Our family has always been big on travel - especially my Australian husband with his “walkabout” culture. Traveling with Celiac disease requires a lot more planning, but it is absolutely possible to have fun and eat well! Here are some of our tried and true travel tips…
Lodging
The biggest impact that the shift to gluten-free had on our travel is that we stay in more AirBnBs and suite-style hotels than we did prior. Luckily, these are generally easy to find and we appreciate the extra space they provide too. It’s much more relaxing to know we have the ability to store and prepare some food at home, especially for a longer stay. That said, sometimes a regular hotel room is your only option so know that you can request a mini fridge and/or microwave for “special medical needs” or “severe food allergy” and many places will honor that without cost. Always worth a try!
Road Trips
Traveling with your car allows a little more freedom to bring key items from home. We have a ready-packed storage box for road trips that always contains: non-stick skillet, thin plastic cutting board, collapsible strainer, several silicone utensils, foil, paper plates/bowls, plasticware, and sponges. If you’re staying in an AirBnB or with friends/family, this starter kit covers the kitchen basics. Most places have some decent stainless steel pots/utensils that will also be fine for use after a good scrub, and all have baking trays, etc that can be used with some foil on top.
As for food, we pack any must-have faves in the crate or, if cold, in a cooler. Don’t waste space on easy to find items like fruit, eggs, pasta sauces, etc. Do include some items on the top of the cooler for eating on the road as you can’t always ensure you’ll find a safe meal stop.
I personally like to map out our drive in advance and identify some spots along the way to stop for meals. Safe GF restaurants aren’t easy to find! We’ve been known to go a little out of our way for an amazing lunch spot (like the Silly Axe Cafe in Louisville, KY…multiple times). Double-check opening hours/day to be sure they’re open when you need them to be. We’ve also had consistently good luck at chains such as Chipotle, Five Guys, and Culvers.
Airplane Travel
It’s a little harder to pack for airplane travel, but completely doable. Number One rule is DO NOT assume you’ll find safe food at the airport or on the airplane. For long flights, try to call and request an allergy meal but then assume they’ll screw it up and pack food anyway. My personal experience is that they get it right about 50% of the time. You also never know if you’ll have an incredibly long delay, get laid over at an unexpected airport, etc. My celiac son once had to make a dinner out of vending machine snickers bars and fritos while stranded at NJ’s smallest airport for 6 hours!
When packing some food for the plane, know that you can’t bring liquids through TSA so avoid anything that flows (yogurt, applesauce, etc) and stick to solids. While solid foods are completely legal, they often get extra scrutiny for some reason so I find it easiest to put all the food into a plastic bag within your carry-on so it can easily be pulled out for inspection if needed. Pro tip: if you want to bring an ice pack but worry it will be melted (aka liquid) before you get to security, just put a wet sponge in a ziploc baggie and freeze it the night before. Instant solid ice pack! We also bought an Insulated cooler back-pack (like this) which we use as a carry-on to (1) keep food cool for the plane trip and then (2) have on hand for holding packed lunches throughout our vacation. This has gotten so much use, it’s worth every penny!
Eating While Away
Meal planning is key so you can relax on vacation! We have a pretty standard travel dinner plan that always includes (1) GF pasta & salad, (2) crunchy beef tacos - pack GF taco spices from home - with rice & beans, (3) salmon with roasted potatoes & broccoli, (4) pan-fried chicken sausages with oven fries and green beans. What these dinners have in common is they have easy to find ingredients and use basic kitchen supplies. Add in some GF cereals, yogurts, milk, fruits and eggs for breakfast and some GF bread, sandwich fixings, & chips for packed lunches each day. Don’t forget some snacks and drinks too!
The silver lining of a global pandemic is that almost all grocery stores now offer online ordering so now I can find one near our lodging and advance order all of this so I don’t have to spend precious time on day one of vacation wandering an unfamiliar grocery store for this initial stock-up. This also allows me to see if they don’t carry a must-have that we should try and pack. We usually end up doing a short mid-vacay grocery trip to get a few more things and that gives us a chance to wander the aisles a bit and discover new GF foods we may not have at home too!
I’d prefer not to cook every night on vacation so I do a lot of advance research to find a couple safe places to eat and intersperse those with our at-home dinners for a full week of safe meals without too much stress. This leads me to my final tip…
Research
Spend time before the trip looking for gluten-free restaurants. Cross-reference this list with your itinerary to ensure you’re not going to be stranded somwhere far from safe food in the middle of an outing. Make reservations where needed to be sure you can get in. Check for any seasonal/holiday closures. We’re a little less spontaneous than we used to be, but still enjoying every minute of our trips!
If you aren’t 100% sure exactly where you want to travel, let food be your guide and get ideas from other GFers on cities where you’ll find lots of options. Our best travel experience to date has been in Italy where we found multiple safe options in every town we visited - large and small. We planned a whole day’s itinerary in Rome around a bakery that sold drool-worthy GF cannoli as that was my son's biggest wish for the trip!
Wherever you're headed, safe and happy travels!
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