Airplanes

Traveling Sunrise to Sunset

When I was little I used to love flying. I would look around the airport in awe trailing in my parents wake as they led us through the seeming incomprehensible maze to the right plane. I would fight with my brother to have the window seat and press my nose up against the glass to watch the ground shrink away. Lets be honest… I still do that last part. I'm a window seat girl through and through.

But now that I travel alone and with a gluten intolerance I'm falling a little out of love with the whole scenario. When I was flying to Italy I spent 12 hours on planes and was stoked to find out that they serve gluten free meals (so much less stress my naive self thought). However 2 hours after that meal plus nerves ended up with me experiencing the wonderful results of food poisoning in the tiny airplane bathroom. Fun. My travel since then was a little less dramatic until I again had to spend all day traveling to get to my honeymoon destination. Where, while there no gluten free food included I experience the hunger and frustration of trying to find food in an airport. While also sick. Ugh.

So, while those two experiences made my love of flying take a pretty rough hit my love of traveling won't let me avoid it. Hence these tips I've come up with to make flying more enjoyable and less nightmarish!

Airplane Gluten Free Food

1. Bring lots of your own food

While airports are super strict about liquids, it seems like they could care less about food! Which is great for those with dietary restrictions. Pack a lunch, snacks, and maybe even a dinner! While this tip only works for the way to some location for me it can be a life saver. Your full, the people your with are happier, you save tons of time and money trekking around looking for food. And lets be honest, you feel a ton better because you're eating food that isn't the candy bar or plain chips that every gluten free person has had to turn to at some point.

2. Plan ahead!

Perhaps the most critical lesson that every person who can't have gluten needs to learn is how to plan ahead. And not just ahead in the oh this is what I will eat today sense, but in the if I can't eat anything where I'm going for a week do I have enough food to feed myself with? I once went to a conference in NYC and the people I was with (and myself) couldn't afford to eat out much. Plus my credit card decided to stop working and I only had 20 dollars of cash. The result? I had packed enough 'snacks' that I ate better than the people who could go out and get $1 pizza and utilize the free breakfast each morning. Moral of the story? Bring enough snacks that you could eat decently for several days. This includes a suitcase full of snacks for wherever you are going (I adore KIND bars but fruit snacks, raisins, dried cranberries, etc are all great choices). I also like to pack a sandwich or two for the first travel leg. You can't bring peanut butter in jar but I was able to get a peanut butter sandwich in. Also if your a little risky (read are ok with not refrigerating your sandwich every minute) I have packed a meat and cheese sandwich which improved my mood considerably.

3. Don't trust people who claim your food is gluten free

This includes any people who work in the airport, reviews on the net, etc. Everyone has a different sensitivity level and many reviews who say something is gluten free don't know anything about cross contamination! I've watched so many people make a gluten free product and then use the same utensils on it as they did a gluten containing product and basically ruin it for anyone who is very sensitive. Once again this is a reason to bring your own food but if you can't or are on your way back from somewhere then research restaurants before hand so you know what you are getting into. On my way back from the Dominican Republic I ended up just getting FroYo with no toppings because it was the only food I could be fairly certain wasn't cross contaminated.


The overarching theme to all of these is to plan out how and what you will eat ahead of time. While I also half plan on getting lucky and stumbling into a restaurant that proudly announces they have gluten free food (another post on that for Italy!) I always make sure that I can at least survive if I can't find anything.

Please share any tips for traveling you've found!