How to Stay Whole-Food Plant-Based While Traveling: 10 BEST Real-Life Tips
What happens to your plant-based routine when your kitchen disappears?
When you're standing in an airport surrounded by fast food?
When your Airbnb has one scratched pan, three forks and a blender that looks like it survived 1997?
Or when your family chooses a restaurant where the most plant-forward item on the menu appears to be the parsley garnish?
Jeffrey and Jill Dalton have learned how to make it work.
The creators of the Whole Food Plant-Based Cooking Show sold their home, car and most of their belongings and began traveling the world with just two carry-ons, two backpacks, their camera equipment, a few clothes and a handful of cooking essentials. Along the way, they’ve continued cooking, creating recipes and living whole-food, plant-based from kitchens wherever their travels take them.
And their biggest lesson may be surprisingly simple:
You don’t need the perfect kitchen, the perfect restaurant or the perfect routine to stay plant-based. You need a few systems that work almost anywhere.
During a special event hosted by Nichole Fogleman inside the Plant Based Support community, Jeffrey and Jill shared what years of plant-based living, and now global travel, have taught them.
Here are some of their best practical ideas.
1. Stop Trying to Cook 100 Different Things
One of the easiest ways to make whole-food, plant-based eating feel difficult is to assume you suddenly need an entirely new culinary repertoire.
You don't.
Jeffrey and Jill pointed out that most people already rotate through a relatively small number of familiar meals. Their strategy is essentially to build a plant-based version of your own personal greatest hits.
Pick four, five or six meals you genuinely enjoy.
Learn them.
Make them again.
Get comfortable enough with them that cooking requires almost no decision-making.
Then add another recipe.
And another.
Their advice for someone starting out was wonderfully practical: make a list of about five favorite foods, including something you enjoy for dessert, and begin there.
That changes the question from:
"How am I supposed to learn an entirely new way of eating?"
to:
"What are five delicious things I can learn to make?"
Much less terrifying.
Much more sustainable.
Try this today:
Choose your five:
A favorite breakfast
An easy lunch
A comforting dinner
A meal you can make when you're exhausted
A dessert or treat you genuinely look forward to
Master those first.
You are building a lifestyle, not auditioning for a cooking competition.
2. Cook Once. Give Your Future Self Dinner.
One of Jill's easiest meal-prep strategies is making a large pot of soup and freezing half.
One cooking session can provide dinner, leftovers for another day and another ready-to-go meal sitting in the freezer for the week when life inevitably becomes chaos.
The same principle works with:
soups
stews
chili
curries
beans
sauces
grain bowls
casseroles
veggie burgers
cooked grains
And when you're already making a recipe you love?
Double it.
Jeffrey and Jill specifically recommend making extra and freezing it so there is always another meal available when you need one.
Convenience doesn't have to arrive in a package with 37 ingredients.
Sometimes convenience is simply something wonderful you cooked two Tuesdays ago.
3. Let Breakfast Be Ridiculously Easy
You do not need three elaborate Instagram-worthy meals every day.
Jeffrey and Jill explained that their own everyday meals are often very simple.
Breakfast might include fruit, nuts, tofu, toast with nut butter or sprouts. Lunch might be soup or a large salad. That leaves dinner as the main meal that requires more cooking.
This is a powerful shift for anyone struggling with a plant-based lifestyle.
Instead of asking:
“What am I going to cook three times today?”
build one or two meals that happen almost automatically.
The less mental energy your everyday meals require, the more sustainable your routine becomes.
4. Traveling? Pack Oats.
This might be the least glamorous travel hack in history.
It is also brilliant.
Jeffrey and Jill suggest carrying oats because even many hotel rooms provide access to hot water.
Hot water + oats = breakfast.
No restaurant research.
No desperate Google search at 7 a.m.
No staring sadly at a continental breakfast consisting of bacon, eggs and one suspicious apple.
Just food.
