Traveling With Food Allergies: 3 Myths Families Need To Stop Believing
Hey there, I’m Corinna!
Want to feel less alone on your food allergy journey? Join me by listening to my podcast where I share personal stories and experiences so you can feel less alone.
I know that many of you may feel like traveling with food allergies is daunting and hard because you just don’t know where to start. OR maybe you’re stuck believing some myths that are stopping you from making memories with your family through travel.
Today I’m sharing 3 myths about traveling with food allergies because these myths can create unnecessary fear and worry. Thay can steal your confidence and replace it with fear. And this will stop you from making amazing, safe memories with your family.
I hope that this episode will not only be empowering, but it will help you be better prepared to teach your child how to live safely with food allergies and enjoy a safe family vacation time too.
So let’s get to it!
Are you starting to talk to your child about their food allergies? If your food allergy kid is age 2-9, I have a list of skills to teach your child as they grow and become more independent. Not only will you get a checklist of skills, but you’ll get fun ways you can teach your child these skills in everyday life. If you haven’t already, go to friendlypantry.com/empowerment, and grab it for free.
3 Myths About Traveling With Food Allergies
You may or may not know that our family has traveled extensively around the world with food allergies.
We’ve been all over Canada and the US, to Bahamas, Mexico, Ireland, Spain, the UK, Italy, France, and Portugal. For the record, we’ve also been to Disney World and Disney Land many times and Disneyland Paris too. If you want to know the destinations I think have been the best places to travel with food allergies, go to this blog post and podcast episode.
Or, if you want to know how to confidently fly with food allergies, go here.
Anyway, I tell you about where we’ve been, not to brag, but instead, I tell you so you know that I have a lot of experience traveling with food allergies. I want you to know that what I’m telling you today comes from a place of experience, and I’m not guessing based on one or two trips, or even one or two destinations. You can trust what you learn here!
So let's get to those 3 myths about food allergy travel that families should stop believing.
MYTH #1: I won’t be able to relax because it’s not a holiday worrying about food allergies.
I think that if you believe this myth, it’s because you don’t have clear steps for getting prepared or the best ways to make food allergy travel less stressful. I want you to know that with preparation and experience, you can worry less and relax more.
I already talked about all the places we’ve traveled to as a family. But you need to know that, we didn’t start with a trip to Italy or France, or Portugal, those more complicated trips came later.
Our trip progression started with camping, and after camping, we took trips around Canada, which is our home country, and after taking trips around Canada, we took trips to the US and Mexico. After that, we started to venture to UK and Europe. Yes, there were one or two trips that went out of order, but for the most part, we scaled our trips from easiest to hardest.
So start simple and move up. It’s a great way to gain experience.
Another important way to make your holiday more relaxing is to know you have safe food available.
If you know that you’ll be able to safely feed your child, a lot of the nerves go away. This is why I always plan our meals. This way, I know what food I’ll bring from home, and what to buy when I get there.
Because as a side note… grocery shopping in a new location is not easy. You don’t know the layout, or where to find things, and there are different brands, it can feel like when you were shopping after you were first diagnosed with food allergies, which we all know is tough! So bringing those hard-to-find safe foods is really helpful and will make your holiday so much more relaxing.
When it comes to traveling with food allergies, there are lots of things to plan, but I realized that no matter what type of trip we take, the more prepared I am, the more I can relax.
After a while, I started to see that I was using similar planning steps with every trip. So I started to write those steps down, and it helped me feel less overwhelmed each time I was planning a new trip.
So start by writing things down each time you travel, like I did, and you’ll get better and better at planning. Each time you go on a trip you will become more confident!
But what if you don’t want to go through trial and error, or the work of getting years of experience?
You can learn from our experience, and feel confident quicker and easier with the Food Allergy Travel Workshop. With this workshop, you’ll have everything laid out in an easy, step-by-step guide. I’ll help you be prepared and teach you everything we’ve learned the hard way about traveling with food allergies, so you can have the best trip with your family, even if you don’t have your own experience traveling with food allergies.
I want you to know that you ABSOLUTELY CAN have a relaxing trip, if you’ve prepared well!
MYTH #2: You need to go to an all-inclusive resort OR eat out the whole time to get a break.
I get it. You are sick of cooking, and want to have a break. I am exactly the same way.
But the thing is that with food allergies, cooking our own food is the safest option!
So what’s a burnt-out mama to do?
I focus on the EASIEST meals possible. I actually share some allergy-friendly ideas for breakfast, lunch and dinner in my food allergy travel workshop.
The key is to plan out the easy meals you’ll make before you leave home so that you can bring the non-perishables in your carry-on. You can buy the produce and meats when you arrive. This will not only make cooking easier, but it will also make shopping easier at your destination, AND save you lots of money too! To add to your travel experience, you could even try going to a local farmer’s market to find fresh produce there.
