Food While Traveling

Almost two years ago, I made a goal of cooking in more while traveling.

A square bowl full of Greek-style yogurt, frozen wild blueberries, granola, and honey. Also full of NOMNOMNOM.

As I mention in the linked post, Bill and I figured out pretty quickly that we’re both fairly happy with several breakfasts in a row of just yogurt, fruit, and granola. It’s fast, simple, and tasty. We almost always, at this point, stop at a grocery store and get enough for at least two breakfasts “at home.” We could do more, and I think we both want to do more, but there’s always more folks who want to go out and places we want to try. So, we want to do more, but we also want to keep it as it is. Always a conflict, I suppose.

Where we haven’t made any changes is lunches or dinners. We’re still entirely eating those out. And this, in many ways, makes a lot more sense. Especially when we’re places like Chicago, Los Angeles, or anywhere we have lots of friends or family. We end up meeting folks for these meals (and breakfast, but that is much less common) all over the place.

Or as with lunch yesterday, we’re in the middle of doing something when the lunch time food need hits, and we eat something fast there. Like this surprisingly good beef and barley soup from the cafe at Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

A spoonful of barley over a take-out cup of beef and barley soup.

But sometimes I walk into an AirBnB and consider how it might be fun to cook there. Almost every spot we rent, I consider if it’d be possible to host meals there. But we never do.

That said, this entry literally changed just now, as I was about to try to figure out how to end it. Because I got a text from Bill that makes me think he’s thinking the same thing.

“Sandwiches or something for lunch at our place?”

I can’t wait. But I’d better get back there before they (we’ll be hosting his mom and uncle!) eat it all without me. And maybe this will be a new start for us.

How do you guys do travel food? And is it the way you want it to be?

4 thoughts on “Food While Traveling

  1. I very rarely travel for business – it’s usually to visit family, in which case I stay with them and eat their food (thanks, Mom), or I eat out on purpose because I want to visit old favorite places.

    And if I’m going somewhere NEW, half of the point of the travel (in my opinion) is trying the local food and drink. It’s always the first thing I ask people when I’ve got a trip planned – where should I eat? What’s this city good at, food-wise? If I was doing a lot more business travel on a budget, I’d probably try to cook for myself more. Maybe. I may also see it as a great excuse for fast food indulgences.

    • Bill and I travel about equally for visits and business, but we rarely stay with folks. When we do, we’re just like you, we eat their food (thanks, everyone!) or go to specific joints. Here in LA we’ve been to Canter’s already. We’ll hit Du-par’s in the next couple of days, and we have never not gone to Versailles. Beyond that, it’s usually new places.

      I’m with you on part of the point being trying the local food and drink when going someplace new. However, at this point, what traveling we do is rarely to a new place. It’s almost inevitably to places we’ve been before! I suspect that’s part of why I get antsy to figure out how to eat in.

  2. I love this! Often in the last year I’ve found myself trying to remember to pack stuff that I can easily have in a hotel room. I haven’t been as successful as I would have liked, but generally it’s the oatmeal in a packet, nuts, fuji apples, chocolate and jerky. A challenge for me is being less mobile (at this point .5 mile is achievable, so yay!) and not all places have ready access to stores, or walkability to get stuff. So often it’s whatever is available in the hotel mart. It’s made me really aware of how not walkable some places are. Looking forward to more posts of this nature.

    • How easy it is to walk someplace is SO key, yeah. A lot of our AirBnB rentals are near something, but many haven’t been. We only rent one car (if we rent a car) so that can matter quite a bit. For example (a very small example) our current place in LA has no places within a half mile where we could buy paper towels. In a kitchen that had no paper towels, napkins, or kitchen towels.

      Do you prefer hotels to AirBnB rentals?

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