Backpacking on a budget is usually a pitfall for travelers looking to maintain their healthy eating habits.
We all live with the illusion that traveling has to involve a lot of snack food, which is usually loaded with empty calories.
New and exotic foods can be super tempting, and the fact that foods which are unhealthy are often a lot cheaper than “real” food makes the problem even more real.
In this post, we’ll show you how to healthy eating while backpacking to traveling the world, even if you’re on a very tight budget!
5 Golden Rules for Healthy Eating While Backpacking on a Budget
1. Shop Local
Local grocery stores are cheaper and offer you a great way to stay on track with your healthy eating goals.
Make sure you visit the local grocery stores or markets to stock up on foods like fruits, granola bars, and some nuts.
2. Lodge Where You Can Cook
A bed and breakfast joint seems practical, but who knows what goes into the foods you’re eating every morning?
Aside from that, you’ll probably have to dine out at night if you don’t have the facilities to cook for yourself.
Easy meals to cook while traveling includes stir-fried veggies with some rice, pasta with a tomato based sauce, whole wheat toast and scrambled eggs, as well as yogurt with some granola and fruit.
3. Eat a Healthy Breakfast
We all know this: breakfast is your most important meal of the day. By eating a good, healthy breakfast, you’ll energize your body to power through the day, but it will also help keep your memory fresh, help keep you focused throughout the day, and boost your mood too.
The other great thing about eating breakfast is the fact that it may help you burn fat throughout the day and stave off fatigue.
4. Skip the Junk
We know that snacking is a part of many traveler’s experiences, and we are by no means recommending that you cut out the idea of snacking.
What we’re recommending is that you snack on real food instead of refined, sugar-laden foods.
Junk food will negatively impact your body and your healthy eating regime, it’s as simple and as complicated as that.
Try to stick to full meals, but if you can’t, make sure you’re snacking on healthy choices such as protein bars, fruits, or nuts.
5. Don’t Forget the H2O
Following and sticking to a healthy diet has a lot to do with how well you hydrate your body.
Drinking enough water helps you feel full throughout the day and will also help you avoid nasty headaches that can ruin your hiking plans.
Make sure you’ve got a water filter on hand if you’re exploring the wilderness, and keep in mind that isolated countries don’t always have safe drinking water, so stick to sealed, bottled water, or just use your filter if you’re unsure about the water safety.
Final Thoughts
We’ve shown you five very simple and plausible ways that you can stay on track with your healthy eating habits while you’re traveling, even if you have limited cash to splash on foods.
Eating and staying healthy doesn’t have to seem like a mission if you have your priorities sorted before you leave home soil.
Remember that although you’re off to have a heck of a time, you really don’t want to come back and start your clean eating habits from scratch again.
Just follow our advice and we promise you, you (and your budget) will be just fine!
