Traveling can be a challenge for anyone following a specific diet, especially the ketogenic diet. The ketogenic diet (or keto diet) is a very low-carb, high-fat diet that shares many similarities with the Atkins and low-carb diets. It involves drastically reducing carbohydrate intake and replacing it with fat. This reduction in carbs puts your body into a metabolic state called ketosis. When this happens, your body becomes incredibly efficient at burning fat for energy. It also turns fat into ketones in the liver, which can supply energy for the brain. Ketogenic diets can cause massive reductions in blood sugar and insulin levels. This, along with the increased ketones, has numerous health benefits.
However, with careful preparation and planning, it's entirely possible to maintain ketosis while traveling. This article provides comprehensive tips and strategies to help you stay on track with your keto diet, whether you're traveling for business or pleasure.
Pre-Trip Planning: Your Keto Travel Blueprint
Researching Your Destination
Don't wait until you land to figure out your Keto options. Instead, do some leg work from the comfort of your home. With a WiFi connection, you can create a solid plan in just 30 minutes.
- Find a full kitchen: If you want to stay Keto on vacation, cooking for yourself is the simplest route. Track down an AirBNB with a full kitchen and good reviews, and lock that baby up.
- Scope out hotels: For resort and hotel stays, there are some key questions you’ll need answered. Does the room have a fridge? Is it near a grocery store with a decent organic section? Does the establishment offer breakfast with eggs, sausage, and bacon? Call ahead if you can’t find these answers online. It only takes 5 minutes. To find a hotel with a kitchenette, it’s pretty simple. Another tip is to look for apartments. If you’re visiting a large city, chances are they have plenty of new apartment buildings that are looking to rent out. Many of the larger hotel booking sites will offer you apartments for rent - and they’re very affordable. Not to mention, they’re much roomier and more than likely updated.
- Survey local restaurants: Scan the region until you find 2-5 highly reviewed restaurants with Keto-approved fare. Steakhouses and seafood spots are almost always good bets, and burger joints, brunch, or all-day-breakfast spots can serve you well too. Most restaurants have their menu online. You can look at the menus of several places to eat in the area and choose the place that offers Ketogenic-friendly meal options.
- Locate grocery stores: Save them in your phone so you’re not fiddling with GPS on the way to your inn. More likely than not, there will be several grocery stores within a few miles of where you’re staying. Browse the internet for any “health food stores” in the area, as they are most likely to carry Ketogenic-friendly snacks and meals. When you go somewhere new, you always want to dive into the local food and enjoy what they have to offer. Take a look online to source out nearby places that sell food. A small tip that you can always use when you have unfriendly front desk staff is to ask locals. When you’re out and about, pick out different people and ask them where they go to shop. If you’re a bit more on the timid side, you can always use Yelp and TripAdvisor to get good insights on places people have visited. As a disclaimer, some of the ratings may not be accurate on these sites, so make sure you go through and read some of the more recent reviews that people have written.
- Farmer's Market: If you’re lucky enough to have a Farmer’s Market in the city you’re visiting - give it a try!
Packing Keto-Friendly Foods
Don’t rely on airline food, vending machines, or the kindness of strangers to sustain you throughout your trip. Bringing low-carb foods on your voyage is like bringing oxygen on a deep-sea dive. It sustains you.
The foods you bring will depend on the nature of your vacation. If you’re traveling by car, you can toss meat, eggs, fish, produce, and several meals in a cooler and hit the road. The cooler strategy won’t work for air travel. (Unless you like donating food to the airport security staff). You can, however, bring one or two pre-made meals. Just be mindful of flying with liquids, and make sure your container is airtight, or your luggage will smell like salmon for months. On the plus side, you might get a full row to yourself on the airplane.
Read also: Easy Low-Carb Cheese Crackers
Along with a meal or two, it’s always a good idea to bring sealed Keto snacks along like:
- Almonds, pistachios, hazelnuts, macadamia nuts, walnuts, and other nuts (Pro tip: steer clear of airline nuts, which are often roasted in vegetable oils and may even contain sugary seasonings)
- Nut butter packets
- Low-carb crackers
- Keto cookies
- Jerky or pepperoni sticks
Here are a few great Ketogenic snacks you can bring with you on the go:
- Hard-boiled eggs
- Cheese
- Cooked bacon
- Parmesan cheese crisps
- Dark chocolate (85% cacao or higher)
- Beef jerky (check the sugar content first)
- Fat bombs
To recap: One or two premade meals and a backpack of Keto treats should be plenty to tide you over until you find Keto-friendly food sources at your final destination. Stock up on snacks and easy-to-bring items for you to eat on the plane. Salami, cheese, and other tid-bits that are easy to carry around and won’t spoil too fast are a great option you have. If you’re pretty simplistic when it comes to food, you can always bring nuts with you. They last long, they taste great, and they’re packed full of fats (if you choose correctly).
