It is difficult to travel around the world if you’re selective about your eating options, eating style and preferences change across borders and thus changes availability of food.
If you’re a vegetarian and are involved in some work which requires a lot of travelling, you’d have to take care of a lot of things apart from the regular travel tips, it is important that you make sure that you don’t starve while maintaining your choice not only that but you’d have to make sure that you have some nutritional intake and do not just depend on junk food just because you can’t find an eating joint which offers your choice of food.
Here are a certain tips that might prove helpful:
Research– Make sure you research about the place well before you reach, if its an official trip you could find out about the various eating places on the net which offer vegetarian food and have your list ready, so that once there, you don’t have to waste much time looking for restaurants. If it’s a holiday, let your travel agent know about the kind of food you prefer and ask him to make necessary arrangements.
Learn to cook– if you are planning to shift over temporarily for work, try and take an apartment which has a kitchen. You would find vegetables and spices almost everywhere in the world, it is always a good idea to cook for yourself, that way you don’t have to depend on others for your diet and you have nothing to worry about in terms of quality.
Be certain of what you want– If you feel lucky that the waiter nodded to your demand of anything vegetarian, you may be in for a surprise. Vegetarian may mean different things in different places, take India for instance, some places people consider eggs under vegetarian dish some do not. Similarly outside India make sure you are clear about what you want, do not hesitate to take a moment and explain even if the shopkeeper already denied having anything vegetarian, go ahead and ask him if he has anything which doesn’t have chicken, meat or fish. Also if you do not eat onion and garlic, say that.
Make a request– You can always request the manager to arrange something of your choice and you could wait, may be even pay a little extra than usual. Generally a tourist is not denied specially when you have a genuine problem.
Know the local culture– Go around the new place, interact with people. Try and learn their language, no one is asking you to master their language but at least learn phrases that are often used, that might help you to deal with situations better. Ask a local where can you find food of your choice, a local can always prove a much better help than any online search engine.
Stuff yourself– if its an impromptu trip, you of course did not have time to research and convey your need, in such a case, make sure you keep snacks with you so that you do not have to starve while you look for places offering you the type of food you want.
Happy travelling!
