[shankar.balan]

Originally Posted by dust-n-bones

A contrarian view here.

An essential purpose of travel is to free your mind. It is a wasted opportunity if we go explore a country, look at the monuments and come back to our dosas and theplas for dinner.

I
Acquired skills to navigate yourself in a foreign land are a bonus.

Bon Voyage.

I agree completely about Travel Broadening the mind and freeing up your inhibitions by experiencing new cultures and foods. Many of us subscribe to this attitude to travel. I know I do.

However, there are some who absolutely cannot handle the concept of eating animal protein, meat, eggs and things. There is nothing wrong with having clear food preferences.

One may be absolutely liberal and broad minded in every possible way and yet be very restricted in diet for various reasons, medical, general health, beliefs, religious or simply a matter of taste.

For example I consider that I am reasonably well travelled and have reasonable exposure and a certain knowledge of different cuisines and culture and all that. I actively enjoy all kinds of food. Dosa at Ballal Residency, Butter Chicken in Ludhiana, a good sirloin in Japan or Kansas or Sydney…you get the picture.

Yet, I cannot even consider in my wildest dreams, eating items of food like ‘Eels’ and ‘Octopus’ and ‘Shellfish’ though they are considered delicacies in many places. I also actively dislike the Peruvian/ South American ‘Ceviche’ and even the plain humble boiled egg yolk, for example though I will eat an Omelette or Scrambled Eggs with Gusto. I have a deep dislike of the ‘Custard Apple’ fruit too. So as you can see, there is no particular pattern. It is just a matter of preference.

Therefore, I don't think it is wrong at all, to have clear preferences. It is not as if one derives less enjoyment from travel because of dietary preferences. One simply finds the next viable alternative and gets on with it!

[Mystic]

Originally Posted by warp_10

Toughest of the lot was Japan (needed to resort to vegan which was more prevalent than vegetarian, seriously ?? - its like the world wanted to go from step 0 directly to step 10 skipping those in between),

I also faced a similar situation when we went on one of the weekends to an island near Hong Kong called Lantau with family where the biggest sitting position bronze Buddha statue in the world of 112 feet height is located. We went to a Buddhist monastery and had a vegetarian buffet of hundreds of varieties of food we never thought existed on this planet. That was an eye opening to us that we are actually not vegetarians but these monks who reside on this island are the actual vegetarians. They had taken vegetarianism to the next level. Unfortunately, we came to Hong Kong and ate curd rice at home as nothing was palatable at the so called vegetarian buffet in Lantau island.

For those of us who think we are strict vegetarians, my grand mother used to tell me that such people eat non vegetarian of the size of an elephant head in one’s life time without them knowing it ( like small size worms not visually visible in the food we eat everyday).

[turbospooler]

I am a Pure Vegetarian myself and I loved Vietnam. Their local cuisine is also available in Vegan version as many Vietnamese follow the Lunar calendar and once a month have no meat/fish/oyster (egg is sometimes consumed is what I heard).
The magic words one needs to utter (or search) are "ăn chay". This means vegetarian.
Happycow can also help.

Additionally, there are companies who are now packing YOUR own home cooked food by dehydrating and then vacuum sealing which you can carry. Reduces weight, just add boiling water plus you can be rest assured of the ingredients since you already cooked it.
Just search Dehydrated food packers.

Also, Oman was great for me as lot of Indians.

[Bazooka]

Originally Posted by dust-n-bones

A contrarian view here.
An essential purpose of travel is to free your mind. It is a wasted opportunity if we go explore a country, look at the monuments and come back to our dosas and theplas for dinner.

Of course, I agree. I am okay to have anything as long as it is vegetarian. I am not insisting for places with only Indian foods. I just want to explore places without struggling to find vegetarian food.

[condor]

Originally Posted by libranof1987

Similarly, some cuisines don't count chicken / egg as meat, so clarify

Being a Vegetarian, I have managed in the US - but that was long stay on work. But reason to post here and add to Libran's comment above:

I was in Saudi on an assignment where we were one day talking about Veg food. I said Veg means no animals. So one Egyptian guy says: But Fish is not an animal !