They specifically mentioned bringing a bag of oats and using the hot-water setup available in many accommodations to make simple oatmeal.
Add a few travel-friendly extras and you've got an emergency plant-based breakfast kit:
oats
nuts
seeds
raisins or dried fruit
cinnamon
nut butter
shelf-stable plant milk when practical
Plant-based travel becomes much easier when you stop expecting every meal to be discovered somewhere outside your suitcase.
5. Never Underestimate the Power of the Snack Bag
If you're new to plant-based eating, the period between “I know what I want to eat” and “I know exactly where to find it” can be tricky.
Jill's solution?
Carry food.
She specifically noted that keeping snacks in your bag can make the transition easier while you're still learning which restaurants and foods work for you.
Think:
fruit
nuts
dried fruit
homemade energy bites
whole-grain crackers
roasted chickpeas
simple bars
nut butter packets
homemade breakfast cookies
The humble emergency snack has rescued many otherwise questionable dietary decisions.
Hunger is persuasive.
Prepare accordingly.
6. At Restaurants, Look Beyond the Entrées
Here's one of Jill's smartest restaurant tricks:
Look at the side dishes.
A restaurant may have zero plant-based entrées and still have several components you can combine into a perfectly satisfying meal.
Potatoes.
Rice.
Beans.
Vegetables.
Salad.
Corn.
Fruit.
Steamed greens.
Grains.
Jill explained that after years of eating in places with very few plant-based options, she learned to build meals from the sides menu, and that those combinations can still be filling and enjoyable.
You aren't necessarily searching for the magical menu item labeled:
PERFECT WHOLE-FOOD PLANT-BASED HUMAN, ORDER THIS.
You're looking at the ingredients available and asking:
“What meal can I create from what's here?”
That mindset travels remarkably well.
7. Your Airbnb Doesn't Need a Dream Kitchen
One of the most refreshing things Jill shared was how little equipment she actually needs.
Jeffrey and Jill mostly stay in Airbnbs, which means every few weeks they may be working with completely different cookware and appliances.
Sometimes the ideal tool simply isn't there.
So they improvise.
At one point, Nichole noticed Jill had used one plate against another to strain something.
Jill's basic response?
It worked.
And that's the point.
Their travel experience demonstrates that many plant-based recipes don't require a luxury kitchen. If a temporary kitchen has the basics, Jill can usually find a way to make it work.
A small blender can also be enough for many needs. They discussed using a NutriBullet-sized appliance rather than assuming everyone needs a giant, high-powered setup.
Fancy equipment is lovely.
Dinner remains entirely possible without a countertop that resembles a Williams Sonoma showroom.
8. Grow Fresh Food Almost Anywhere
One of the more unusual tricks from Jeffrey and Jill's travels?
Sprouting.
They've continued growing sprouts while traveling, using them as an easy way to add fresh food to meals.
They talked about putting sprouts into meals throughout the day and described combinations ranging from peanut butter and banana to bowls containing walnuts, flax, fruit, tofu and sprouts.
For travelers spending longer stretches in one destination, sprouting can be an interesting way to bring a tiny living garden into a temporary kitchen.
A hotel room may not have a vegetable patch.
Your countertop can still grow something.
9. Don't Let One Restaurant Meal Turn Into “I Failed”
Jeffrey and Jill generally eat differently at home than they may be able to while traveling or eating at restaurants.
They explained that they choose restaurants and menu items carefully, while recognizing that restaurant food may contain more oil or salt than they would normally use.
Their broader philosophy was practical: what you consistently do at home and most of the time matters greatly to how they approach the lifestyle.
That mentality can protect people from one of the biggest enemies of sustainable change:
all-or-nothing thinking.
A meal doesn't need to become a moral verdict.
You make the best choice available.
Then the next meal comes.
And you continue.
For anyone managing a medical condition or following a medically prescribed diet, individual requirements may of course be stricter, and dietary decisions should be discussed with an appropriate healthcare professional.
