While traveling and eating out gluten free can be challenging it is very possible to do safely. Of course, there are no guarantees unless we are eating at a 100% dedicated gluten free establishment and those are out there although far and few between. There’s always some risk when eating away from our home safe zone so keep that in mind. We’ve been traveling for the last seven years to the east coast to visit our son out there.
Here’s some of my GF foodie & restaurant tips:
I make sure to take my probiotics consistently for months before we go and be sure to take them while traveling. I’ve been using the full spectrum HempWorx CBD oil too for about 18 months and that helps with sleep, stress, anxiety, and gut issues. I bring along some Pepto tablets JUST FOR emergencies. I don’t like taking this stuff but it’s always great to have some in my purse when we are out all day! Trust me, they come in handy when you need them. I also make sure to have some Excedrin PM on hand and an ice pack in case I do start to get a migraine. When one is coming on I take one Excedrin PM and lie down with the ice pack. I also take a homeopathic tincture for headaches. I buy it at Pure Formulas.com
We’ve stayed at the same Townplace Suites with a full kitchen and two bedrooms for the last seven years. If we go somewhere else like we are this year for the air show and need to stay for two nights we stay at a place with a kitchen or small frig and microwave. We’re staying at Marriott’s Springhill Suites in Northfolk/Va Beach. We actually check out of our other place in MD and drive down to Va Beach, stay two nights then come back to MD and stay the other three nights. This way we are not double paying for hotels.
I always take food in my carry-on lunch bag on our flights.
I use an ice pack in the bag and it’s never been an issue. It comes in handy too for whenever I have gotten cross contamination from wheat and had a migraine. I take sandwiches or turkey, cheese, gfree crackers and cookies, chips, Wildway grain free granola, trail mix, Epic protein bars. Never put any type of liquid in your carry on like queso. They confiscated my unopened Austin Burn queso one time at the Austin airport!
Lesson learned…. my bad…
When we get to the hotel that evening, we usually have some left over food in our bag to tied us over until we can get to Wegmans in the morning for groceries. And our son has even bought us some gfree frozen things when he picks us up from the airport cause he knows what I like. I also have various food items in my checked bag as well and the hotel has a free hot breakfast in the morning for my husband.
We eat breakfast in and when we are out during the day on excursions we take our lunch bag filled with food and snacks. I rarely eat out during lunch. If in a pinch we will go to Panera and I get a cobb salad but I usually just take our food and we eat on the go or stop at a park, etc. I never leave our home base without FOOD in my bag! Or at last some almonds and a protein bar. I’ve learned the hard way about this. It’s always so tempting too when we are on vacay and away from home to grab stuff at the store that we normally don’t eat. It’s not worth ruining our trip over. It’s like a mind game yal’L! Personally I gotta rhino myself up everytime we travel and we pray a lot for me not to get sick!
During the evening we usually eat out. Domdedomdom… When I first started these trips to the east coast 7 years ago I researched all the places we could eat. I also use the Find Me Gluten Free APP where ever we are.
I research every restaurant we are going to first and scour the menu to see what I can eat so when we get there I’m not surprised or stressing on what to eat. I find out everything about their gluten free options and even read reviews. I found a 100% dedicated gfree place 7 years ago in Ellicott City MD that we go to at least twice while there and especially on the day of our flight home. It’s called One Dish Cuisine
Here’s some of the places we’ve eat at over the years:
PF Changs, Glory Days, Modern Kitchen, Bridges Restaurant on Kent Island, Outback Steak House, Uncle Julios, Ruths Chris, Pei Wei, Panera once (be careful if Celiac and eating here), there’s a crab place on the harbor we’ve eaten at, and another nice steak place in MD I cannot remember the name of. Glory Days is known for being aware of Celiac and NCGS. However, I always got their burger before but now I’ve been off corn 6 months again cannot eat their bun. I googled and it’s Udis and has corn ingredients. This time I will get the mushroom, cheese burger without a bun and fries! And since this is already on my radar, I will be prepared when we get there. They also use a dedicated fryer! APlus!
This year we’re driving down to Virginia Beach to the Air Show and staying two nights so I will carry food in my bag for the four and half hour road trip. I had to research the restaurants there first. There is a PF Changs so we may go there and I found a restaurant called Abbeyroad Pub that says they have the best and largest gluten free menu in Va Beach so yeah you know I’m gonna check them out and give my review! They also have a dedicated fryer which is a plus! I always search for DEDICATED FRYER! And there’s Rudy’s Seafood which we went to over 28 years ago when our son was only four years old! It’s still there so we gotta go! I checked and they do have a gfree menu.
So you see it just takes a bit of planning and research before traveling to make it a safe trip. But I have gotten CC a few times while traveling but it was totally my bad. One time it was from the chicken wings on the gfree menu at Bridges on Kent Island. I didn’t think to ask them about the dedicated fryer that time and sure enough migraine. One other time I had two bloody mary’s, my bad! Bloody mary mix has wheat. Migraine with throwing up on the flight home the next day! I also realized I was using the toaster in our apartment and not even realizing about the CC until I got on a few of the Facebook Celiac/Gluten Free groups and I’ve been doing this ten years! So I got those toaster thingys to put my bread in or we may just buy a toaster and keep it at our sons apartment when we are not there. The things we learn!
Hope this helps you in traveling gluten and stress free!