Keto Travel Checklist
Make a checklist: Think of all the things that you need to pack and things you need to do. Start this list several weeks before the planned trip.
- Label everything: Be specific and label all bags and bowls of food items.
At Your Destination: Navigating the Keto Landscape
Grocery Shopping
After your plane lands and you secure transportation, you have two primary objectives:
Read also: Keto Calorie Counting: A Detailed Guide
- Check in to your accommodations
- Stock up on groceries
If the grocery store is on the way, stop there first. Then you can unpack clothes and groceries in one go. Needless to say, the supermarket is your best friend on Keto vacation. Vegetables, meat, fish, and healthy fats-it’s all there. It’s a low-carb wonderland. Ideally, you’re staying somewhere with a full kitchen. But even a microwave and mini-fridge will suffice for basic food storage and preparation. Finally, if the location allows for it, consider having your groceries delivered. The savings of time and hassle are worth the extra fee.
Here are a few other options you can get at the food store during your trip:
- Egg, chicken, or tuna salad
- Chicken wings
- Salad (don’t mix dressing until ready to eat)
- Bacon
- Full-fat yogurt
- Hummus
- Cheese
- Fresh meat such as rotisserie chicken
New Seasons Market is a Whole Foods type of store that sells all organic meats and vegetables. It was an adventure in itself to look around the store: seeing shelves full of new and exciting products I had never seen before.
Dining Out: Keto-Friendly Restaurant Strategies
Dining out on vacation can be a highly enjoyable experience. Sampling the local cuisine sure beats doing the dishes. But as you scrutinize the menu, you might feel anxious thoughts coming on. Uhh… this isn’t the menu I saw online. Can this place accommodate my Keto diet?
Fortunately, Keto is a big deal these days. Everyone’s heard of it, and many restaurants cater to the Keto crowd specifically. When your server comes around, casually mention you’re on a Keto diet. They’ll probably be able to steer you towards the right dishes. Don’t be shy about it. You’re not the first customer who’s asked for Keto accommodations at this joint, and you won’t be the last. The worst that can happen is an eye roll, and that will have less to do with you and more to do with the cheap tippers who preceded you.
Read also: Magnesium Supplements for Keto
Here are a few tips for eating Keto at restaurants:
- Always ask to double up on non-starchy vegetables instead of having bread or a starch
- Most restaurants have steak or salad, which are both great Keto meals
- Use olive oil and vinegar as dressing
- Ask for butter to place onto your vegetables
- Drink water instead of soda
- Skip dessert
- If you want a burger, ask the server to have it lettuce wrapped instead of in a bun
Making choices in restaurants can be as easy as a roasted pork shoulder, a steak with butter, or a simple chicken salad. The easiest meal of the day to eat out is by far breakfast. Many places offer eggs, omelets, sausage, bacon, or other type of high-fat foods that are easy to order without too much effort. Dive bars or café’s will usually be quick to serve and have some great tasting food.
Local Food
Local food - you’re on vacation after all. Restaurants - visiting them can be hard, but it’s definitely not anywhere near impossible to stay keto while you’re eating out. Coming home - always be prepared with snacks and something to eat on the journey home so that you don’t put all your hard work to shame.
Keto Coffee
Bringing MCT oil or coconut oil with you and making Keto Coffee is a great travel hack. If you don't have either of these available, even regular butter will do the trick. By adding healthy fats into your coffee, you’ll stay satiated for longer periods of time, improve your ketone production, and it’ll make it easier for you to hit your daily healthy fat intake.
If you can’t find any low-carb alternatives at the place you’re staying, a quick Keto coffee followed by a healthy protein source can help you stay in ketosis and keep carb cravings at bay.
The Pike Place Market
While in Seattle, we were lucky enough to go to the Pike Place Market - world famous for their fish. Fresh off the boat and ready for your sampling, this market had just about everything you’d ever want from the sea. It’s sought out by most people that go on vacation to Seattle. Locals come by to sell art and crafted material as souvenirs. They have an entire section dedicated to fresh flowers and fresh vegetables - ready for your picking and cooking. I will add that they do have some fantastic meat places, too. To name one, Uli’s Sasuage - a place that’s famous for their kielbasa. I was able to talk to the butcher himself, and go through his personal favorites and recommendations. He makes the sausage, so he was able to tell me what the ingredients were and guide me on picking a few samples to try out.
