Traveling Abroad While Vegan

I love to travel, I also love to eat well while traveling.  This can be a challenge when you’re vegan, can’t speak the language and are in an unfamiliar place.  Here are five tips to hopefully help you find good food to eat while abroad.
I love to travel, I also love to eat well while traveling.  This can be a challenge when you’re vegan, can’t speak the language and are in an unfamiliar place.  Here are five tips to hopefully help you find good food to eat while abroad.

Do Research Ahead of Time: Sites like Happy Cow have a huge directory of vegan, vegetarian, and vegetarian-friendly restaurants in almost every city in the world.  Knowing the names and locations of vegan restaurants can help significantly when you get onto the ground.

Purchase a Travel Book: Almost all travel books list vegan and vegetarian restaurants in their food sections and usually give very detailed and easy to understand directions on how to get to these restaurants.  There is one thing to remember about this tip – I’ve found that a meat eating travel guide isn’t always the best person to get tips on vegetarian/vegan food.

Learn A Few Key Phrases: It’s always helpful to be able to communicate to the locals that you don’t eat meat or dairy.  Looking up phrases like “I’m vegan” or “I don’t eat meat” can be very helpful preparation for when you go abroad.  I must stress though to remember than these phrases don’t always carry the same meaning as they do in English, I mean, think of all of the people who think that vegetarians can eat fish or even chicken?

Become a Pen Pal with a Local Who is Vegan Before Leaving: Locals who already eat vegan are probably one of the best possible resources.  They not only know what you can eat, but they also know what’s good!

If You Have a Smartphone, Bring It: I can’t count the amount of times that using my iPhone as a wifi device has helped me find great places to eat.  Just remember to turn off your actual cell service unless you want an astronomical phone bill.

I’m certain this hasn’t covered everything, so fellow vegan travelers what are your pro tips?