Heya,

Traveling as a vegetarian can be difficult sometimes. And combining it with eating healthily? We’re in a tough position, unless our budgets are limitless – and even then it’s not easy!

We asked many of our vegetarian frequent traveler friends for their tried and tested healthy eating tips while being on the road. Check them out below:

1a. Take kitchen utensils with you, if possible. To be more specific: cutlery, a small cutting knife and cutting board as well as a glass, muesli bowl and a plate. It sounds a bit over the top, but it really pays off.

Now you’ll be able to jump into a grocery store, buy basics like berries, tomato, cucumber, avocado, bell pepper, small salads, spreads, muesli, cheese, milk, bread and so on to prep a tasty meal.

1b. Prep a “first aid food kit”. Think about taking foods with you that you won’t find easily in a grocery store, but are important for you. This can be good quality bread, puffed rice cakes, your favourite granola mix, rice or almond milk.

2a. Purchase an Electric Travel Hot Pot. Now you can take your meals on the road one step further. With one, heating up water or soups is no problem at all, nor is boiling eggs.

And this gives rise to new recipes: “pimped” ramen soups with a boiled egg and greens, couscous with some veg as mentioned above. Nowadays you can even find healthyish canned soups in some supermarkets. You can easily heat them up with a hot pot.

2b. Prep a “second aid food kit”. This time think of tasty foods that need heating up that are not always easily available, but you can’t live without: maybe matcha, couscous, brown rice or lentils.

3. Spice things up. Consider purchasing a multi-spice container like this one. Also make sure you prep a small bottle of olive oil and vinegar, so you can create dressings easily. Otherwise your food will most likely be bland.

4. Become a meal prepper. Given you have access to a fridge, try prepping meals for 3 days to start with. This could be overnight oats or salads in a jar as easy options. If your luggage situation allows it you could go even further and take full meals with you (see our email from Day 13 – “Veggie recipes that pack well for work”). Important: make sure you save 2-3 hours to go grocery shopping and cook before starting your journey.

5. Take filling snacks with you. Bananas, apples, grapes, oranges, trail nut mixes, nut snack bars, dark chocolate bars are all good choices for a trip away from home. None of it will go bad at room temperature for many days and will even allow you to “graze” – eating small amounts throughout the day. If you have a fridge, pack in yogurts as well as hummus and carrots.

6. Look for “healthyish” restaurant options. Vietnamese, Thai, Japanese and Indian are often good choices. Mexican too, if you can withstand the temptation of their unhealthy options. Maybe you can even steer business lunches into these kinds of restaurants. If none of those restaurants are available, check out side dishes on the menu and ask whether it’s possible to have a mix of those. 

You can find restaurants easily near you using google maps and then just plugging “restaurant + cuisine” into the search bar. Or try out happycow.net – a website that allows you to find vegetarian restaurants nearly everywhere on the globe.

7. Try out a food delivery app. Sometimes you’re in the hotel room and just want to have food asap. Check out this article and download one of the food delivery apps. ‘Seamless’ is the one most highly recommended and allows you to order delivery from local restaurants. That way you can avoid dodgy delivery services and pick a good quality meal from a highly rated restaurant instead.


Surely, eating healthily on a veggie diet while travelling is a challenge. It will take some extra effort to get it done. But all in all it’s well worth it, especially if you travel frequently and for several days in a row (hello everybody in the consulting business).

Living only off of restaurant meals, hotel buffets and snacks from the gas station is not the best decision for your body, nor is it for your wallet. You’ll be pleased you stuck with it in the long run.

Best regards,

Hauke, Kat & Dave