If you care about the world, you’ll care about what you eat.
We’re vegetarian travellers eating everything from Taiwanese street food to Costa Rican rice and beans. We want to know where our food comes from and always try to eat ethically sourced and local produce. We often chow down on vegan food.
Eating vegetarian in San Cristobal de las Casas was great fun. San Cristobal is our favourite vegetarian food destination in Mexico. The hippy vibe and Western influences have meant the city has a delicious mix of both international and Mexican vegetarian food.
Lake Atitlan is a bit of a mecca for vegans and vegetarians travelling in Guatemala. I’m a self-confessed healthy eater. It doesn’t matter where I am in the world, I want to eat fresh veggies and good grains all the time. Being vegetarian in Lake Atitlan is amazing because you can find healthy and delicious vegetarian food everywhere from San Pedro La Laguna to Panajachel.
In this guide, I cover cafés in San Pedro La Laguna, San Marcos, Jaibalito and Panajachel that vegetarians in Lake Atitlan will love. I was excited to find that each of the towns around Lake Atitlan had some cafés with healthy, organic and veggie options to keep my belly full. Here are the most delicious of the healthy cafés I came across while travelling vegetarian in Lake Atitlan.
Travelling as a vegetarian in Merida? The biggest city in Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula is brimming with vegan and vegetarian-friendly restaurants and street food.
After some less than impressive vegetarian food when we were backpacking in Valladolid, we were relieved to arrive in the city of Merida in Mexico. Travelling vegetarian in Merida was an absolute pleasure. Merida is full of excellent vegan, vegetarian and veg-friendly restaurants, as well as vegetarian street food.
When we were travelling vegan in Macedonia as part of our vegan travel challenge, we scoured menus for traditional Macedonian dishes that were naturally vegan – and surprisingly there are quite a few vegan options in Macedonian cuisine.
I have to admit though, we were also excited when we reverted to our vegetarian diet at the end of the challenge and were finally able to tuck into some tasty burek – a local breakfast pastry filled with spinach and cheese – that a friend of mine who’d previously travelled around the Balkans enthusiastically recommended to me.
This January, we took up a 31-day vegan travel challenge as part of Veganuary. We kicked off our vegan challenge in Luke’s home town of Brighton before travelling vegan in Bulgaria and then Macedonia.
True to our word, we didn’t change our travel plans to fit in with our new vegan lifestyle, but instead took unplanned trips to wherever we chose. While Bulgaria and Macedonia certainly aren’t the most vegan friendly countries in the world, we learned a lot from our vegan travel experiences there.
“Never try, never know,” rang out the cheery voice of our Thai farm cooking class teacher Benny. She was waving around fresh herbs and spicy roots from the organic garden attached to the cooking school and encouraging us to bite into galangal roots, lemongrass stalks and strong smelling leaves. Luke and I did so without protest, though not everyone in our cooking class was so adventurous – and with good reason, some of those raw roots packed a real punch.
There was only one place to eat vegan in Plovdiv listed on HappyCow, but after a less than satisfying time being vegan in Bansko for almost a week, I was so excited to be heading to somewhere where eating vegan just might be even slightly better for our third week of Veganuary.
Travelling vegan in Plovdiv turned out to be quite a delight! After a lot of research and some false leads, it turns out that Plovdiv has not one but three vegan restaurants and a number of places with vegetarian and vegan options and even whole vegan menus.
After a trying week #3 of Veganuary, you might be expecting me to say that week #4 was even more dire. It wasn’t. It was better, because we’ve just got used to it.
It feels like we’ve broken through a wall to a stage of indifference about dairy products this week. We’re not bothered that there’s no cheese, yoghurt, or eggs in our diet. Physically we feel very much the same as we did as when we were vegetarians.
We’re still travelling, hiking, exploring cities and working remotely with just as much energy.
Travelling vegan in Bansko was the most difficult part of our 31-day vegan travel challenge while we were in Bulgaria. We loved our escapades as vegans in Sofia, which turned out to be a much more vegetarian and vegan-friendly city than we had expected, but just 170km away in Bansko things were very different.
Bansko is a Bulgarian mountain town and a popular ski destination. It’s not known for being a veg-friendly travel destination — because it’s just not, but there was no way that our veganism was going to stop us from learning to ski in Bansko this trip. So we braved the cold and snow in search of places to eat vegan in Bansko.
I’d like to say that week #3 of our vegan travel challenge was as veggieful and exciting as weeks #1 and #2 of Veganuary, but it wouldn’t be true. Week #3 has been rammed with challenges, from trying to be more confident about saying we’re vegan to crazy cheese cravings. Actually, I was craving cheese like it was the end of the world.
We’re halfway through our 31-day vegan travel challenge this Veganuary, and still going! Last weekend we flew out to Bulgaria, not a country known for it’s vegan cuisine, but so far we’ve been pleasantly surprised about how well being vegan in Bulgaria has gone.
Our second week of travelling vegan has been… more challenging. After an easy transition into veganism in Luke’s home town of Brighton during week 1, finally getting on the road and travelling in Bulgaria has meant that being vegan hasn’t been such smooth sailing.
As our 30 day vegan travel challenge has gotten well under way, I decided to ask a bunch of my favourite vegan travel bloggers to share their favourite vegan travel destinations with me. I was surprised to find their top vegan travel destinations span all over, from Kuala Lumpur to Iceland, and Texas to Rome.
Luke and I never pick the countries we travel to based on our dietary requirements because if we’ve learned anything from travelling, it’s that there’s always something awesome to be discovered. But there’s no arguing that being vegan means that food is much harder to play by ear, so I was interested to hear about all the places that really shone our to vegan travellers as the best.
Careful, your stomach is about to start growling…
We’re Charlie and Luke — UK travel bloggers, adventurers and storytellers. We travel slow and write about sustainable travel. We want to make responsible travel choices and help you do the same. Get to know us.