Yes, helps to clarify.

[pv5]

Originally Posted by Bazooka

What are some of the veg-friendly international destinations that you would recommend?

Having lived and travelled there from time to time, can suggest New Zealand, friendly people, english speaking, beautiful place to travel, lots of Indian hotels across the country and a few vegan hotels & fast food chains (e.g. lord of the fries etc.) as well. Pure veg hotels are present in main cities esp. places where lot of Indians live in, Auckland, Hamilton, etc. If you have missed something to take, Indian stores are present in the main cities & can get supplies(like maggi et. al).

The best thing is you can wing it & self-drive i.e. won't require touring parties. Indian license is not a problem (don't require international license) & rules are intuitive & easy to follow.

If the place you are going attracts tourists or has some Indian population, there is definitely an Indian restaurant there or nearby. If nothing works, goto any super market, pick up bread, cheese (have to be careful with rennet and it has to say plant based rennet), nuts, manukau honey(local nz speciality) and be done with lunch/snack/ dinner for the time being or goto any local cafe and get a bread toast and hot-chocolate &/or coffee. I don't think you will get into that situation but it is an option nonetheless.

Depending on what you intend to do single/multi-day nature walks, road trip or stuff like bungee, skydive, walking over glacier, heli ride to the top etc. you can mix and match depending on your preference. And did I say its a kids friendly place.

[avisidhu]

Another worst case scenario: Almost all fast food chains now carry 'beyond meat' patties and burgers based on soy, peas etc.. This alone has improved the situation in many countries that used to lack any veg options. Many of my friends have suffered in the past by asking for 'Veg Burger' and being served lettuce, tomatoes etc., with a meat patty inside

Apparently there's some research that it's not good for health, but having these occasionally during a trip shouldn't be an issue. Besides, they're a good source of Proteins.

[Jupizire]

Originally Posted by Bazooka

I am planning to do an international vacation later this year. I and my wife are vegetarians. Access to vegetarian food is a priority for us. What are some of the veg-friendly international destinations that you would recommend?

P.S. - We've already gone to Bali.

2 odd balls where I had been to, being a pure veggie myself -
1. Tokyo - has a lot of Indian restaurants which serve Indian veg and non-veg. I was pleasantly surprised. No problem at all to survive there for 2 weeks. If you are exploring other places like Osaka etc. as part of the trip then I am not sure of the same outside of Tokyo.

2. Shanghai - again, has plenty of Indian restaurants. Even there are many vegan restaurants there, but then the type of items are different, though we get noodles, something that looks and tastes by palak chapati, falafel based rolls and burgers, lotus stem and other exotic veg items. Similar to Swiggy/Zomato here, there is a delivery service in Shanghai called Sherpa which is inexpensive and accepts cash on delivery. I leveraged it to the max during lunch hours at office.

[Adi94]

Originally Posted by vb-saan

Singapore has loads of vegetarian options, Indian or international.

True that, I had visited Singapore with my wife on our anniversary. We even referred to happycow app to get info about the vegetarian food. There was a place which is famous for Indian food. It had ample of options for North Indian food as well as south indian food. The place named Little IndiaWe had booked our hotel near little India, so that you don't have to search for veg options and you can enjoy the trip.

You can also book your hotel near place which has predominantly Indian food.

PS Airbnb is not allowed in Singapore

[androdev]

TBH, searching for veg-friendly destinations is like putting the cart before the horse. Pick a destination you like and you can easily find how to manage vegetarian food there. In this day and age with so much information overload, you will have to struggle to retain some element of surprise when visiting any place.