All that said, the fish is the glory of why people come to Pike’s Place Market. If you’re a fan of cheese, this place is really fun. It’s a quaint little shop that’s right across the street from Pike’s Place Market. With hundreds of competitive awards under their belt over the last decade, you know their cheese is going to be good - and they do too. We were able to sit down in the store, relax, and eat our salmon and cheese - separately of course! As you eat, you can watch them hand make their cheese through a glass window, showing exactly what they do in their process to get the food you’re eating in front of you.
Coffee and Tea Cafés
Seriously, coffee and tea cafés are around just about everywhere. If you’re lucky enough, you can usually find small packets of Kerrygold (single serve packets) inside of Starbucks or other places with bakeries. I noticed that many coffee joints don’t have stevia on-hand, so if you’re a fan of sweet, make sure that you pick yourself up a small bottle of liquid stevia. You can easily carry it around with you, or portion it out before you start the day. Even better - make the hunt part of your vacation. Look up different highly rated coffee joints around where you are and visit them. Different coffee shops offer unique tastes, roasts, and usually knowledge about the coffee they’re brewing.
Food Trucks
The second option you have is food trucks - although you really have to be weary on this one. Don’t be afraid to ask them what the ingredients are, as the food is made fresh and they’re usually proud to tell you what’s in their food. They served up some awesome coconut flour fried chicken tenders with a delicious side of collard greens and bacon (collard greens were cooked in the bacon fat). They served it with a house-made aioli that was superb.
Olympic Provisions
Olympic Provisions sells all things meat - from charcuterie to liver mousse and everything in between, I would call this place Keto Paradise. They give you the choice to pick up sausage, bacon, pork rillettes, organ mousse, and a number of different salamis to try out. It was one of our favorite places, and I would even say had some of the best tasting sausage I’ve ever tried. The salami was already smoked for us, so we had it around at all times and whenever we were in a pinch, we could easily go after some delicious meat to keep us going.
Laurelhurst Market
Laurelhurst Market is part restaurant, part butcher. It had a great environment when we walked in and offered a full range of meats to choose from at the butcher counter. Top pick steaks paired with great rack of lamb, or South African Sausage with Irish Bacon on the side.
Lifestyle Adjustments: Staying Active and Consistent
Exercise
Eating a Ketogenic diet isn’t the only way to burn fat and make ketones. Exercise does it too. There’s even a term for it: Post-exercise ketosis. This post-exercise ketosis, as you might expect, is enhanced by low-carb dieting. Unfortunately, exercise routines often crumble on vacation. You’re out of your normal groove, thousands of miles from your home gym. Chilling on the beach all day is the plan. That’s it. There’s nothing wrong with that. But you’ll probably feel better (in more ways than one) if you squeeze in a morning beach run. And it will help you stay Keto too.
I am a big believer in exercise combined with the Ketogenic Diet. It serves as a reminder of your goals, and it keeps you focused. It brings a bit of normalcy to your otherwise crazy travel schedule. It helps you feel good, and feel better about yourself. Sure, you may not be able to go to your normal gym, you may not have all your exercise equipment with you, but that shouldn’t matter. Have a long layover somewhere? Do some laps around the airport. Or throw a towel down on the hotel room floor and do a body-weight exercise routine.
Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent fasting works well with the keto diet. If you’ve been Keto for over a month, you’re probably fat-adapted. When you can access body fat for energy, it makes fasting easier. This comes in handy for travel. Let’s say you have an 8 AM flight that lands at your destination at 11:15 AM. (Same time zone). You expect to arrive at your AirBNB, grocery bags and all, by 12:30 PM. If you’re comfortable with a bit of fasting, prepping for your trip will be a snap. You can roll out of bed, grab your pre-packed luggage, zip to the airport, hop on the plane, and drive to your destination…all without worrying about feeding yourself. It’s a huge time saver.
Intermittent fasting will make staying in ketosis a breeze while you’re traveling. Instead of having to spend time finding low carb meals throughout your vacation or business trip, consider just having two big meals. If you have an early morning flight, eat a protein and fat-filled breakfast like eggs and bacon, then consider fasting until dinner time (or when you arrive at your destination). Not only will you experience deeper levels of ketosis with fasting, but it also helps you cut out all of the junk food and snacks that are often handed out on flights or at hotels.
Keto on the Go
Preparation is key when it comes to sticking to keto while traveling. Think back to the last time you traveled. But when you can plan ahead, you'll never have to resort to junk food to hold you over.
