Easy Gluten Free Travel Tips You’ll Actually Use Ep. 216

One of the most common questions I get asked is, “How do you travel safely with celiac disease?” Whether it’s a road trip, a flight, or even a cruise, traveling gluten free doesn’t have to feel overwhelming. In this episode, I’m answering your most-asked travel questions including what snacks to take, how to find safe gluten free restaurants, tips for international grocery shopping, and even whether cruise ships are a good idea if you have celiac disease. 

I’m also sharing a few personal stories and lessons I’ve learned over the years to help make your next trip smoother, safer, and way more enjoyable.

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Music Credit bensound.com 

Chapters

• 0:48 Tackling travel stress with celiac disease
• 1:09 Best gluten-free travel snacks
• 3:52 Finding safe restaurants while traveling
• 4:58 Road trip food preparation strategies
• 7:40 Are cruise ships celiac-friendly?
• 9:25 Navigating grocery shopping abroad
• 13:05 Final thoughts on celiac travel

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:24

One of the biggest challenges that I see people face with celiac disease or just simply living gluten-free, is traveling, and it creates so much stress for so many people and it doesn't have to. So on today's episode, I'm answering some common questions that get asked about living with celiac disease and traveling. Okay, the first question is what are the best travel snacks for living with celiac disease or having to eat gluten-free? Now, this is a simple one what do you normally like to eat? What is easy to take with you, whether you're going on a road trip, whether you're going on a plane, a boat, wherever you're going, what is something that you would normally eat that you can safely travel with? So, whether that is things like nut bars, granola bars, bliss balls, what types of things would you normally eat at home as a snack? Is it something that you can take with you?

Speaker 1: 1:21

Now, my biggest advice if you are going on a plane is not to solely rely on nuts, because many airlines have either banned them or particular flights will request that you cannot actually consume them on the aircraft. I used to be a flight attendant and we would have passengers come on and, at the last minute, request that we didn't serve nuts on the plane and of course we wouldn't, because many people find that they cannot even breathe in the air that recirculates in the plane if there's been nuts served. So that's just something to keep in mind. If you're going on a plane and you're like, great, I'm just going to take some nuts or some trail mix and that's the only thing you can eat, you might be very disappointed if that gets. You know you get requested not to take that. If you are going on a plane, you have to be very aware of liquids. So if you're relying on any type of food that's, you know, maybe got a sauce or you know some sort of pour on liquid I don't know, I'm thinking dressings, things like that you do need to be aware of the regulations around those liquid quantities. That will depend on country airline. That's something you'd have to research. But making sure that you're just purchasing things that are easy to travel with, you know they're not going to get damaged by heat, they're not going to burst in your bag and make a mess, things like that. So think about what you would normally take with you and if that's something that you know, you jump in the car and you go and that's your usual snack and you know that it would be okay to travel with, then that's perfect. That is the ideal thing to focus on. I love taking fruit. Again, that is something that you need to be very, very careful of. Some places that you fly into will not allow you to take fruit into that destination, so it might be simply that you consume it before you get to your destination. So there's a few things that you kind of have to think about when it comes to your food. But, yeah, there's lots and lots of options. So I hope that kind of gives you some insights that it's not that stressful and it can be easy to do.

Speaker 1: 3:30

How do I find gluten-free restaurants when traveling? My best advice here would be download Find Me Gluten-Free app on your phone. It is so easy to navigate. You will find places that other people with celiac disease have been to and they give you their feedback. They tell you what to do, what's safe, those types of things. And also join Facebook groups in your destination that you're traveling to. You know you might be going to Greece, so you might type in Facebook like go to Facebook rather and type in celiac disease groups for grease or gluten-free groups, grease, and you might find that there's so many to choose from and you can join them. You can look for what area you're staying in. There might be a heap of people have already commented on that area or places that you're going to, but I find that the gluten find me gluten-free app is probably the easiest and has tons and tons of restaurants, cafes and places that you can find safe, gluten-free food.

Speaker 1: 4:31

The next one is what should I pack for a road trip? This is again, it's totally up to you, what you would normally eat. I personally love taking things on road trips that can be easy to eat on the go, that don't need heating up or they don't need any other kind of you know, prep or anything. It's just something that you've made prior and you can eat on the go. If you do want to take a hot meal, let's just say you're driving for eight hours straight and you don't want to stop anywhere to get food. You just want to know that all your food's safe and gluten free. You can take a thermos and you can have it heated up before you go and eat something in there. So, whether that's like a soup or a leftover meal, that can be easy. I love noodle bowls I love rice paper rolls, sushi sandwiches obviously gluten-free things like that that are just easy to you know. Pack in a cooler bag or an esky and take with you.

Speaker 1: 5:25

I would say, allow enough food for longer than you think the trip's going to take, because you know breakdowns happen or delays happen and you don't want to be stuck without food. My husband and I and our family, we're actually doing a road trip next week. It's a short one, having said that, but we are actually heading away for a couple of days and we are planning on taking meals with us. We're taking meals for where we're staying because we're going to be very, very busy. We're going for a sporting event, so we are going to be taking lots of food, lots of snacks, so it's going to be mostly what we would normally have at home. So, again, it's what you like, it's not. It's not anything outrageous, you know. Focus on what you would normally eat, things that are easy, things that travel well and, like I said, make sure you take more than you need.

