Hey y’all. Idk if this is the community for this because it seems mostly link posts, but here goes:
How do you go about finding food in a country you don’t speak the language of? I’ve just came back from an Italy hiking “vacation” that caused me two meltdowns in just 4 days. It was a really rough hike and I’ve been the weakest of the group and didn’t make it to the top. I don’t want to go into details but i had a really rough time and food usually is my comfort zone helping me reset from the shitty stuff.
Now the problem was that i don’t speak Italian and we went to a bunch of cool looking places only to see the menu was not translated and didn’t have vegan or not labels on it so i caused everyone to not go there. So instead of comfort, food search was more anxiety inducing and I’d like to avoid that in the future. It’s been the first time for me to visit a foreign country since going vegan and I was shocked by the lack of consideration for vegans in a lot of places.
So yeah how do you prep for tours where you don’t know which part of which town you’re on every day?
I’m used to seeing heaping plates of grilled veggies drizzled with olive oil in so many restaurants in Italy that I’d have thought it among the easiest countries to get vegan food, but here’s a list of prep steps for future travel.
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Never expect translations. Unless the government has invited you explicitly, consider yourself an uninvited guest who ought to be thankful for any courtesy.
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Try to get a phone that can get service where you will be. This can be tricky. If you can’t do that, but you CAN get an internet connection at least some of the time (in hotels, for example) consider bringing a laptop. If that is too bulky, then at the very least pre-translate some phrases you expect to need and take screenshots on your no-signal phone or transcribe onto 3x5 cards you can hand people with full text of both languages on each card (either all on one side or English on the back). Example: I would like vegetables and pasta, but no meat, no eggs, no cheese, and no dairy.
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Make sure you have an adapter that plugs in to their electric outlets.
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Learn at least a few key words/phrases: "I’m, ummm… Sono vegano… umm, uhh, … no carne, no latte, no formaggio, no frutti di mare. They may ask something like, “Mangi le uova?” and hopefully you can figure out with hand gestures that they mean ‘eggs’.
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When you find portable food/snacks, buy some extra in advance so you have a backup.
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Learn to cook so you know what ingredients go into different foods. Example: Tuscan bread is just flour, water, and yeast. The rest of Italy usually adds some salt. In contrast, biscotti has eggs.
In Italy, vegan options are most likely found in meals sections: Primi, Contorni, and Insalata – you aren’t likely to find vegan options in Antipasti, Secondi, nor (obviously) Formaggi e frutta.
Yeah i guess the first point is really important and we’re too quick to forget that.
Technically i had phone service but i had to be very careful with it as we were close to the Swiss border and they charge a lot of roaming costs (colleague lost 50€ thanks to that despite trying to stay on top of turning off roaming in those risks areas) but yeah i could’ve really done a better job at using translation services
I had a power bank with me because we were camping in tents without power so i had that covered.
The 4th point is a tricky one for me. I struggle a lot with social interactions and if i already sat down at a place only to find out they didn’t have vegan stuff it’d make my anxiousness rise to get up and leave especially considering it’d also split the group most likely.
I had some backup snacks to keep me afloat but those wouldn’t help me come down from the bad hike.
Point 6 is really important i guess and I’ll try.
Thanks for the advice
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Another vote for Happy Cow. Makes it easy to bookmark a few places near where you’re staying and planning to visit.
There was also another app I used to use which I think was called something like vegan passport? It had written in a bunch of languages that you were vegan and what that meant in good detail. Haven’t been able to find it again last time I checked though.
That vegan passport sounds really useful. I guess i could in prep for whenever i travel next research the words in that language to describe veganism at least. And yeah I’ll absolutely get happy cow. Sounds like an amazing app
Oh, there’s an app called “HappyCow”. It’s an app that helps anyone find vegan restaurants or restaurants with vegan options with geolocation. It’s a very famous app amongst Vegans. And it’s not recent at all.
I install it when I travel for the reasons you just describe.
I’m sorry to hear about your hard time. Hope that app helps you the next time you travel.
Oh thanks for that. That would’ve been very helpful. I’ll install it in case of future travels.
I don’t do much travel but I’m not above existing on cold canned beans for a few days /shrug. Have always been able to find that
I’ve had cold chilli sin carne one day actually but every food to be consumed at base camp would need to be carried up 150m height worth of stairs which was the first thing that completely destroyed me that vacation
That sucks. Anywhere where potatoes feature would probably have them on hand and be happy to just roast some if you could had the language to ask? Might be a generalised approach from hot chips as the backup in olive oil Europe anyway. Butter Europe would not necessarily be vegan.
When I have travelled I’ve usually been in sea and because of Buddhism it’s been easier, although sometimes there’s confusion about prawns.