Another thing to remember about cooking on vacation is that being in a nice location, makes a BIG difference! They say a change is as good as a rest, and I do find that it’s easier to cook when away because it's new and different and you have a relaxed vibe. If you can, find accommodation with a bbq, because cooking outdoors is also a great way to revive your passion for cooking. When we cook on a BBQ we make sure to cook my daughter’s food on foil or on a cookie sheet so that her food doesn’t touch the grate.
Even so, I’m not saying that you can’t eat out at all. We always eat out when on a trip, because I like to supplement our cooked meals with a few restaurant meals. But here’s the trick. Research the restaurants in advance. This is so important.
I usually like to find 1-3 restaurants in the area that I feel confident eating at. Yes, I call and talk with them BEFORE we leave so that we don’t have to worry about it when we get there, but we always check again when we arrive at the restaurant. Here’s a caveat, we have had to leave some restaurants because we didn’t feel confident with them once we got there, BUT that’s why I try to find more than one restaurant that we can go to so that we have a backup.
If dining out is something you want to start doing, I highly recommend you check out the Dining Out With Food Allergies workshop.
This workshop will give you the tools & practical knowledge for dining out as safely as possible. After this workshop, it will be much easier to decide if you feel confident with eating at a restaurant or not. What I share in the workshop is game-changing so I highly recommend that you complete this workshop before going on your trip.
The cool thing is that you can get the Dining Out With Food Allergies Workshop for over 50% off when you buy it at the same time as the Food Allergy Travel Workshop, so go to www.friendlypantry.com/travel and get both the Travel and Dining Workshop at the same time for a huge discount.
Our family in Naples, Italy on Mount Vesuvius
MYTH #3: Food has to be a big part of your travel experience.
Look at any travel podcast or blog and you’ll see how big of an emphasis people put on experiencing the food at a destination. I know that before we had kids I would say we would have called ourselves “foodies” and trying the local food would have been the top priority.
But here’s the thing. A family changes everything. Even if there aren’t food allergies, trying new cuisines can be difficult for kids. Who wants to buy all this interesting local food when the kids don’t eat it anyway?
And with food allergies, our priorities change again, and THATS OK! Now our priority won't be to try all the local foods, because SAFETY is the first priority, especially when traveling.
While keeping safety first, we can still prioritize interesting travel experiences. To help you see what I mean, I want to share a few of the non-food experiences that have brought our family so many memories and JOY on our trips.
Examples of Amazing Non-Food Experiences:
Visiting a Falconry and learning about birds of prey and having a falcon land on each of this kid’s arms. All at an enchanted Castle in Ireland. This is one of our kids most favorite memories!
Visiting the historical site of Pompeii and WALKING on the streets where so many walked almost 2000 years ago. Wondering the stone-paved roads and imagining the bustling lives of those who lived there was surreal and filled with wonder and connection.
Learning to flamenco dance in Spain was a joyful, hands-on memory where we experienced the local culture while we laughed and clicked castanets.
Meeting beloved characters and exploring enchanted lands at Disney is something our family loves to do again and again.
As a family who rarely sees the ocean, splashing in the waves of Hawaii or Mexico feels magical while the sun warms your face. And seeing the palm trees sway makes you feel like time slows down and everyday worries drift away.
The silver lining about cooking a lot of your own food is that you’ll save money, which allows you to spend a little more on experiences.
As you can see, non-food experiences are a HUGE part of travel and are WORTH it, even if you don’t experience the local cuisine extensively.
I can’t count how many wonderful memories and family bonding moments we’ve created through travel. Not only that, but traveling with food allergies has shown my daughter that it CAN be done, and she’s learned HOW so that she knows she doesn’t have to feel afraid to experience life.
Conclusion
What travel experiences are you dreaming of? Comment below, I’d love to hear from you!
Don’t forget, when traveling with food allergies, planning well makes it possible to go to almost any country or destination.
Because good planning doesn't just help you travel more safely.
It empowers you and your child to make good decisions, safely roll with changes that need to be made during your trip, and lowers food allergy stress.
If you want to learn how to make traveling with food allergies safer and stress-free, without wasting time or money, join the on-demand workshop. I’ll show you what we’ve learned after 17 years so you don’t have to learn the hard way.
**When you click the link or button above, you’ll go to the page where you can buy the Food Allergy Travel Workshop. I completely trust and recommend this workshop!
Other Food Allergy Resources
I’ve helped thousands of food allergy mamas and families travel with food allergies, but I also help with other lifestyle issues like navigating school and even getting over the fear of trying new foods.
Check out my full series of workshops here. You’ll find expert resources based on 17 year of research and practical knowledge from everything from navigating school, to navigating social events and dining out with food allergies.
