One of my most popular posts is this one, where I got really excited about finding clearly-labeled vegan to-go items at a shop in O’Hare airport. Judging by my search terms and stats, lots of hungry vegans have Googled “vegan food O’Hare” and landed on that post, and I’m really happy to have helped them find something to eat during a long layover. It’s so irritating to be ravenously hungry in an airport and have to wander up and down the terminal in search of food, getting even hungrier and hungrier as you lug the carry-on suitcase you didn’t check because you’d be damned if you’d pay $25 so some burly dude could haul the tiny piece of luggage you can just as easily shove into an overhead compartment. Inevitably, when you finally give up and shell out $4.50 for a measly bag of crappy trail mix filled with GMO peanuts and way too many raisins, five minutes later you stumble on a stall that has vegan burritos or a really awesome salad or something actually filling. It’s so annoying.

Anyway, I’m hoping to avoid that pain as I travel today. As you read this, I am journeying from Madison to Minneapolis to Amsterdam and, finally, to Florence. Thanks to good ol’ layovers, I’ll be en route to Italy for nearly a day (give or take a time-change or two). Because I don’t want to deal with checked baggage on my international flight (and because I’ll only be gone for a week), I’m just taking a carry-on, which means I will be lugging it around the airport. To avoid the aforementioned annoying food-searching situation, I’ve taken matters into my own hands and prepared on-the-go, travel-friendly snacks for myself. Behold:

Vintage E.F. Tours backpack ftw.

The key to my travel snacks? Protein. Protein is what fills your tummy and keeps you satiated, so I made sure that my homemade trail mix (details in a post to come!) is filled with protein-laden nuts, as are the Larabars. I’ll eat the apple early on in my travels so it doesn’t get bumped and bruised, and I know it’ll make me feel nice and healthy. And I’ll use the cloth hand towel Lisa gifted me last year during a swap so I don’t have to waste lots of paper. It’ll totally offset the environmental unfriendliness of the airplane in which I’ll be flying, right? Yeah.

And the Halo candy bar? Well, there’s no lofty purpose to that one! It’s for pure pleasure, baby. I’ve never actually had a vegan candy bar (other than regular ol’ chocolate bars, of course)!

CANDYYYYY!

I’ll be sure to share my thoughts about the Halo bar, and I’ll let you know what vegan eats I encounter along the way. I’ll also report back on the vegan meals I’m served (or not served…) on KLM – I requested vegan meals from a very kind customer service agent who assured me all was set, but I’m not expecting anything grand. Who knows, though – maybe I’ll be surprised!

Anyway, that’s all for now. You should check out my “Vegan on the Go” tag for lots more travel tips! My favorite: carry your toothbrush with you. I always feel SO much cleaner and less grungy and travel-worn when my teeth are sparkly clean and minty fresh. And as I said in my first-ever travel post (be kind; it was early in my blogging days!):

[…a]nd if brushing your teeth in a public bathroom skeeves you out (which, to be honest, is pretty much the case with me), you can wait ’til someone cleans one of the restrooms and then dart in there, or you could bring some of those wet wipes and wash the handle, or you could use bottled water and not even touch the handle at all… don’t let germ phobia keep you from feeling minty fresh!

Word.

What are your favorite travel tips? What food do you bring when you travel? What’s your favorite vegan candy bar?!

Note: This is a scheduled post, because I’m currently traveling. Apologies for any weirdness with auto-publishing!