Healthy Travel
When you live with food sensitivities, and generally try to eat well, travel is really difficult! It always takes a lot more planning to ensure that we will actually be able to find food we can eat while away. Much of our travel planning involves locating the closest Whole Foods and mapping out gluten free vegan dining options before we even book our flights.
Earlier in the year, we took a trip to Big Island Hawaii. We LOVE Hawaii, but this was our first visit to the Big Island. Our hotel had various restaurants with gluten free options and we found a natural market where we could stock up on snacks. But, it proved to be really difficult to find real foods to keep us going. It turned out the hotel food wasn't so great. The natural food market provided lots of snack and had some great options to cook, but on this trip, we didn't bother with a kitchen so making our own meal wasn't really an option. We found a couple of places that had some very basic menu offerings, such as steamed vegetables and quinoa, and lived off these for the whole trip. Finding enjoyable foods can make or break a trip, and we left feeling like we had a great trip, but, we didn't necessarily need to return. Had our dining experience been different, our island views might have changed.
While planning our next trip to Florida, we embarked on the same planning session. We found a few Whole Foods, so worst case, we know we can build salads and live off the deli section. We found some local natural food chains which we are excited to try too. This time, we made sure some of our accommodation will have kitchens so we can always cook up something ourselves.
We have developed a few fail safe systems to help with travel and these include having the right apps and making sure we prepare our own breakfast.
My favorite app while in the USA is Find Me Gluten Free. We can enter a location and it will tell us the various options within a specified radius. It also allows visitors to leave feedback, and people are quick to point out if they have been "glutened". It is incredibly useful. It doesn't always have every cafe or restaurant, but it is a great start on our search.
While in the UK, we found that the same app had a few options, but we were also able to find local apps that offered the same thing.
We often travel to Aulani, the Disney resort on O'ahu. Not only is it an absolutely gorgeous hotel, but they truly do cater for difficult diets. When we have gone to the Character Breakfast, the chef comes out and asks us what we can eat, proposes a menu, and comes back having custom made our multi course breakfast, which is always substantially better than the regular buffet options! The same happens at any of their onsite restaurants. Each time they produce an off menu meal just for us. They also offer gluten free muffins and other breakfast items in their casual cafe, which is where we really got into a routine of making our own easy breakfast to start the day.
These days when we travel, the first thing we do is stock up on good quality water, coconut milk and chia seeds. Having traveled with our own food on the flight, we always seem to have food containers, so before we go to bed, we make up chia pudding with the coconut milk and chia seeds in the containers. We leave it in the fridge overnight, and come morning we have breakfast! If we have been able to find some honey along the way, we add this in too. This is a great protein packed pudding, that we can top with fruit that we can easily find in the hotel. When at Aulani, my daughter likes to add a gluten free walnut muffin or something similar. Our day starts well because we have had a "safe" meal that has filled us up, and it is a lot cheaper than the other options that normally leave us feeling crappy.
I also like to travel with fennel and ginger teas. I like coffee too, but fennel tea and ginger tea is great for the digestion which is inevitably challenged on any trip. I also always ask the hotel for an electric kettle so I am not using the dirty coffee machine that I am sure hasn't been cleaned properly no matter how nice the hotel.
I like to make sure I bring probiotics when we travel. It is hard to find a good quality temperature stable probiotic, but I have found Berry Go Live to be a good option for my daughter, as well as Jarrow for the rest of us. We often take a supplement break when we travel, but probiotics help keep our bodies happy so we always bring those along.
Over the years we have been building our own dining reviews for different locations in the US and UK. I will add a few of our favorites on another post!
Earlier in the year, we took a trip to Big Island Hawaii. We LOVE Hawaii, but this was our first visit to the Big Island. Our hotel had various restaurants with gluten free options and we found a natural market where we could stock up on snacks. But, it proved to be really difficult to find real foods to keep us going. It turned out the hotel food wasn't so great. The natural food market provided lots of snack and had some great options to cook, but on this trip, we didn't bother with a kitchen so making our own meal wasn't really an option. We found a couple of places that had some very basic menu offerings, such as steamed vegetables and quinoa, and lived off these for the whole trip. Finding enjoyable foods can make or break a trip, and we left feeling like we had a great trip, but, we didn't necessarily need to return. Had our dining experience been different, our island views might have changed.
While planning our next trip to Florida, we embarked on the same planning session. We found a few Whole Foods, so worst case, we know we can build salads and live off the deli section. We found some local natural food chains which we are excited to try too. This time, we made sure some of our accommodation will have kitchens so we can always cook up something ourselves.
We have developed a few fail safe systems to help with travel and these include having the right apps and making sure we prepare our own breakfast.
My favorite app while in the USA is Find Me Gluten Free. We can enter a location and it will tell us the various options within a specified radius. It also allows visitors to leave feedback, and people are quick to point out if they have been "glutened". It is incredibly useful. It doesn't always have every cafe or restaurant, but it is a great start on our search.
While in the UK, we found that the same app had a few options, but we were also able to find local apps that offered the same thing.
We often travel to Aulani, the Disney resort on O'ahu. Not only is it an absolutely gorgeous hotel, but they truly do cater for difficult diets. When we have gone to the Character Breakfast, the chef comes out and asks us what we can eat, proposes a menu, and comes back having custom made our multi course breakfast, which is always substantially better than the regular buffet options! The same happens at any of their onsite restaurants. Each time they produce an off menu meal just for us. They also offer gluten free muffins and other breakfast items in their casual cafe, which is where we really got into a routine of making our own easy breakfast to start the day.
These days when we travel, the first thing we do is stock up on good quality water, coconut milk and chia seeds. Having traveled with our own food on the flight, we always seem to have food containers, so before we go to bed, we make up chia pudding with the coconut milk and chia seeds in the containers. We leave it in the fridge overnight, and come morning we have breakfast! If we have been able to find some honey along the way, we add this in too. This is a great protein packed pudding, that we can top with fruit that we can easily find in the hotel. When at Aulani, my daughter likes to add a gluten free walnut muffin or something similar. Our day starts well because we have had a "safe" meal that has filled us up, and it is a lot cheaper than the other options that normally leave us feeling crappy.
I also like to travel with fennel and ginger teas. I like coffee too, but fennel tea and ginger tea is great for the digestion which is inevitably challenged on any trip. I also always ask the hotel for an electric kettle so I am not using the dirty coffee machine that I am sure hasn't been cleaned properly no matter how nice the hotel.
I like to make sure I bring probiotics when we travel. It is hard to find a good quality temperature stable probiotic, but I have found Berry Go Live to be a good option for my daughter, as well as Jarrow for the rest of us. We often take a supplement break when we travel, but probiotics help keep our bodies happy so we always bring those along.
Over the years we have been building our own dining reviews for different locations in the US and UK. I will add a few of our favorites on another post!