Tiny Guide for the Vegan Traveler/Introduction

This chapter is part of the Tiny Guide for the Vegan Traveler. You can find the index here.

Previously published as the "Tiny guide for the out-of-home vegan", this text is dedicated both to the adventurous ramblers and those who have a normal job but don't have enough time or can't rely on the use of a stove to cook their daily meals. I've often met people saying "I had started eating vegan, but then.. you know, I was working eight hours a day, I had to eat outside and I couldn't find many options for me".

My vegan nomad experience is made of two long journeys. On the first I was poorly determined and after a few months I was won over by the gentle call of the comedores, tiny central american restaurants where the owner – usually a woman with kids – is also the cook, the waiter and the cleaner. In these places, above all, the only vegan options, that I had until saturation, where rice and black beans. So I gave way to laziness and I added some eggs and cheese to my daily menu.

A few years later I was on the road again, infinitely more determined to keep vegan the whole travel, that finally lasted more than one and a half year. With some organization and a bit of equipment I managed to enjoy healthy, vegan, diverse and tasty foods for the whole trip.

Thus I gather in this script the fruits of these experiences, the recipes and the tricks I invented, to help with some suggestions both the warriors that are about to take the backpack, and those who defy the culinary traditions in the cities, the same people who – despite the traffic, the always lacking time and money, the carcasses-filled fast foods, the thousands of appointments on one and the other side of the city – keep struggling to follow their choice.

Continue to Chapter 2 • Long-lasting energetic recipes