Packing for a Vegan Roadtrip

PACKING FOR A VEGAN ROADTRIP

This week we made the big move to Maine! We've been cleaning the house and packing our things, having yard sales and going away parties, but my favorite part by far: packing food for the trip. As vegans, we know food can be hard to find on the road. Most fast food restaurants are out of the question and sometimes thats all you'll see for hours. And gas stations and truck stops don't usually stock the vegan-friendliest faire. Plus, those little pre-packaged snacks add up pretty quickly both for your wallet and your waistline. 
Its cheap and easy to pack foods at home before the trip- even for vegans!

On our last day in California, we planned ahead by stopping at a Farmer's Market and picking up some fruits and vegetables for the trip. We also had a wonderful farewell dinner with Alex's family in the park. We ate vegan jamaican cuisine and brick-oven pizza while the sun set. It was fantastic.

Its usually best to get any fresh fruit or veggies you can just before the trip (the fresher, the better!) or plan on buying what you can at farmer's markets and farm stands along the way. Our route took us through the southern and midwestern parts of the country, but being that its still early April, we didn't find any farm stands until we hit Pennsylvania.
We pre-packed about 1 pound of fresh strawberries, 2 pounds of sugar snap peas, some celery from our friend's garden, and a couple of citrus fruits and apples.

We packed some fresh beet-apple-celery juice, courtesy of our friends John and Michelle, to drink on driving days 1 &2. It ended up being just the pick me up we needed after sleeping a truck stop after the first night of driving.
The celery they gave us was the best for dipping into almond and peanut butter on the drive. A perfect protein-packed snack that you can eat easily while driving-just make sure your co-pilot does the dipping for you!
We also used up some of the last of our baking ingredients whipping up a batch of hemp butter protein bars and of course, homemade chocolate chip cookies. They were delicious on the road- and better than anything we could've bought at a convenience store!
Remember to bring plastic bags for food and saving any little souvenirs along the road. We used more plastic bags and more wet wipes than I would've imagined, they were so handy!

Almond butter and jelly roll-ups on gluten-free tortillas became my main road meal. I love the classic PB&J flavor, but can't handle as much wheat anymore. The tortillas were a prefect substitution! I tried the Food for Life brand and really enjoyed them. 
Also in the car we had a small cooler and reusable bag full of the food in the first picture up top. We had treats like oreos, cracker jacks, and sweet tarts (all vegan friendly!) left over from our Easter baskets so we threw those in with our protein & granola bars, peanut butter, jelly, coconut bacon, granola, chips, and anything else we could scrounge from the cabinets. Anything pretty healthy, nutritive, and easily accesible is important on a road trip. A car is a limited space, and we found that having too many items that needed preparing filled the car very quickly with trash and were hard to eat while driving.
Also important- bring some tunes or fun articles to read, it makes the trip go by way more quickly. Especially a 3,500 mile trip. A friend burned us the ENTIRE Beatles collection-over 18 hours of music- and it was really fun listening through most of it together!
Most importantly though, make sure you have a good co-pilot to keep you company. Driving that far can be exhausting and stressful, and by day 3 you will want to kill each other, but try and remember how awesome they are.

Ah, our last picture in California. 

Well, we've taught you how to pack food, but what about when you just need to eat out? PB&J can get kind of boring, and we get that. Here are some of our favorite resources for finding vegan food on the road:
Happy Cow
(they even have an app!)
WTF Vegan Food
(as in: will travel for)
VegGuide
(similar to HC)

We definitely found more food closer to the coasts than middle America- but that was fine with us because we planned on mostly eating food we'd brought anyway.
Updates on the road trip itself coming soon!
Follow our trip!