Traveling can often disrupt your regular eating habits, leading to unhealthy choices and unwanted dietary regrets. Whether you're on a road trip, staying in a hotel, or enjoying a vacation rental, maintaining a healthy diet requires planning and smart choices. This guide provides a comprehensive overview of healthy travel food options, practical tips, and recipes to help you stay nourished and energized on your journeys.
The Importance of Healthy Travel Food
Taking a break from your normal eating patterns can be part of the fun of travel, like experiencing a different culture's food. However, relying solely on restaurants or fast food can lead to feeling bloated or unhealthy. Incorporating healthy travel food ensures you feel good while traveling and allows you to enjoy authentic food experiences even more. Healthy foods to eat while traveling should include protein, healthy fats and fiber. Bonus for including hydrating foods like grapes or clementines, as it's easy to get dehydrated while traveling.
Road Trip Essentials: Snacks
Snacks are a quintessential part of road trips, but they don't have to be limited to chips and candy from gas stations. Here are some healthy snack options for both kids and adults:
Raw, Chopped Veggies: Celery, carrots, and sugar snap peas are sturdy enough for a road trip. Pair them with homemade ranch, hummus, or guacamole for dipping.
No-Chop Fruit: Apples, clementines, bananas, and berries are easy to pack and eat on the go. Try dipping fruit in nut butter for added protein and healthy fats.
Read also: Healthy food access with Highmark Wholecare explained.
Homemade Trail Mix: Avoid store-bought trail mix with unhealthy ingredients and high prices. Make your own by combining your favorite nuts and dried fruit.
Spiced Nuts: Toast raw nuts and add seasoning for a tastier and more satisfying snack.
Hard-Boiled Eggs: A great source of protein, hard-boiled eggs are easy to prepare and portable, making them ideal for breakfast, snacks, or lunch.
Popcorn Snack Bags: Satisfy cravings for salty, crunchy snacks with popcorn instead of chips. Add your own mix-ins for variety.
Energy Bites: Packed with protein and healthy fats, energy bites taste like a treat and provide a satisfying snack. Consider Almond Butter High Protein Energy Bites and Cranberry Almond Energy Bites.
Read also: Healthy Eating on the Run
Cooked Veggies: Steamed sugar snap peas or roasted sweet potato fries are great alternatives to raw veggies and a good way to use up leftovers.
Road Trip Essentials: Meals
Healthy road trip meals require some planning, especially if you're unfamiliar with the area. Preparing meals ahead of time ensures you have nutritious options available, even on last-minute trips. For the below healthy road trip meals, it is assumed that you can either switch off driving to eat or stop driving while you're eating, as some of them do require a fork.
Grain-Free Granola: It is a huge hit with our meal plan subscribers.
Frittata: Frittatas are delicious cold, making them perfect for a road trip. Wrap individual slices or use a mini frittata method.
Breakfast Cookies: Sweetened with dates, these breakfast cookies taste like a treat but are made with clean ingredients.
Read also: Mobile Dining Revolution
Hearty Salad: Pack a Mason Jar Salad or a Middle Eastern Salad, both hearty enough for a road trip.
Chicken Salad: Chicken salad is an excellent source of protein for a road trip lunch or dinner. Eat it over a salad, with crackers, or alongside raw fruit and veggies.
Grocery Store Stops: If you want to avoid fast food, stop at a grocery store instead! Walmart grocery stores are available in many small towns and have convenient hours.
Tuna Pouch: No can opener needed!
Hotel Stays: Meals
Staying in a hotel room with a mini fridge but no kitchen requires some creativity. Putting in a grocery order when you arrive is SO much less expensive than relying on restaurants and room service the whole time. Here are some meal ideas for hotel stays:
Overnight Oats (AKA Soaked Oats): Simply soak oats in water or your favorite milk overnight and add toppings like fruit and nuts in the morning. Add chia seeds to make the soaked oats thicker.
Bananas: This is a great choice for fruit because they don't need to be refrigerated and they don't go bad quickly.
Berries: Fresh berries make an excellent topping for yogurt or oats, as well as for salads!
Hard-Boiled Eggs: You can find already boiled eggs at many grocery stores.
Mini Cucumbers & Mini Peppers: You can eat these without chopping!
