My Top Vegetarian Travel Tips (From a Longtime Vegetarian Traveler)
I’ve been a vegetarian since I was eleven years old, and I’ve traveled to more than 65 countries around the world as a vegetarian. The good news is, traveling as a vegetarian is easier than you might think!
There have only been a few situations where I’ve really struggled to find something to eat.
I think traveling as a vegetarian is much easier than traveling as a vegan (avoiding meat is easier than avoiding all animal products like eggs, cheese, milk, butter, and so on.) I also think it’s easier than traveling with a dietary restriction like being gluten-free. That being said, it can still be tricky at times.
If you’re traveling as a vegetarian, you’ll want to do some advance planning to ensure you have a good trip. The last thing you want is to end up not being able to enjoy the local cuisine or to be stuck eating bland, gross food because you can’t find any decent vegetarian options. So let’s make sure that doesn’t happen!
These essential travel tips will help you navigate being a vegetarian on the road:
1. Pack vegetarian snacks.
It’s always a good idea to pack some vegetarian snacks when you’re traveling. These are great for long car, bus, train, and plane rides, as well as days when you’re out and about exploring.
Having my own snacks alleviates the stress and worry of not being able to find something to eat. I like to bring bars (Clif Bars, Larabars, or protein bars) and dried fruit leather whenever I travel.
2. Request a vegetarian in-flight meal.
Did you know you can request a vegetarian meal on flights where at least one meal is served? You just have to make your request in advance with the airline. Most airlines offer special meals that cater to a variety of dietary restrictions, like vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, kosher, halal, and so on.
I always do this to make sure I get a meal I can eat, because some airlines don’t have vegetarian options unless you’ve requested them in advance. Bonus: You usually get your special meal served first!
3. Research the cuisine of your destination.
Before traveling to a new country, do some research on the typical cuisine of your destination. It’s always a good idea to know what to expect in advance so you can be best prepared for it.
Is the diet of the country very meat-heavy? What are the most popular local dishes? Are there any local specialties that are already prepared vegetarian? Which leads me right into my next tip…
4. Try local vegetarian dishes.
No matter where you go, there are probably at least a few local dishes you can try that are already vegetarian! In some countries, there might be more of this (for example, India, where almost 40% of the country is vegetarian!) But even in countries with a meat-heavy diet, you can find some options.
For instance, in Poland, I could always find vegetarian pierogies or potato pancakes. In Argentina, there were always plenty of vegetarian empanadas. In Central America, the standard breakfast consisted of some combination of beans, rice, eggs, cheese, tortillas, avocado, etc. — always vegetarian.
So you don’t have to skip out on the local cuisine to find vegetarian food!
5. Find vegetarian-friendly restaurants.
Another thing I like to do is research vegetarian-friendly restaurants in a new destination. The best resource for this is Happy Cow, which lists vegetarian and vegan restaurants around the world.
Sometimes it’s easier to go to a dedicated vegetarian or vegan restaurant and know you can order anything off the menu, rather than try to find dishes you can eat at a restaurant that also serves meat.
It’s a smart idea to do your research in advance, because otherwise you can end up in the kind of situation where I’ve found myself more times than I’d like to admit: eating a vegetarian Impossible burger and fries from Burger King because I don’t know where else to go to find vegetarian food.
6. Learn how to say you’re a vegetarian.
It’s always a good idea to learn how to say you’re a vegetarian in the language of the destination that you’re traveling to. But note that you still might have to clarify what this means to people (especially in countries where being a vegetarian is uncommon or when you’re outside of touristy areas.)
For example, in France, I find that a lot of people conflate vegetarian with pescatarian, and I have to explain that no, I don’t eat fish either, because that’s still meat. Or in some destinations, people might assume vegetarian just means that you don’t eat red meat. So clarifying what it means is important!
7. Don’t be too picky.
There are some situations where you can’t be too picky while traveling as a vegetarian. Unfortunately, you won’t always be able to enjoy a balanced meal or a ton of variety with vegetarian food.
One example of this is the three-day tour I did to the Uyuni Salt Flats in Bolivia. It’s a very remote area, and while there was an option to select vegetarian meals for the tour, those just consisted of plain omelettes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with maybe some unseasoned vegetables on the side.
While it was bland, this is a situation where you can’t afford to be too picky. You’ll find that this is more often the case when traveling in more remote or less developed areas around the world. In contrast…
8. Big cities are your friend.
While you might struggle in remote areas and smaller towns, big cities are your friend. With the example I gave above, there weren’t many options in the middle-of-nowhere Bolivia, but in the capital La Paz, it was a different story, and I didn’t struggle at all to find vegetarian options in the big city.
This tends to be the case in any city around the world — even ones in countries with a reputation for eating a lot of meat. For instance, Argentina is one of the biggest consumers of meat per capita in the world, yet I had some of the best vegetarian and vegan food of my life while I was in Buenos Aires!
9. Cook your own meals.
This is one tip I don’t follow myself, since I don’t cook at all…
But it’s a really good tip if you do! Another thing you can do if you’re worried about finding balanced meals as a vegetarian is go grocery shopping and buy ingredients to cook your own meals. Obviously, you’ll want to stay in an accommodation that has kitchen facilities (like an Airbnb) rather than a hotel.
Even though I don’t cook, I still go to the grocery store in many destinations that I visit to buy some vegetarian-friendly snacks and ingredients to make sandwiches for myself in a pinch.
10. Never feel like you have to compromise.
Finally, one last tip I wanted to share is to never feel like you have to compromise. I’ve seen a lot of advice that recommends letting go of “special diets” like being a vegetarian when you travel, so you can fully enjoy the local cuisine, or because it’s rude to refuse food when it’s offered to you by a local.
What this doesn’t take into account is that many vegetarians and vegans aren’t just doing this as a fad diet or for personal health reasons, like the keto diet or the paleo diet. For many of us, it’s a deeply-held moral and ethical belief, so you should certainly never feel like you need to be “more flexible” about it.
Not everyone understands what it means to be a vegetarian, and you might be met with some confusion or even mockery when you travel. But that doesn’t mean you should ever feel bad about it!
My Best Tips for Vegetarian Travelers
So these are my top tips for vegetarian travelers — I hope you found them helpful!
As I said at the start of this post, traveling as a vegetarian is really not that hard in many destinations around the world. Even in countries that have a meat-heavy diet, you can usually find a number of local dishes that are inherently vegetarian (or that can be prepared vegetarian for you.)
Vegetarianism is becoming more and more popular around the world, and I’ve noticed that there are more vegetarian options available in restaurants and in grocery stores than ever before.
By doing your research and planning ahead, you can easily travel as a vegetarian anywhere.
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