If you have a long trip ahead of you, try to eat a large ketogenic meal right before you leave. This will give you a nice "buffer" and will help curb your appetite until you arrive somewhere that has a kitchen for you to cook in or low carb-meals available. Intermittent fasting makes keeping keto on the go simpler. If you have a long road trip ahead of you, consider eating a large breakfast before you leave, then you can skip lunch and have a late dinner once you've arrived. Or perhaps you have an early morning flight. The nice thing about fasting is you can do it anywhere and it also supports ketone production. In fact, studies have shown that periods of fasting can help deplete glycogen stores from carbs to increase ketone levels.
Additional Tips
- Keep yourself motivated with the Carb Manager app.
- Tip: If you are pressed for time, you can use an air fryer to cook a nice grass-fed steak in under 15 minutes.
- Bringing MCT oil or coconut oil with you and making Keto Coffee is a great travel hack.
- Visualize yourself passing on the free bread and prepare yourself for it.
- Think about it on your flight out, and have a plan.
- Stop any slides immediately.
- Go for a walk to burn off the glucose you just had, and consider yourself lucky that you just dodged a bullet.
- Remember all that guilt and pain that brought you? Remember that feeling. Keep it top of mind.
- Sometimes we fear telling people we’re traveling with about our “strange” dietary behaviors.
Mental Fortitude: Staying Committed to Your Goals
Set Short and Long-Term Goals
I’m a huge believer that we must have BOTH short and long-term goals with our weight-loss. The long term goals are the big lofty ones, but they are often too abstract and intangible to drive immediate progress. Short term goals are the opposite. To put on zero pounds. That’s right… very simple and not crazy - I just don’t want to gain any weight. Bonus pro-tip: Don’t weigh yourself until the day AFTER you get back from your trip… travel does all sorts of weird things to our bodies, including making us bloated, dehydrated, or sometimes retain water.
Stay Connected
When we stay connected to our support network, we immediately feel more accountable. Do you have a friend you’re using as an accountability partner, doing Keto together? Check in with them.
Visual Reminders
To keep this going while traveling so much, I took one of these signs, folded it up, and put it in my travel wallet right next to my passport and pile of expense report receipts. I also took a picture from a certain past event that reminded me of my desire to lose weight and set that as the wallpaper on my phone.
Communicate Your Needs
Sometimes we fear telling people we’re traveling with about our “strange” dietary behaviors. In the US and most other Western countries, not eating carbs is becoming more and more mainstream, but sometimes we still think we don’t want to offend people by not eating things they serve or order for us. But based on my experience, its much easier to tell people upfront, as early as possible. Sure, they may think its strange the first time, but when you do tell them, its often met with a “oh, I know someone who’s trying that” or “I’ve wanted to try that myself”.
Remember Your Motivation
Remember all that guilt and pain that brought you? Remember that feeling. Keep it top of mind.
Be Prepared for Slip-Ups
At some point you may slip. Did you cheat on your Keto diet? Fine. It’s done. The next thing you put in your mouth will be Keto friendly.
It's a Mental Challenge
But remember, traveling on Keto doesn’t have to be that hard. It is a 100% mental challenge, and if you’re prepared, you can easily make it through.
Additional Tips for Traveling with Children on a Medical Ketogenic Diet
Whether you’re taking a trip an hour away or 12 hours away, traveling with someone on a medical ketogenic diet requires extra planning.
- Make a checklist: Think of all the things that you need to pack and things you need to do. Start this list several weeks before the planned trip.
- Label everything: Be specific and label all bags and bowls of food items. It may even be helpful to label the outside with what food it contains and what day and time you plan on serving it.
- By traveling at night, you can feed your keto kid their meal and then prepare them for a traveling bedtime, whether it be by car or airplane.
- Bring non-perishable meals and snacks: Try to bring non-perishables and pre-made snacks/meals that can be consumed on the way there AND the way back. Some suggestions would be a sugar-free gelatin with whipped cream, avocado or KetoCal®. Make 2 travel meals/snacks and save one for the return trip. Don’t forget a cooler!
- Research your destination: It can be helpful to look into both hotels or rental homes in the area. A hotel may offer some perks, like a concierge and a chef who are happy to meet the needs of your child’s special diet.
- Have a travel letter: Many facilities who support the Ketogenic Diet have standard letters that they can provide to families. The travel letter should include that your child is on a special medical diet and that it would be helpful to be able to carry in certain items, such as unrestricted amounts of fluids (cream, oil, water, etc) and a cooler. KetoCal® is a medical food for the dietary management of drug-resistant epilepsy and must be used under medical supervision.