Tips for traveling with kids and intolerances/allergies

So excited!! The family and I are in Cairns for the week to watch my amazing husband compete in the Cairns Ironman!! Interestingly, he has also followed K’s diet and loves it (with the occasional use of bread and rice/quinoa due to not having enough of the other options at the time)… But how do you travel with someone who is so reliant on ‘home cooked foods’ due to numerous intolerances/allergies?

Living with a child that has so many restrictions in their diet, traveling adds a whole other layer, but it certainly isn’t impossible!!

The following are a couple of things I have done to ensure we can all have a bit of a break and still enjoy food and all the social things that go with it:

1)      When bookings your accommodation. Pick somewhere that has a fully contained kitchen. Give them a call to make sure it meets your needs. Basically we just need a working oven to allow us to cook bread for sandwiches, toast etc and some muffins for snacks on the go. By having the conversation and explaining my needs, the accommodation has said they will put us in the room with the best oven to help out – awesome!!

2)      Also when booking, check out the location for accessibility to a supermarket and ideally a health food/ organic shop. Give them a call to see if they sell the things you need. It’s really hard to get suitable bread for K so I have pre-mixed the dry ingredients and now know I can buy the ‘wet’ ingredients up there. In fact the organics shop is on the same street we are staying on! But to make things easier, I also packed a ‘bake@home’ cake mix from Gluten free Grain free, the dry ingredients to make a ‘chocolate glaze’ and some desiccated coconut with the plan to make ‘Lamingtons’ (our fav!)

(bickies for the plane, whisk/measuring spoons/ measuring cup for cooking, bread mixes, cake mix, chia seeds for easy breakfast, coconut and glaze mix for lamingtons)

 

3)      Research any suitable restaurants/cafes so you might be able to ‘go out’. So happy there is a ‘Paleo Café’ in Cairns. Gave them a call and explained our situation and they have suggested to just come in and they will work out some suitable options for her then – am so grateful for this!!

4)      Anyone who has travelled/flown with small kids KNOWS food is your best friend…. giving you the ability to negotiate tantrums, waiting in lines and covering long distances!! For us, the trusty lunch box has saved our sanity on numerous occasions. We keep them stocked with cut up fresh fruit and veggies, preservative free dried fruits, sandwiches, mixed nuts and muffins/bickies depending on the need. We may also use certain ‘squeeze pack’ yoghurts and fruit purees for treats if things really are getting tuff!! :)

 

 

 

 

5)      Make sure you have some ‘Multix Bake’ baking paper (buy from Coles, Woolworths etc). This is the brand I find that works the best! With this, you can obviously line a tin to bake, you can wrap a sandwich to then toast in any sandwich press, use it to line the BBQ to prevent contamination from previously cooked meats including sausages and marinades, you can also use it to cook fresh fish on the BBQ - squeeze some lemon onto the fish and then use the paper to wrap it into a parcel (then buy a packet of Sea Salt potato chips and you have your own version of ‘fish ‘n chips’)…. you can also use it as ‘tracing paper’ for the kids too!!

So just a couple of things that have (and are) helping us have a great time away. Would definitely love to hear of anyone else’s tips that got you through your holiday too!!

…. So the big race is on Sunday and won’t be able to help myself but share how he’s going! Stay tuned!