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A young laughing couple enjoys their vegan meal in a European city square.

5 Tips for Staying Vegan While Traveling

Going vegan is a big decision. Whether a person does makes the choice for health reasons or moral concerns, it's a decision wrapped in ethical and political issues about the sanctity of life, sustainability, and more. It's also something that takes up a lot of time and energyyou can't really be a "casual" vegan. Whether you're looking up weird ingredients to see if you can eat those chips or trying to find root vegetables no-one in your small town has heard of, it can be a hassle—and even more so when you're traveling.

1. Do Some Homework

If you're traveling to a region with a particularly extreme climate, eating animal products might be difficult or even impossible to avoid. It might just be worth rethinking the trip. Be sure and research ahead of time. You also want to check out cultural habits, like the use of ghee (clarified butter) in Indian cuisine or fish broth in East Asiaboth can catch you off-guard when eating vegetable or noodle dishes.

2. Learn What You Can Grab From a Gas Station

This is bottom-rung stuff here, but you'd be surprised at how many junk foods are vegan. In fact, there are a decent number of vegans out there who rely on the fact that high-fructose corn syrup is technically made of vegetables. They're not the healthiest vegans, mind you, but they are vegans nonetheless. Even vegans who are more health-conscious can't be hurt by knowing a bag of Doritos is fair game if they ever find themselves in an absolute culinary dead zone.

3. Grab Some Tools to Find Restaurants

Yelp, Google Maps and more have your back here, but they can also be frustrating to parse, especially when you're hungry. Luckily, there are plenty of websites, like Vegan Restaurant Finder, and phone apps to help you find places to eat without having to wade through steakhouses. Happy Cow has an app for purchase for $4. If you're cheap, you may also consider the less-functional free version, or Vegman, which is less comprehensive but also free. There's also VeganXpress, which, for $1.99, will tip you off to vegan options at mainstream restaurants, great for when you're planning meals with non-vegan friends.

4. Set Yourself Up to Cook

Cooking on the road is always tricky, and while there's plenty of help out there for vegans these days, having any restriction on your shopping list is going to complicate things. Make sure that your accommodations have some kind of kitchen, and that you're reasonably close to a grocery store. This might mean staying a couple of blocks away from tourist central. You might also look into camping cookwareit's made to be compact and lightweight. Cooking will free you from relying on pre-packaged foods your hotel offers. You probably already have a favorite recipe site, app, or Pinterest idol for recipes, but remember to keep it simplesoups, oatmeals, and artificial butters are your friends here.

5. Plan a Whole Vegan Trip

There are companies like VegVoyages who specialize specifically in vegan adventure tours. If you're looking to see the world, or even just meet other vegan aficionados, you might want to give it a whirl.

Last Updated: April 06, 2016