How to make travelling with food sensitivities easier
Travelling with food sensitivities takes more planning than it does for most people. Not a huge amount more, but enough that it's worth thinking through before you leave rather than figuring it out as you go.
How much preparation you need depends on the trip. Staying in your own country is generally easier than going abroad because you’ll be familiar with supermarkets, and general level of openness towards catering for food sensitivities. You’ll also be speaking the same language Driving gives you more flexibility than flying, because you can pack whatever you need without worrying about liquids or luggage limits (except for importing restrictions). Self-catering puts you in control in a way that a hotel breakfast buffet simply doesn't. On the flip side, you’ll need to shop more consciously and plan meals or find supermarkets that offer substitutes. A holiday and a business trip present different challenges and require slightly different thinking. If you're travelling abroad, going somewhere you already know takes a lot of the guesswork out of it. You've already learned what the local cuisine looks like, which supermarkets are useful, and roughly what to expect. Somewhere new requires a bit more work upfront: some basic research into the local cuisine, what the staple ingredients tend to be, and whether free-from options are likely to be widely available or hard to find.
Getting to your destination
We’re often focused on the destination itself but depending on the travel time, you might also need to plan for the journey itself. Airport, train and motorway food is notoriously hard to navigate with sensitivities, so packing your own is almost always the better option.
If you travel by car or train, a flask of home-made soup works well on longer journeys. Gluten free bread, cut vegetables, nuts and seeds travel easily and keep you going without any of the uncertainty of grabbing something on the road. It takes a bit more preparation the night before, but it removes a whole layer of stress from the journey itself. Once you've done it a few times, it becomes routine.
If you're flying, check airline meal options when you book. Most carriers offer gluten free or dairy free meal codes, and requesting one is straightforward. Just don't assume it will be perfect, and keep a few snacks in your bag regardless.
Business travel
A lot depends on how accommodating your company and your hosts are, and in most cases, people are more helpful than you might expect. It's worth being straightforward early: let whoever is organising accommodation know what you need, and check the hotel's options before you arrive rather than hoping for the best on the day.
If there are meetings, conferences or group lunches involved, ask in advance whether they can cater for you. The answer is usually yes. Where it gets complicated is when your request wasn't quite clear enough, or when the person on the other end didn't fully understand it, which does happen. It's worth being specific: list what you can eat as well as what you need to avoid. Keep something safe in your bag as a backup, just in case.
Choosing accommodation that gives you some kitchen access, even just a kettle and a small fridge, can make a real difference on longer trips. It means you're not entirely dependent on restaurant menus or hotel breakfast buffets for every me
Personal travel and holidays
Personal travel can actually be trickier than business travel, because you're often in more unusual locations with less infrastructure around you.
Skiing is a good example of this and as much as I love the Alps, during my severely restricted times I struggled not only on but also off piste. Many ski resort food - at least in Europe - is heavily gluten and dairy based: fondue, crepes, pasta, bread at every mountain hut. My go-to were fries and jacket potatoes. Generally meat and vegetables are a relatively safe option - especially if you ask for any sauces to be taken off which often contain ingredients people with food sensitivities react to. Also worth bearing in mind is that supermarkets in resorts are often small and not particularly well stocked when it comes to free-from ranges. If you go back to the same resort, you'll gradually work out which mountain huts are more flexible or have more suitable menus, which restaurants are worth trying, and what's worth bringing from home. That accumulated knowledge makes each return trip easier than the last.
Before any trip to a new destination, it's worth doing some research on what the local food culture looks like. Some countries are far easier to navigate with sensitivities than others. If you've been somewhere before, trust that memory: you'll already have a sense of what worked and what didn't, even if you never formally wrote it down.
For destinations you haven't visited, look at what the staple ingredients tend to be. Countries with rice-based cuisines, for example, are often much easier than those built around wheat and dairy. Knowing this before you leave helps you once you’re there. Online travel forums can be a great help, it’s worth tapping into that combined knowledge and experience so you can enjoy your holiday more and not get distracted by food complications.
Self-catering versus catered stays
Self-catering gives you control. If you can cook for yourself, even some of the time, it removes a lot of the daily calculation. You know what's going in the food, you're not negotiating with a restaurant, and you can build meals around what you've found locally rather than hoping menus will work. During my most restricted times, this was the option that put me more at peace even though I had to shop and cook regularly rather than relax.
Catered stays, hotels and resorts require more communication. The more specific you are when you book, the better. It's worth emailing ahead rather than just noting a dietary requirement in a booking form, because a direct conversation (or email exchange) tends to produce better results. Ask what a typical breakfast looks like, whether they can adjust it, and what the main options are at dinner. Most places will be glad to help. Some will be genuinely brilliant at it. A few will struggle, and it's better to know that in advance than on the first morning. In fact, it’s worth contacting them before you commit to a booking and choose accordingly. If navigating restaurant menus and catered situations is something you find difficult more broadly, When eating out stops feeling easy covers that in more detail.
What makes it manageable
The honest answer is organisation, and it's worth acknowledging that adding food planning on top of all the other logistics of a trip can feel like a lot. You're already thinking about flights, transfers, accommodation, what to pack. Layering food research on top of that takes energy.
What helps is having a system that doesn't require you to start from scratch every time. Keeping notes on what worked at each destination means the second trip somewhere is much easier than the first. Building a standard travel kit of safe snacks and staples means you're not making those decisions under pressure at an airport. And being clear with yourself about which situations genuinely need advance planning versus which ones you can improvise on the day means you don't over-prepare everything.
About the Author
Nurture & Thrive is written from lived experience of managing multiple food sensitivities over more than 15 years. The content reflects personal experience of navigating symptoms, diagnosis, and recovery, and is focused on the practical and emotional realities of living with it day to day.