ISKCON restaurants across the world for "thaali" experience :-)

https://centers.iskcondesiretree.com...de-restaurant/

[Nav-i-gator]

Best way to enjoy foreign destinations while being a vegetarian is to be open minded. Just look for vegetarian menu and main ingredients (if written on the menu) and go for it! if you are hell bent on finding the perfect, pure vegetarian food, there is no limit to it. They might have used same kitchen tools for veg as well as non-veg, chef/cook is same and might not have washed hands/changed gloves, so on and so forth.

Just order a veg dish and stop thinking about it. There are local vegetarian foods available everywhere these days. I would recommend to taste them instead of finding an Indian restaurant everywhere. My visits are mostly limited to SEA countries these days and I live in Vietnam, and in every country, there are veg as well as vegan restaurants. And veg menu items are available in practically every restaurant. Hell, we have vegetarian Chinese and Korean hotpots nowadays.

[NomadSK]

For us, we travel together, a family of 5 members in general and I can say food is the make and break for all of our trips. Although we are non-vegetarians, but we generally travel to off-beat places, non-touristic, away from the cities and chaos.

And since we are away from cities, finding eating places/restaurants is the last thing on our head, realized this during my stay in Norway, that I was forced to live on frozen Pizza day in and out, till my taste buds went numb, It was like what Maggi is in India, so how do we solve this issue;

Since we are 5, We travel with one exclusive bag for our food needs, which contains Rice cooker, a big hot thermos, electric kettle, few glasses, basic plastic plates, snacks, pickles, cheese, cookies, pulses, local tea sachets and some extra things, total of 25/30 kgs of weight depending on the allowable limits. Everyone carries their own small backpacks, which contains minimum of a small plastic box and water bottle. Other consumables which are needed we purchase on the go as an when we get time or cross some super market.

- Mostly we book places with AirBnB, where basic kitchen facilities are available.
- We pick basic veggies, onions, tomatoes after a long day of activity while heading back to out place. Or I pick stuff during my early morning runs, if I come across a grocery store.
- Also we pick bread/eggs/milk for the b'fast till the days we are supposed to stay at a place.
- Max by 8/9pm we are back in our accommodation to enjoy the home cooked basic meal.
- Morning we have a basic b'fast of cereals/eggs bread butter/Jam with tea/milk and make sure to plan all our touristic activities after that.
- Lunch is packed in the tiffin boxes for everyone, either its the left over from the previous night dinner or morning we make sandwiches.
- During the whole day of activity be it hiking, camping, trekking or exploring locations, we sit down anywhere we feel comfortable and have our meals and move on.

Over a period of time and with experience, my mom & wife have become expert to pack this food bag. Food is no longer a headache anymore on our trips, although if someone wants to relish a local cuisine they do, but mostly we are stomach happy with our own cooked meals and that doesn't disturb or surprise our digestive system. With this strategy, we are mostly vegetarians during our trips minus eggs.

[Krishna sankar]

Pure veg option in many Europe and American countries are difficult and may not be located near your place of stay. Further after the day's sight seeing, it is difficult to travel for food. Moreover, you lose time. Best option is to carry enough MTR ready to eat packs and a small water kettle for heating water. You can have good veg food at your place of stay. Also if time permits you can buy rice etc locally and cook in the kettle. MTR ready to eat has many veg items. I have noticed many hotels in Europe / US do not keep kettle in the room and few of them rent it out. Or you have to go to nearby starbuck and buy hot water for cooking the MTR ready to eat.

[Torq-D]

Being a seafarer(vegetarian) ,I have been to many European port cities in last 15 years. I never faced any issues with availability of vegetarian food anywhere in Europe.
Restaurants in Europe are always more than happy to serve you vegetarian food. They try their best to serve you the food of your choice.

When it comes to far east countries, vegetarian food is difficult to find and better not to expect at all in China. So for a vegetarian family, Europe is best destination with family.

[bhairavp]

One more place I forgot - we did an Iceland holiday last year. 7 of us, 6 vegetarians. Vegetarian and vegan food was no issue at all, even at small fishing towns in the south-east of the island. Everyone speaks English as well - it was a very welcoming and friendly country.