bigger and more interesting trips, I’ve really learned to embrace the planning because it gets me excited for the trip and builds my own anticipation. And of course, part of what I’m planning is the food. We simply don’t have the luxury of just winging it and eating what and when we can. With my husband’s Type I Diabetes and my Crohn’s disease, which is managed entirely with diet and lifestyle, we have to be careful. In fact, a couple years ago when we traveled across the country to visit a lot of the National Parks, we had planned to stop in some pretty remote locations because of something unique in that locale, but had to change our plans because of lack of grocery stores or safe restaurants.

My favorite sources for food planning are:

• The findmeglutenfree.com website and the associated app. I have found many great restaurants that way. I wish it were more heavily used, but there is still great information there. I always try to leave reviews myself with as much detail as possible.
• I’ve also found great information from travel blogs. I love Alexisgfadventures.com. I originally found her when I was planning our first gluten free trip to Disney World, but her family actually travels pretty extensively, so I’ve found lots of dining recommendations for various locations through her website. I also like glutenfreeglobetrotter.com.
• Just google gluten free restaurant recommendations and then the city you plan to visit. Look for private blogs because those are not likely to be sponsored and are more likely to give you honest, detailed information.
• Don’t forget to write down or create a digital file of the information you find, including restaurant name, address, hours of operation and look for coupons!

3. Plan your indulgences

We eat paleo or primal (paleo + grass-fed dairy) at home, but on the road, if we’re not eating our own food, we stick to gluten free as our single requirement. It’s fairly easy to find gluten free options these days and gluten is the primary food trigger for my family so if we can stay away from that, we’ll be in good shape. That being said, there are certain gluten free treats in which we indulge when we travel. Fried foods (hard to find so very easy to limit this one), pastries, ice cream, alcohol. Decide what you want your indulgences to be and plan them, ideally not every day. Make it good and make it special. Don’t eat the gluten free donut just because you can if you’re really not enjoying it. Case in point, on our cross-country trip, we spent a day in Chicago on the way home. I knew Chicago had a great food scene and had researched restaurants for just about every meal because there were so many great options. We really reined in our indulgences on the rest of the trip because we knew this was coming. We found a place that was part restaurant, part food hall, part gourmet market called Eately. They had a dessert bar that contained mostly gluten free options. I believe we chose four options for the four of us to share. They were AMAZING. Each one seemed to be better than the last. So what did we do? We went back and got a few more! They were small and each of us got a bite or two of each so we weren’t stuffing ourselves, but here’s my point: we had great gluten free options, they were delicious and extravagant and special, so we really lived it up.

While in Yellowstone, we discovered this special brand of ice cream made in Montana and only available in that part of the country.  It was the best ice cream we’ve ever had. Huckleberry! Heath bar coffee! I dream about that ice cream. We got big servings and we enjoyed every single bit.

4. Intermittent Fasting (IF)

This may be the least popular suggestion here, but please hear me out. I am not suggesting that you all of a sudden begin intermittent fasting when you embark on a vacation. What I am suggesting is that if this is already a part of your healthy lifestyle, it will make travel so much easier – at least for those in your party who are fasting. In my case, I’m the only one who practices IF in my family. This means that I have to plan for and procure or cook the food for my family members for three meals a day (plus snacks – teenagers!), but I don’t have to eat all those times myself. Frankly, I’m the one with the strictest dietary requirements, so this works well. I typically just have black coffee in the morning, lots of water through the early part of the day, break my fast around 3 with a snack (this is perfect for travel because I like beef jerky, almond butter, hard boiled eggs, etc. just typical paleo travel convenience foods) and then eat dinner with the family. Whether I’m cooking it myself or eating in a restaurant, only having to worry about one meal is pretty darn convenient. The caveat here is to not be rigid about sticking to your IF plan and thereby miss out on the food adventures that await when you travel. Just know that if fasting is a part of your regular routine, there’s no reason you can’t and shouldn’t continue that while you’re on the road. It’s the ultimate in convenience and money saving strategies!

5. Be prepared with supplements and medications just in case*

• Gluten Flam or Gluten Digest – I take one of these supplements every time I eat out – unless it’s at an exclusively gluten free restaurant. I’ve actually only ever been to two such places, so that means I take these enzymes just about every time I eat out. It’s my insurance policy against cross-contamination.
• Digestive Enzymes – helpful with any heavy meals, especially if you don’t have a gall bladder
• Activated Charcoal Capsules – for cases of food poisoning or gluten exposure, taking activated charcoal is extremely effective. Just be sure not to take it within 3 hours of other medications.
• Magnesium Malate – charcoal will be constipating, so taking some magnesium before bed the day you take the charcoal can help to keep everything working properly

*I am not a doctor and am not prescribing any medications or supplements, but I am telling you what I have taken successfully in the past and what I always carry with me in my traveling medicine cabinet. On our trip out west, I found a mostly paleo restaurant. It was gourmet, it was expensive and it was delicious. They had so many amazing desserts, I had a hart time choosing. In the end I chose a cookie for my family to share and after eating it, we all realized that this particular cookie was VEGAN, not PALEO like all of the others. Our waiter knew we were all paleo. Why he served us that cookie, I will never understand. BUT, my point here is that I was horrified and extremely worried about what I had just done to my health. Since going gluten free in an effort to manage my disease, I had and have never to this day chosen to “cheat” and eat gluten. And to my knowledge, I have never been served a full gluten containing food by accident – except this once. I immediately took four charcoal capsules and before bed I took five magnesium capsules. I usually take three magnesium so I chose to take extra to combat the constipating effects of the charcoal. I had zero symptoms or negative consequences from that gluten exposure. I was prepared and I acted quickly.

In conclusion, I encourage you to travel as far as your imagination and finances will take you. We live in a beautiful world and I think we should get out and enjoy it. I recognize that traveling with food restrictions can be difficult and sometimes scary, but it can be managed successfully. Take into consideration the recommendations laid out here in this document and plan accordingly. And by all means, if you have tips and tricks for eating safely on the road, please leave a comment for all of us to learn. Happy traveling!