If there’s one thing freerunners have in common, it’s their love for travel. Our love for exploring our environment extends far beyond our home town walls. Playing on new structures and meeting new people, gives us such a wonderful, well-rounded perspective on life. Travel is a beautiful thing, and while I 100% encourage indulging in local cuisine, even if it’s not the healthiest, you don’t have to throw all your good eating habits to the curb. I used to forget about eating healthy whenever I traveled, thinking either it didn’t matter, or that it was just too much trouble to eat well while on the go. But the more I traveled, the more I realized, that wasn’t a sustainable way of thinking, and that if I wanted to travel more often, I was going to have to figure out how to maintain my eating habits on the road (or in the air). So here are some of my top tips for eating healthy while you travel:
Plan Ahead. Yup, I’m sure you saw this one coming, but it really makes all the difference. Before I go on a road trip or flight, I go to the grocery store and pick out foods that I can snack on, and even have as meals in the car or in the plane. The last thing you want to do while trying to eat well is get stuck with gas station or airplane food. If you’re packing for the road you might want to bring a mini cooler so you can have a wider variety of foods. If you’re packing for a flight, remember, you can’t bring any liquids on the plane with you.
As a general rule for eating, when you’re in a plane or car for an extended period of time, bring more proteins and fats, and less sugars, especially since most of the time you’re not moving around much.
Road trip examples: Plantain chips, fruit, jerky, nuts, deli meat, cheese, coconut wraps, yogurt (get honey to put in it if you can’t stand plain), any veggies you like to eat raw, trail mix, olives, etc.
If you do get stuck with gas station food, your best options are foods like fruit, nuts, or jerky.
Or this one: @Dubrovnik #training #pole #beautiful (sketchy, rusted, scaffolding was scary lol) A photo posted by Erica Madrid (@erica_n_madrid) on
Plane trip examples:
Plantain chips, fruit (nothing too juicy), jerky, nuts, deli meat, cheese, coconut wraps, any veggies you like to eat raw, trail mix, olives (make sure to take them out of the can or jar, and put them in your own container bc of the liquid).
If you do get stuck eating airplane food, your best option is to get the sauce-less option, although I usually only eat the salad (without dressing), cheese, and butter, to hold me over, in that situation.
Don’t be afraid to ask! I live in Colorado, where it’s perfectly normal to interrogate the wait staff to know every detail of ingredient in your food. I found out in Arizona, that’s not how everyone opporotes. I asked if they had any gluten-free options, and before even considering answering me, the waitress asked where I was from. When I said I was from Colorado, she bluntly replied “Oh, okay, well we do things differently here.” That’s only happened once, more often than not, people are nice, and you could always say you’re celiac or that you have a deadly soy allergy, or whatever you want to ease the cooperation process (This is the only time I condone lying).
When eating out use this wonderful, magical thing called the internet.
Search online (using cue words like organic, local, gluten-free, etc. when searching for restaurants) or on apps like Urbanspoon.
If those options are too expensive, or if all your friends are going elsewhere, accommodate your diet the best you can. So if they’re all going to a burger joint, ask for a lettuce bun. It’s also a good idea to ask for sauces on the side. I like to do that just because I don’t trust someone else to decide how much sauce to put in my food, but also, if I don’t know what’s in it, I’d just rather not use it. Generally the food tastes amazing without it anyway. If you’re getting a salad, (almost) always substitute dressings for balsamic vinegar and olive oil.
Alright, now time to open a new tab and figure out where your next destination is, to test out this advice! 
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