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Special Dietary Needs While Abroad
Traveling abroad with special dietary needs can be difficult especially when you don’t know what will be available when arriving in a different country. Whether you are traveling abroad with food allergies, eating choices, religious restrictions, or different dietary needs, it's important to plan and research in advance.
- Plan as much in advance as possible. Begin these conversations with your program administrative support early.
- Self-Advocacy is important, nobody knows your body better than you. Be able to speak up and ask questions about how your special dietary needs will be met abroad.
- Bring specialty items required for nutritional health, as your health is linked to how you deal with many things while abroad.
- Be very clear with your host family, roommates, or program on what your special dietary needs mean. It's recommended that you have explanation prepared as some people may not understand what it means be vegan, vegetarian, etc.
- If you have any allergy response medication such as antihistamines, EpiPens, insulin, or inhalers, you should share the location of these with your roommates, friends, and host family. If medications need to be stored in a certain way, explain this to your roommates or host family as well.
- Carry a card with your allergy or dietary needs translated into the host country language. You can purchase these in places like Select Wisely, Equal Eats, or FoodAllergy.org.