What We Eat on Family Vacations

With a family of six, you can imagine how expensive it can be to travel!  Hotel room, gas, food, and activities add up pretty quickly.  We also don’t want to get sick or feel crummy on a special trip, and what we eat while traveling can make a big difference.  To save money and our health, we typically bring lots of food with us, stay at a place with a kitchen, and cook many of our own meals (aka avoid eating out).

While I usually make the majority of our food from scratch, we do buy more convenience items for travel.  Even paying for better ingredients, we still pay less for better quality than we would get at fast food or sit-down restaurants, and especially at gas stations! For the sake of giving ideas, this is a compilation of food we have packed for different road trips:

Drinks

*Smoothies- depending on the time of day, sometimes we’ll start a trip with smoothies- usually whatever can be thrown into a blender to clean out the refrigerator or freezer. We used to wash the bottles/cups and then use for water bottles. Nowadays a disposable plastic cup can be tossed out at the first stop.

*Everyone has their own water bottle or straw cup. The kids are allowed to drink freely but about 20-30 minutes before a stop, I remind them to chug some water.  Dehydration and long periods of sitting still can cause the little ones (and big ones) to have constipation issues- another way to feel lousy!  (A midnight trip while to the ER for suspected appendicitis while on vacation keeps that fresh in my mind!]

*A few cans of sparkling water or water sticks (hubby likes True Lemonade)

*Two to-go mugs of coffee, made the way we like it. (Cheaper and less sugar than buying on the road, plus reuse the mugs for a discount if we buy it later)

*1-2 Gallons of water for refills

Cooler

*Fruit: Apples, mandarins, bananas, grapes, and/or berries (depending on the season)

*Veggies: bags of baby carrots, celery bites (sticks have too many strings), sugar snap peas, grape tomatoes, sweet bell peppers

*String cheese

*Single serve yogurts. Occasionally a large flavored kefir bottle to pour into plastic cups.

*Avocado and baby cucumbers – they travel well and get cut up on our arrival and sprinkled with salt

*Protein muffins or protein cookies- hand held bites [My favorite recipe here]

*Egg cups with veggies and cheese (for the egg eaters)

*Hummus

Snack bag

*Snappea crips (a little bit of a vegetable in a convenient snack), Lentil chips, or other veggie chips

*Sweet potato chips or Terra Chips

*Bagged popcorn (salty to encourage drinking water, crunch to keep us awake, and extra fiber)

*Sandwich and snack baggies – I won’t pay more for single serve items. I divide the snack into baggies just before tossing them back to “starving” kids in the back of the van.

*100% Fruit leather or dried fruit (yes, we do lots of fruit!)

*Fruit or fruit/veggies squeezers

*Fruit cups in fruit juice, bring spoons

*Beef or turkey jerky/meat sticks – best ingredients I can find

*Nuts: favorites are cashew, almonds, pistachios

*Granola, granola bars, Oatmega bars, Lara Bars, Lara Bar bites, or Aussie Bites

Lunch or Dinner to-go

*Depending on time of day that we leave, we have started the trip with sandwiches or hamburgers in baggies, a casserole in a disposable bowl, or pizza on a paper plate. (I’m not saying pizza is necessarily a health food but it travels well, can be made ahead of time, and usually is better than fast food).  This takes a little planning ahead, but makes one less meal to eat out.

Hotel Kitchen/Meals/snacks

Once we arrive at our destination, we stock the hotel or condo kitchen.  Sometimes we bring some of the shelf stable items from home and pack in a box on the trip.

*Organic canned or boxed soup

*Veggies in a can/jar: marinated artichoke hearts, black olives and garlic stuffed green olives, 3-bean salad, green beans

*Milk and almond/flax milk

*Bolthouse Green Goddess smoothie, flavored Kefir (instead of making smoothies), kombucha

Easy Hotel Meals:

*Cans of beans, boxed broth, fresh (or canned) chicken for Chicken Tortilla Soup

*Frozen stir fry veggies, instant brown rice, fresh chicken = Hotel Stir Fry

*Any family sized frozen meal from Amy’s Kitchen or Evol

*Frozen burgers or rotisserie chicken, Alexia frozen sweet potatoes, and bagged salad

*Any family sized frozen skillet dinner (when you’re near Disney and there are NO good options)

Fast food, restaurant food and gas station snacks give limited options… while bringing your own has endless possibilities. What are your favorite ways to eat healthier while traveling?

In health,

Kamie

The information provided in this post is for information purposes only and should not be construed as medical advice.  It is not a substitute for your doctor’s care plan or advice.