Its hard to eat well while travelling. I don’t mean its hard to find good, delicious food, I mean its hard to be healthy and eat balanced meals. We really wanted to keep our consumption in check during this trip, both for our budgets’ sake and our stomachs. Too much heavy food would way us down and too much eating out would shorten the trip.
We decided early on to avoid restaurants except for when we wanted something specific to the country or city. Plus, we liked the idea of eating outside and really taking in everything around us. Why not eat right on the beach instead of couped up inside a restaurant staring out a window at the beach.
Our accomodations were mostly youth hostels, and on a couple nights, private single rooms. It was hard to predict whether we’d have access to a kitchen, breakfast provided, or be completely reliant on purchased food. This led us very quickly to develop a food routine that worked well, no matter the situation.
We started everyday with coffee. 90% of the places we stayed offered at least a kettle to bowl water and we found Nescafe has a great instant espresso blend to make nice dark Americanos. When there was no kettle around an espresso on the street would be anywhere from .60 euro to 1 euro depending on the country and that was a cost we were willing to incur.
Our accomodations were mostly youth hostels, and on a couple nights, private single rooms. It was hard to predict whether we’d have access to a kitchen, breakfast provided, or be completely reliant on purchased food. This led us very quickly to develop a food routine that worked well, no matter the situation.
We started everyday with coffee. 90% of the places we stayed offered at least a kettle to bowl water and we found Nescafe has a great instant espresso blend to make nice dark Americanos. When there was no kettle around an espresso on the street would be anywhere from .60 euro to 1 euro depending on the country and that was a cost we were willing to incur.
Breakfast itself meant a trip to a bakery for a local pastry and a piece of fruit. In the Balkans this meant burek and bananas. I very quickly fell in love with burek, one day eating it for all three meals. In other places though this meant a custard filled Danish or cinnamon sprinkled roll and often an orange or apple.
By mid day we were usually quite famished, having probably not stopped walking since we woke up and so we had a heavy lunch everyday of a freshly baked loaf of bread or baguette with sliced meat (prosciutto, salami, chorizo, etc.) and sliced cheese (emental, gouda, mozzarella, etc.). Sometimes when we were craving something sweet we’d get a soda or chocolate bar as well.
At least once, sometimes twice during the day there would be an ice cream or gelato stop. How could we not?
Then, for dinner we had a few go to’s: meat, cheese, and bread again, or boiled vegetables with the powdered soup mix we carried.
Our diet wasn't overly exciting on the trip but it was exactly what we needed to keep going. We also made sure to be flexible, leaving room for anything local we wanted to try like Gyro in Greece, Pizza in Milano, Turkish Delight in Turkey and Horse Burgers in Slovenia.
Our diet wasn't overly exciting on the trip but it was exactly what we needed to keep going. We also made sure to be flexible, leaving room for anything local we wanted to try like Gyro in Greece, Pizza in Milano, Turkish Delight in Turkey and Horse Burgers in Slovenia.