A Vegan Prepares to Travel

Hi Friends! I'm finally back from my trip to Italy... and also I'm finally "back" - if you know what I mean. It always takes me about a week to really arrive back home: to get used to dollars instead of euros in my wallet, to stop thinking in Italian, to find my daily rhythm again.

Even though it's back-tracking - I thought I'd do a post about some of the Emergency Vegan Supplies that I took with me on my trip.

My travels were a bit unorthodox, because I was participating in a 3.5 week artists' workshop in the Tuscan countryside. I knew that our days would be very full, and that I wouldn't be able to easily get myself to stores with special vegan food. Also, we had a woman lined up to cook for us so that we could have more time in the studio, and I didn't entirely know what to expect from that. 

I figured veggies would be pretty abundant, and I knew I'd be eating more bread than I could shake a stick at - so I focused on bringing lots of high-protein snacks. I brought at least one for every day of my trip, and didn't bring a single thing home with me - so that worked out well. In the end, we did eat a fair amount of beans, but I was really glad to have all these protein snacks with me.

Also, it was a good chance to finally use up lots of the odd ball snacks and protein powders and power bars that I had been accumulating. Blame it on the Vegan Cuts Snack Box, or impulse purchases, or my snack-hoarding tendencies... but the pantry was getting a bit full...

I brought: lots of different protein powders, various protein bars, lots of Primal Strip jerkies (Thai Peanut is my favorite flavor!), lots of dry-roasted edamames (YUMS), a couple of chia bars (lots of Omega 3s), and some of my favorite Wild Garden Hummus packets. It was a good assortment! I learned years ago that if I'm going to be gone for a month, a wide variety of snacks is really important.

p.s. The other good thing about packing so many snacks is that it guarantees that you will have room in your bag to bring home new snacks from your travels! 

I am also a compulsive Airplane Snack Packer. I don't like to be hungry on a plane. It is bad.

So, I brought all of this good stuff along for my flight - and, uh, ate it all. Ha ha. I also brought along my Number One Travel Snack: a humungous bag of carrot sticks and celery sticks. I love how the veggies feel so hydrating and fresh in the stale airplane experience. I ate almost all of them, but had a few left for a late night snack when I arrived in Florence. It's a good thing I brought so much food along, because the "vegan" meal that United provided wasn't actually very vegan at all, and because there were flight delays and I arrived at 11:30 pm, instead of arriving at 5:00 pm. I had anticipated going out for dinner on my first night, so it was good I had extra snacks. 

Amey, the happy vegan traveler

Next up: Some culinary highlights from Florence