My husband and I recently returned from a fun, week long road trip about 16 hours from home, our first long car trip since my days as a college student. It was a blast riding along the rolling green hills of West Virginia, hiking along the Red River Gorge in Kentucky and experiencing the live music scene in Nashville. But, along the route, I had a lot of time to think about the nutrition struggles we face when traveling, particularly to less populated areas, where our ideal organic/locally grown/vegan/gluten free foods may be hard to come by. So, I’m feeling a bit inspired to write down a few ideas of healthy, minimally processed snacks to take along on your next road trip, weekend adventure or just a really long Saturday at the kids’ baseball games:

• make your own trail mix, or really inspect the labels of store bought ones. I’m a fan of any combination of nuts, seeds and dried (unsweetened fruit), with a few coconut flakes thrown in for some flavor.
• Or, if you don’t have time to assemble the trail mix, pre-measured servings of walnuts, almonds or peanuts to carry in your travel bag work just as well.
• whole fruits, any kind.
• chop up veggies that travel well (carrots, peppers, cucumbers). If you have an insulated bag, pre-measured servings of hummus are a nice addition. Leave the ranch dressing in your fridge…or better yet, in the grocery store 🙂
• Individual servings of nut butters with brown rice cakes
• Dried edamame

These are just a few ideas. If you’ll have access to refrigeration, travel snacks are even easier to plan. Either way, never leave home without a plan, and a whole lotta healthy snacks!

*Taking a break during our hike to enjoy the beautiful scenery atop this bridge. And to eat some of our wholesome, trail friendly snacks, of course.