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How do you stick with your real food eating when on the road for vacation or work? Or do you just not worry about it?

Road Trip Car- stock photo from Chevy showing the type of car we drive. It's on the small side but we love it.

For this month’s installment of Someone Else’s Shoes my family is hitting the road. While we have been planning this road trip for some time, as I began this series I knew this would be a perfect fit.  Do you struggle with continuing your real/whole/traditional/specialty diet while away from home?  My hope for this experience is to face the challenges of eating well while on the road and sharing our experience- the good and the not so good- of preparing and consuming meals while living out of suitcases.

Last summer we did something similar. We went on a 10 day camping/road trip with the desire to stick to eating 80% real foods during that time.  We didn’t quite make it and learned several lessons for this years trip.

I have to admit that a camping road trip really does lend itself to eating real food in many ways.  In a camping spot there is easy a way to cook. We took along a camp stove plus each spot we stayed also had a grill area.  Every place we stayed also had electricity which was great for making sourdough waffles (yes, we took along sourdough starter). Plus there is a wonderful amount of space in many camp spots for spreading out and preparing (and enjoying meals).  We really had a fantastic time. I shared our plans for this trip on the blog and then did a series of  three guest posts at GNOWFGLINS sharing the details.

While still on that trip we began to dream about a really big trip for the summer of 2012.  My Kiki girl is 17 this year, it will most likely be her last time to go on a family trip with us. So we decided to make it a big one.  We planned on another camping trip that would be a full 2 weeks this time and going to some fairly awesome places.  As the planning progressed we decided that a road trip with hotel/motel stays made more sense based on where we would be going.  A few months into the planning we also bumped up the real food portion of our eating to 85% in our every day life.  Can we eat 85% real food while staying in hotels/motels for 15+ days?

Many hotels offer a kitchenette. This kind of situation would make eating real food on the road fairly easy. Unfortunately, we are on a rather tight budget for this trip (we’ve been saving for it since we returned from the last trip) and kitchenette rooms tend to cost more than rooms without a kitchenette.  One place we will be staying does have a kitchenette since it was only a few dollar more each night to get that style of room. But most places that I found were around $30 more per night– that can really add up! Another slight issue we had with finding lodging was the fact that we are a family of 5. Many places only allow 4 per room so we were restricted to places that allowed 5.  A smaller family may have better results finding lodging with a kitchenette for a reasonable amount.

Over the next several weeks I’ll be sharing how we planned for this trip where it relates to food. Since we’ll be on the road and I’m not sure how good the internet service will be or how much time I really want to spend on the internet, I’ll pre schedule several posts. I may or may not pop in with how things actually went compared to how we planned for them to go.  I’ll for sure write a follow up post after we return.

 

How do you follow your speciality eating while on the road? Share your tips and tricks in the comments.

 

2 full weeks, 2900 miles, 15 breakfast, 15 lunches, 16 suppers, who knows how many snacks, 9 different hotel/motels, 5 people, and a rather small but fuel efficient car with a goal of 85% real food.

“The trail is the thing, not the end of the trail. Travel too fast and you miss all you are traveling for.” Louis L’Amour, Ride the Dark Trail

Photo Credit: Car, Hotel Room

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