Travelling with Food Allergies

[goomjiji]

I know that travelling is harder when you're dealing with food allergies, but do your family's food allergies actually prevent you from travelling? We're just doing camping trips this summer, so we pack all of the food that everybody is going to eat and that's no problem--anymore . But the thought of staying in hotels and eating in restaurants for several days or a week straight is almost too much. And forget about foreign travel. I have a friend who just took her 3 and 5 year old boys to Europe for 3 weeks. We have a friend in Switzerland who really wants us to visit, but I just can't imagine how we would get food that's safe even with our friend with us to translate. Anybody else feel limited in this way?

[wytchywoman]

Travelling is a HUGE PITA with food allergies, especially when you are reliant upon family or restaurants to supply the food. I guess it depends on what you are allergic to, but I would think that travel in Europe might actually be a little easier than in the US because the tend to have such a huge diversity in food, at least that is what I have heard from friends who have travelled in Europe. I do appreciate where you are coming from though. It seems like anything more than a day trip and you have to pack the whole friggin kitchen to take with you.

[Mrs.PhD]

The only places we really traveled to when DD's food allergies were the worst (and I had to follow the diet too since she was breast feeding) was Walt Disney World. They are really great about food allergies there. It really made vacationing so much easier.

We cruise on Disney Cruise Line a few months ago. DD's allergies are much less server now, she can only not have direct dairy products now (but can have dairy cooked in things and some cheese.) When I made the reservations she we still were 100% dairy and egg free. It was funny how much they were looking to go out of their way for DD's diet. She didn't need much extra attention, but they gave it anyway. They did not want to let her have a slice of pizza (something she eats fine in moderation.) They did in the end when I said it was really fine.

It isn't easy. I hate grilling people for ingredients before being able to eat.

[julbern]

We drove for 2 days out to see my family in the Midwest...it wasn't easy. We packed all of our own food-even frozen meat, to eat while we were there. Which ended up being a good thing, since they live in a smaller town and we couldn't even find plain lunch meat she could eat.
While driving, I had made a dinner and froze it for us to eat at the hotel. I had also made tons of snacks and ate cold lunches. We didn't even go inside a restaurants-just ate outside at rest stops. On the way home, we booked a suite at a hotel so that we had a full kitchen to cook in (and we used out own cookware).
So yes-it is a pain. We are going camping in August with 60 other people, and I am dreading it, just because of how difficult it is going to be eating one thing while everyone else is eating something else (they all eat meals together) My dd is just starting to notice, so it might be tough! We did buy her a "do not feed me" shirt to wear since we do not know everyone, and honestly some that do know don't really believe:

[kittywitty]

Anyone else travel in the Midwest with multiple allergies?

We are travelling with dairy-wheat-corn-egg-caffeine-citrus-soy restrictions in 2 weeks.

[kjbrown92]

For me, it's not that hard. My DS is milk-soy-cocoa-legumes-potatoes. My DD is all of those plus citrus-berries-corn-eggs-tons of other stuff. I bring lots of snacks, and cartons of rice milk. The first thing I do when I get somewhere is look in the phone book for the natural food store. Then I go and stock up on whatever else I need. For school vacation a couple weeks ago, we went to RI. We stayed in an efficiency so I would have a kitchen, to limit the number of meals we have out. A lot of places will make a hamburger without the bun, and you can ask them to grill it, putting a piece of foil in between the grill and the burger, so there's no cross-contamination. Most family type restaurants (owned by a family) will bend over backwards to help. There's a place in our town, where I said DS couldn't have the french fries because of potato allergy and the chef/owner came out and asked what he could make instead - we ended up with steamed broccoli. I have found Cracker Barrel very accommodating as well (when we drove to FL last year from the Northeast - it was a safe place to stop).

For Europe, there was some website that gave you food translated into many languages for allergies, but I have no idea what website it was. But if it's a lot of foods, I would look it up in the languages you need, and the word for allergy, before I went.

K

[WildIris]

K, what was your corn-avoiding DD able to safely eat at Cracker Barrel? I will be traveling in another month and that is one restaurant we plan to stop at. I am allergic to corn and onion, and largely avoiding wheat/gluten, yeast, dairy (except for butter) also.