What To Buy To Leave You Full And Satisfied On Your Flight
If you have been following us for any length of time then you already know that we love to travel. The past couple of years we have gone on at least one trip a month. As this post goes up today, we are currently in Wyoming exploring Yellowstone National Park! I personally travel a lot for my day job as well, so between work travel and As Told By travel, I’m at airports pretty much every week. While this lifestyle isn’t for everyone, it’s perfect for me right now. I know the average person travels far less than I do, so I try to share the tips and tricks I’ve picked up over my years of traveling with those of you who may be interested in learning.
While I do typically try to bring some snacks with me when traveling, generally I reserve those for snacking while I’m at my destination, and I try to grab a meal at the airport to eat on the plane. I am NOT one of those travelers who arrives to the airport early and grabs a meal at a sit down restaurant before boarding the plane. I time my airport arrival to be just enough time to breeze through security (I have TSA pre-check), grab some snacks and usually a coffee, go to the bathroom (I hate peeing on planes) and arrive to the gate just as we start to board.
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I’ve become a bit of a pro at navigating the available airport fare and grabbing healthy snacks that leave me feeling full and satisfied. Keep in mind I am a vegetarian, so that limits my “grab and go” options a bit. I’m also sensitive to gluten, so I try to avoid bread when possible. So the common options (at least in the USA) of turkey sandwich or ham sandwich don’t work for me. I never want to eat anything heavy that will potentially leave my stomach upset mid-flight. Have you ever been sick on a plane? That has happened to me exactly one time, and I vowed never again! Even if I wasn’t a vegetarian, I would probably avoid weird airport meats for that reason.
I’ve tracked some of my airport meals over the past couple of months so I can talk you through how I do smart airport snacking.
First of all, I always grab a gigantic water bottle. Flying makes you really dehydrated, so I work to combat that by drinking as much water as possible before, during, and post flying. These tomato mozzarella bites pictured above are my new go to airport snack. I’ve seen them at many airports across the US so chances are you’ll encounter them. I like that it’s a wrap but it’s cut into pieces making it easier to eat. And you get a good hit of protein from the cheese.
This salad looked particularly fresh, and I was craving some veggies that day, so I grabbed it. Most airport salads have meat on them, or are filled with uninspired and questionable ingredients so I usually skip them. This was a pleasant surprise. I was concerned I might still be hungry as the salad doesn’t contain a lot of protein besides the nuts, so I also grabbed a dark chocolate peanut butter sea salt granola bar from This Bar Saves Lives. I also had a giant bottle of water here (not pictured) but this Bai coconut water sounded refreshing on this day so I grabbed that too.
If I do go for a sandwich, it’s typically egg salad. Yes I know, not the healthiest, but I can count on the protein from the eggs to keep me full. I love a kettle cooked jalapeno flavored chip, so I will always chose that flavor if it’s an option. My second favorite is BBQ. I remember my throat was starting to get a little scratchy this trip (who knows what germs I get exposed to in all these travels) so I also grabbed an immune support juice from Juice Press. The peanut butter dark chocolate candies were an impulse purchase at the register. Oops.
There are those tomato mozzarella bites again! They are pretty tasty! I tried these Quest protein chips in the BBQ flavor for the first time because I was curious, and they weren’t bad. I’m not sure I would buy them again, but they were interesting.
What are your go to airport snacks? Is there something you always grab without fail?
-Ash