Traveling as a Vegan

Hello all. I just started my last quarter at Western Washington University, and I'm glad to be back in Bellingham where I know where I can get the kinds of foods I need. I was traveling with my friend Danielle and her family into Oregon and Northern California for a couple of weeks and I was expecting it to be a little difficult to find things to eat on the fly. I packed a loaf of bread, some cereal, some crackers, and a couple of apples to hold us over the first day on the road.

But, I was pleasantly surprised! Granted, it is still Oregon and California, so some of the things I found might not be available everywhere, but it's a start.

First of all, natural foods markets. Chances are you can find one most places, at least in the places we were traveling. We had the help of a GPS, so that was nice. One morning we found a place in Salem, OR, right next to where we were staying. It was small, but it still had a little soup bar, and we split a sort of sandwich wrap (I think it was called Merv's Happy Field Roast Sandwich) which had lots of vegetables (including beets o_0) in it and a small helping of field roast faux meat. It must have been a local thing because I can't find the company anywhere online. As for the sandwich itself, it was okay... it needed some dressing or something but it was nice and satisfying. We also bought some peanut butter and jelly, some Dave's Killer Bread,  and some Sunny Hemp granola bars (I love Nature's Path's granola products).These provided nice improptu meals at least twice on our journey, once at a rest stop and once at a place called Clam Beach.

Staying with someone who knows what being vegan means was extremely helpful. A big shout out to you, Sharlott, for making us vegan bread, buying us Earth Balance buttery spread, making us delicious rice and veggie dishes, vegan desserts like chocolate chip cookies and pineapple upside down cake, and delicious veggie chowder with coconut milk!

Sharlott is not a vegan, but she went to the trouble of finding out what we could and could not eat. That means a lot!!


While we were out on the town, far away from any delicious homemade foods, Trader Joe's was a godsend. We stopped there twice for some very satisfying meals during our trip, which essentially consisted of a banana apiece, Jalapeno Hummus and baby carrots (their Jalapeno-Cilantro Hummus is DELICIOUS), vegan sushi and some vegan wraps from their refrigerator section. There were three kinds if I remember correctly... one with some sort of lentil curry thing, one hummus wrap, and one roasted eggplant wrap. I had the hummus and the eggplant, and they were both delicious. These meals were pretty filling too.

Last on the list, we stopped at two restaurants, one Thai restaurant, and one Mexican restaurant. The Thai restaurant was in Crescent City CA, near the Redwoods, and we had a delicious soup and vermicelli there. The Mexican restaurant was somewhere between there and Salem... I have no idea. It was some tiny town in the middle of nowhere. We asked the waitress a) if the beans were vegetarian (sometimes beans have lard in them), and once that was answered yes, we asked b) if we could have a chimichanga without any meat, cheese or sour cream. The answer to that was also yes, and it was DELICIOUS.The fried tortilla was really good....

So, there you have it... what I've learned from this trip is

-Bring something for easy meals if you can't find anything on the road (like peanut butter, jelly, and bread)
-Look for Asian or Mexican restaurants and ask for special orders if there's nothing on the menu. A lot of the time they won't even charge extra if it's just a matter of leaving out the meat, cheese or sour cream.
-Keep an eye out for natural foods markets and places like Trader Joe's
-Look in deli sections (I just filled up on Haggen's Jo-Jos a few days ago!), soup bars, and the refrigerated sections for ready-made food.
-If you can, stay with someone who understands veganism and is sympathetic (this one's a little difficult to do most of the time... but if you can, AWESOME FOR YOU).


Happy trails... (trail mix is another good thing to pack for snacking along the way!)