Raw Tips when Travelling

I thought I would share a few of the lessons we have learnt since traveling and trying to maintain a raw diet. I know a lot of people ask us how do you do it? Isnt it hard work? What about when your travelling, how do you maintain your raw diet!

Well the answer to be honest is to be organised and flexible and where you can make the best choice you can!

Isabelle All rugged up while we were camping!

Travelling to NZ saw some new challenges for us as didnt have our trusty Harry the Hiace Van we couldnt pack what we wanted into the Van and off we would go! Instead we had to find local produce, and sometimes not Organic. As we see it its not the end of the world:)  Isabelle had also just started solids and I certainly didnt have the equipment to make her food from scratch so we compromised with Organic packaged baby food, and tried to feed her food which comes in its own natural wrapper, like Banana's, advocado, natures own baby food!

Some of the tips I have though are.

• Make your meal before you get on the plane and take it with you!  We made a big salad and packed it on the plane! Even international flights will allow you to take food on the plane you just cant take it through customs. So just make sure you eat all the fresh food up before you go through customs!
• When you land ask the locals for the closest health food store or organic food store! We found a great wholefood store in New Zealand and we bought up big! We purchased all our nuts, herbs, seeds, seaweed, sprulina at the one store.  This meant we had everything in a big box and didnt need to keep finding health stores every few days! It lasted the whole three weeks while we were there!
• Find an OP Shop! When we landed we headed straight to an op shop and bought a big salad bowl, some knives and forks some cups etc.. Its cheap its recylcing and when we left we took them straight back to the Op Shop!
• Try and purchase your produce from stalls on the side of the road. New Zealand was littered with road side fruit and vegetable stalls! often not organic but if you can get organic its the best option.
• Be Flexible!  We were often asked out for lunch and sometimes there is just not the option to eat Raw food.  Our attitude is to enjoy what has been offered (we always try and eat Vegan and then Vegetarian) if its not Raw the Raw police are not going to come knocking at your door! I feel its more healthy to enjoy the company your in, and know that you will eat another raw meal the next meal.
• If traveling with a baby make sure you take your baby backpack (we use the Ergo Baby Carrier) on board with on the plane! You often don't know how long it will take to get through customs! Landing back in Australia I had never seen such a cue before to get through customs! It took us three hours. And I was so thankfull that we had carried out Ergo Baby Carrier on with us!  Isabelle was none the wise and our arms thanked us.  It also meant she could sleep as all we had to do  was pull the little head flap over and all the stimulus of all those people was shut out. I cant imagine how tired Isabelle would have been if she was in our arms and couldnt sleep!
• Co - Sleeping Hamish and I don't practice Co-Sleeping with Isabelle when at home and we also have a Porta Cot for traveling with. However what you plan is not always the case. We found that as we were away from our home Isabelle wanted to be even closer to us!  So more often than not Isabelle was in bed with us for the night.  We actually went away with some family for the weekend and even our nephew was up in the middle of the night and hoped into bed with mum. Kids whatever age love to feel secure with their parents when in a strange place! Especially babies.  Although I personally dont get much sleep when Isabelle is in bed with us I certainly got the best cuddles and snuggles and enjoyed it thoroughly! Now we are back home she is loving sleeping in her bed!