10. Make Plant-Based Food Fit Your Life and Your Culture
Perhaps one of the most beautiful ideas Jeffrey and Jill shared was their desire to explore cuisines from around the world and adapt dishes so more people can experience familiar cultural flavors in a whole-food, plant-based way.
While traveling, they have been learning from local cuisines and simplifying recipes so ingredients are more accessible to everyday home cooks.
Their longtime favorite recipe illustrates this perfectly.
Jill's favorite remains an African peanut sauce, inspired by a traditional dish she originally learned through a family friend from Gambia. After becoming plant-based, she created a whole-food, plant-based version, and more than a decade later, it remains one of their favorites.
Plant-based eating doesn't require erasing the foods that mean something to you.
Sometimes the most sustainable question is:
“How can I keep the soul of this dish and make it work for the way I want to eat now?”
The Real Secret: Make the Healthy Choice the Easy Choice
There is a thread running through nearly everything Jeffrey and Jill shared.
Carry the snack.
Learn five meals.
Freeze the soup.
Pack the oats.
Check the side dishes.
Use the blender you actually have.
Improvise.
Keep going.
The secret to staying plant-based isn't spending every waking hour thinking about being plant-based.
It's creating enough simple habits that eventually you don't have to think about it very much at all.
That is where a dietary change begins turning into a lifestyle.
🎁 A Free Gift from Jeffrey & Jill
During the Plant Based Support event, Jeffrey and Jill also shared a way for attendees to download a PDF of their first cookbook for free.
They explained that their recipes are also available freely on their website, including recipes connected with cooking videos.
Explore Jeffrey & Jill's recipes:
Want to Hear the Entire Conversation?
We've only scratched the surface.
In the full event, Nichole Fogleman talks with Jeffrey and Jill about:
their decision to sell nearly everything and travel
staying whole-food, plant-based around the world
cooking in temporary kitchens
sprouting
their favorite kitchen tools
oil-free cooking
restaurants
meal prep
beginner strategies
airports and travel food
their favorite recipes
the story behind the Whole Food Plant-Based Cooking Show
And then the conversation opens to questions directly from members of the Plant Based Support community.
▶️ WATCH THE FULL CONVERSATION WITH JEFFREY & JILL DALTON
This Is What Plant Based Support Is About
Knowing what to eat is one piece of the journey.
Actually living it is another.
What happens when your family isn't plant-based?
What do you order at a restaurant?
What do you cook when you're exhausted?
How do you know whether the nutrition advice you're hearing online is reliable?
What happens when motivation disappears?
And who do you ask when you simply need help?
That is why Plant Based Support exists.
This event with Jeffrey and Jill is one example of the educational experiences we regularly bring into our community.
We connect members with experts across many fields, medical and health professionals, educators, experienced plant-based voices and people living the journey themselves.
And just as importantly, we connect you with each other.
Inside Plant Based Support, you'll find:
🌱 Support for every stage of your plant-based journeyWhether you're curious, transitioning, struggling, restarting or years into the lifestyle.
🎓 Regular expert-led educational eventsLearn directly from people doing extraordinary work in nutrition, cooking, health, behavior change and plant-based living.
🩺 Access to education from medical and health professionalsHelping you navigate the enormous amount of health information competing for your attention.
💬 A real communityAsk questions. Share wins. Get ideas. Meet people who understand why this matters to you.
📚 Resources you can actually useRecipes, practical education, events, discussions and tools designed to help plant-based living work in real life.
❤️ The missing ingredient: supportBecause information can tell you what to do.
Support helps you keep doing it.
You don't have to build your plant-based life alone.
Try Plant Based Support FREE for 14 days.
Then continue for:
$10/month
or save with:
$100 for an entire year
That's a full year of community, education, resources, expert events and support for less than the cost of many single consultations or courses.
Come with your questions.
Come with your victories.
Come when it's easy.
Especially come when it isn't.
We'll be here for the journey.
Together, as one, Andrea Tot