Gluten Free Bread: Sandwiches are of course an easy way to eat when you don't have a kitchen.
Pre-roasted Veggies: Check out the deli section of the local grocery store!
Vacation Rentals: Meals
Healthy travel food gets a lot easier if you have a real kitchen at your disposal! Still, I like to keep things relatively simple when traveling for a few reasons. First, I don't know exactly what the kitchen will have. Some of them have a great supply of spices and quality knives and appliances…and some don't. Second, I don't want to spend all of my time cooking when traveling! Lastly, I really don't want to overbuy groceries and waste food. I try really hard to minimize food waste.
Breakfast Hash: Saute leftover veggies, protein, and greens and top with an egg for a delicious breakfast hash.
Oats: Enjoy oats either cold or hot. This gluten free muesli works really well for overnight oats too.
Sweet Potato Breakfast Bowls: Use leftovers to make these sweet potato breakfast bowls!
Nuts & Nut Butters: Such a great way to make any breakfast more filling.
Healthy Pre-made Meatballs: I personally love the Beetnik brand from Austin, TX!
Pre-cooked Sausage: Similar to meatballs, sausage is a convenient travel option because it already includes seasonings.
Shrimp or Chicken: Simple proteins like this are a good choice for AirBnBs because they're so versatile in terms of spices.
Burgers: Buy pre-formed burger patties and spice them up with toppings!
Baked Sweet Potatoes: Bake sweet potatoes so there's no need to chop!
Spinach: A big part of my strategy for healthy travel foods is selecting multi-purpose ingredients, items I can use in more than one way.
Prep Dish Meal Plans! If you enjoy cooking, consider just bringing along a meal plan and putting in a little meal prep time at the start of your trip.
General Tips for Healthy Eating While Traveling
Limit Eating Out: While I love trying new restaurants, I do not enjoy eating out for every meal while traveling, especially with kids in the mix.
Embrace the Camping Stove: This means even if you are staying in hotels or motels. Wayne and I go on lots of road trips, and we like to pull over to various parks and beaches for lunch/dinner. We'll cook something up on our little stove and be on our way. Don't get me wrong, I love to experience local foods ingredients and inspired cooking - but anyone who travels extensively knows there can be long stretches between healthy meals.
Prioritize Protein and Fiber: The best road trip meals include both protein and fiber.
Stay Hydrated: Dehydration can make you think that you're hungry, when in fact…you're really just thirsty. So make sure you always have a bottle of water with you when traveling.
Avoid Skipping Breakfast: Now, research suggests there is no significant difference in weight gain whether you eat breakfast or not, BUT the main issue here is your hunger while vacationing. I find it easy to feel like a snack when on vacation, especially if you're hungry. So, having a nice high-protein and filling breakfast can help keep cravings away.
Share Meals: Good way around this is to share what you purchase with your family or friends (this is very effective between my 4 kids and Dustin). I also have a guide on How To Eat Healthy At Restaurants which is handy when ordering out.
Pack Smart: Packing healthy food for travel involves some planning ahead and the right containers. But don't worry, this investment of time and resources will pay off again and again (in both your health and your wallet). It's worth it!
Packing Essentials
Stackable Containers: My kids love these! Not only are they durable but they also attach to each other…which makes both fun and easy to pack. All you have to do is pull them up by the handle and you have different compartments full of different healthy snacks.
Bento Boxes: If you want to pack an entire healthy meal, a bento box is your best bet. They are divided into different sections so you can throw in an entrée, a sauce, and a side without the entire thing mixing together.
Ziploc Bags: I swear that Ziploc bags are literally gifts that keep on giving! Not only are they space savers, resealable and reusable (I always try to reuse mine to reduce waste), but they're also transparent. This certainly helps when you're searching for the perfect snack in your bag full of guides and museum tickets.
Airport Tips
Search in Advance for Healthy Restaurants: Almost all airports have the restaurants listed online. All you have to do is Google a bit and see what they have on their menu.
Bring Your Own Snacks and Food: Now this might seem a little risky because of the TSA's tough reputation but I'm 100% sure they will allow this homemade Banana Nut Bread, protein balls, or nuts, beef jerky, and hard-boiled eggs. The main thing you want to avoid is liquid foods (like yogurt and smoothies), especially if it's they're over 3oz.