Speaker 1: 6:12

If you do want to heat something up in the way, on the way, you can buy these little heat bags that you can plug into your car and they will heat up your food for you, so that can be an option as well. Some people like to stop at roadhouses and request to use their microwaves. Some places will let you do that, some places won't. So again, that's kind of relying on. You know the outcome of something that's out of your control. So I personally wouldn't rely on that. But you could always phone ahead. You know, if you can see on a map that there's a particular roadhouse that's maybe halfway and you wanted to ring them and just say, hey, you have a microwave available that I can heat something up or a baby bottle of milk. You know, you never know what they've got available. So you know, sometimes we do need to plan ahead, but otherwise, if you can have heaps of snacks, heaps of food in your car, then it just makes it really really easy and you're not stressing that you're going to run out of food or be relying on trying to find something along the way.

Speaker 1: 7:14

Are cruise ships safe for celiacs? This one is a yes and a no. I personally have never been on a cruise ship. It does not appeal to me at all. I would probably go on the Celiac cruise. There's a specific company that does Celiac cruises, so they do all gluten-free food. I've watched so many videos from different people that have been on it and the food looks phenomenal. So if you are interested in going on a cruise, then that would be the one that I would aim for, because you know that you're going to be safe. You can have the most relaxed, chilled out holiday ever, because you can eat anything, which is an absolute dream. But having said that, I do know many, many celiacs and many people that eat gluten-free my best friend in particular. She went on a cruise ship no problems whatsoever eating gluten-free and again, it's like going to a restaurant at any time.

Speaker 1: 8:07

You still need to ask your questions. You still need to, you know, check in with gluten-free options and what is safe for cross contact All of the things that you would normally ask. It's not like you check your brain in when you you know you get on the boat or the ship. You still need to ask your questions. You can't be incomplete. Like you know, this is a holiday and everything's out the window. It's still making sure that everything is safe for you. So that's kind of where the Celiac cruise would tie in that you could relax a hundred percent and know that you are completely looked after. So go and check out Celiac Cruise if you haven't already heard of them. It's amazing how many people still don't know about that amazing business and that offering that is available to us. All right, and the last question how do I find gluten-free groceries in a new city? So this can be tricky if you are in a country that is another language. Okay. So if you go to a country and the you know there's a language barrier, this can be a little bit trickier. But from what I have personally experienced whenever I've been overseas and I've traveled a lot I've been to many, many different countries, majority of them in Asian countries, so non-English speaking countries, and I 've never had an issue. I've never, ever gone over and not been able to find groceries that were safe for me. So as long as you can be very aware of, you know you still need to be reading labels. You can't just assume anything is safe. But what I've personally found is a lot of groceries will have the ingredients and all the writing on the packaging in the language, obviously, of the country that you're in, but then they also have it in English on there. So that's excellent when you can find things like that. But there's so many safe options that you can find in grocery stores throughout the world and if worse comes to worse, you can use Google Translate. Many people find success with using Google Translate if the products don't have it written in English on the products. Otherwise, always take backup. I never travel without food. I always take plenty of food in my checked in luggage whenever I'm going somewhere. So that's a backup plan. But you know you might be going somewhere for a. That's a backup plan, but you know you might be going somewhere for a month. You can't take a month's worth of snacks and things with you. So, yeah, it can be a little bit tricky in that situation, but that's where it can be very helpful to be able to, you know, plan ahead and and look at your options in the country that you're going to finding where grocery stores are, you might be able to find someone that can translate it for you. You know in many countries you will find that people do speak English as well as a second language. So you know, ask for help when you can, because many people are very willing to help. So if you can get someone to read an ingredients list for you and tell you exactly what's written on there. That can be an option. You have to completely trust that stranger with your health, but that can be an option. If it was something that you kind of go. Yeah, that definitely looks like there would be no reason to have gluten in it. That would be a very last kind of resort, but there's lots of ways of traveling with celiac disease. I've never had a bad experience in all my time of living with celiac disease since 2009. I've never accidentally been gluten or sick overseas. My worst experience was in Hong Kong and that was my most unprepared trip ever. I just assumed way too much and thought that I was going to be safe over there and thought that everyone would speak English. So naive of me and I pretty much lived on the same meal every night that I was there. So I learned a lot from that trip. It was fantastic. I still didn't get gluten, I was completely safe and had a ball. But it taught me a lot of lessons about not assuming things, being prepared and and having the foresight to kind of plan for my next trip after that much, much better. So I hope this episode has inspired you to travel and get out there, and I've got more tips over on my website as well, so I will drop a link below to that in the show notes so you can go check out that article as well. So, yeah, I hope you've got something out of this episode that will help you and inspire you to travel, because I love travel. I think it's amazing and it really broadens your horizons, and there's so much amazing gluten-free food out there to be experienced. So thank you for tuning in and I look forward to talking with you again very, very soon. So have a great week. I'll talk to you then. Bye.