Why We’re Travelling Vegan This January (and Where We’re Going)

As someone who would gladly eat cheese and eggs three times a day, Luke is going to find veganism tough  but never one to turn down a challenge and an admirable boyfriend as ever, he’s committed to joining me for 30 days of vegan travel.

Inspired by fellow vegan travel bloggers Dale and Franca who went vegan last year for “Veganuary,” Luke and I are making the switch and will be travelling vegan for the month of January.

Are we going to make it? We’re pretty determined that we will. Will a life of vegan travel be for us? We don’t know.

Vegan Travel Challenge for Venguary 2016 with Charlie on Travel

Luke and I have been vegetarian travellers for almost four years now. I’ve been vegetarian for the past 12 years and Luke for 8 years. Being vegetarian is second nature to us and when we decided to move to Taiwan and embark on a life of slow travel, we never even considered reverting from our vegetarian lifestyle to fit in with our travel plans – something which we’ve heard other travellers have done for fear of missing out on local foods or to make life easier.

There have been some tough times finding vegetarian food while travelling, especially when you’re stuck in some random halfway town on a long bus journey, up a mountain in the middle of nowhere or a little bit picky about not just eating processed crap like me, but even in a beef-eating nation like Taiwan we found out about local veggie foods reasonably quickly and eventually found our way to incredible vegetarian places.

Now though, we want to really challenge ourselves.

We’ve been avid readers of vegan travel bloggers like Dale and Franca from AngloItalian, Sam and Zab from Indefinite Adventure and Amelia from Plant Powered Nomad since we started travel blogging, not to mention all of the awesome vegan and raw vegan travel bloggers who shared details of what they eat on the road with me earlier this year.

We know from these guys that vegan travel is not only possible but can also be healthy and delicious. In cities like Chiang Mai, eating vegan is an absolute breeze and loads of vegan expats radiate in that direction. The trouble is, Luke and I don’t want to pick out places or change our travel plans to fit in with our diet, so we want to know just how straightforward (or not) travelling as a vegan really is.

Luke drinking sesame smoothie at Imm Aim Vegetarian Chiang Mai - vegan travel - Charlie on Travel

Our Vegan Travel Challenge

We are going to be vegan travellers for 31 days starting on 1st January 2016.

In 2015, 12,800 people took part in Veganuary and it’s expected that an incredible 50,000 are switching to vegan for Veganuary 2016. That means we’re not going to be eating any animal products whatsoever – no meat, fish, milk, yoghurt, cheese, eggs or honey.

We’ll be documenting and blogging about our vegan travel challenge along the way. During January, we’re going to:

  • Post weekly blogs about how vegan travel is going (the struggles and the successes!)
  • Keep everyone updated on our social media channels, including Facebook
  • Highlighting any vegan places we discover on our travels
  • Share vegan travel tips from our favourite vegan travel bloggers

What is it that we hope to find out on our vegan travel challenge? Here it is:

  • How easy is it to travel as a vegan?
  • Does travelling as a vegan affect your health?
  • Is travelling as a vegan more expensive?
  • Does being vegan mean you miss out on aspects of local culture?
  • Does eating vegan negatively impact your experience of some countries?

Cutting veggies hostel cooking - Charlie on Travel

We’re not total strangers to the vegan diet. While we do still maintain a vegetarian diet and eat a whole lot of yoghurt, a large portion of the food we cook is actually vegan. We love cooking mixed bean chilli, lentil bolognese, vegetable curries, chickpea tagines and a whole bunch of meals that just happen to be vegan anyway.

The biggest change for us isn’t going to be what we cook at home or at our accommodation, it’s going to be when we’re actually on the road. When we’re out exploring new cities we love to seek out veggie joints, but a lot of the time we just eat whatever vegetarian foods the locals are eating – and that nearly always means eating cheese and eggs.

We’re big believers in eating locally-sourced food while travelling and that’s not something that we want to sacrifice when travelling as vegans either. Is it possible? We hope so, but we won’t know for sure until we try it.

Sweet greens vegan cafe bournemouth uk Charlie eating 2 - Charlie on Travel

Where We’re Going

As slow travellers with very few time restraints to worry about and digital nomads who can work from anywhere in the world that has a decent internet connection, we don’t exactly know where we’re going to be during our month of vegan travel.

What we do know is that we’ll be starting off at our current home base in Brighton and then heading to mainland Europe. Luke has his heart set on skiing in Bulgaria but when we last checked there wasn’t enough snow, so maybe we’ll end up in Berlin, a city we’ve always wanted to see and one that is actually tipped to be a great vegan destination.

Got Any Advice for Us?

We’re excited to start our month of vegan travel and have read up on vegan travel tips, but we definitely have a lot to learn (and we know it!) and some reservations about the practicalities of travelling as vegans. If you’ve got any vegan travel tips or articles that you love about vegan travel, then we’d love to hear them so please leave a comment below and let us know.