Vegan in Reykjavik | Iceland

In December I visited Reykjavik in Iceland, it's a beautiful capital city surrounded by some of the most incredible scenery you'll ever see.

Approaching Christmas, almost every house and tree had warm white lights making even the cold feel cosy and Christmassy. Sunrise was around 11am and sunset/darkness around 4, but the sunrises and sunsets sort of merged into one another, with the sky glowing pink, orange and yellow hues for hours. It was absolutely breath-taking.

Day 1:

Vegan in Rhodes | Greece

I recently visited Rhodes town in Greece with my mum, it was on my birthday week and the trip was just stunning, from the food, to the people, the scenery and the weather, I couldn't recommend it enough.

As for food, we had a really great balance of accidentally vegan options which you can eat in most restaurants like dolmadakia (vine leaves stuffed with rice) gemista (tomato & peppers stuffed with rice), gigantes (butter beans in tomato dill sauce), olives, aubergine salad (a dip), fava (split pea dip), hummus, greek salad & dakos (minus the feta), falafel, grilled veg, pita, lemon potatoes and mountain greens, to veganised versions of classics including gyros, moussaka, feta in phyllo with 'honey' and gelato of various flavours.

Rhodes also has a strong Italian influence, so they also have accidentally vegan pasta dishes like spaghetti aglio e olio, and arrabbiata, so there's really something for everyone.

Vegan in Stockholm | Sweden

Something my mum has always taught me is to prioritise experiences over physical presents, creating memories that last a lifetime and spending time with those who matter. Because when you look back, you might not remember what you got, but you will remember going out for that meal or visiting that place and who you did it with. So in the true spirit of experiences, I thought my mum deserved just that for her birthday this year and I took her to Stockholm for a long weekend. 

We spent our time exploring the city, doing Christmassy things, taking pictures, enjoying plenty of vegan eats and each other's company. My mum is also vegan and Stockholm was pretty vegan-friendly place, from entirely vegan restaurants to labelled offerings in the Christmas markets, we were never too far from something delicious to eat and got to experience some traditional Swedish eats too.

Vegan in Dubrovnik | Croatia

This year I've been making more of an effort to do new things, visit new places, be more spontaneous and live a little more outside my comfort zone; I've tried wakeboarding, paddle boarding, surfing a couple of times and have visited multiple countries too. I went on a solo trip to Chania, Crete in the summer and it reignited the travel bug in me; followed by a work social to Cascai, Portugal in early September and I'm well and truly in love with travel once again. Most recently I took a trip to Dubrovnik, Croatia with my mum - it was the fastest I've ever decided where I'm going and booked a trip, from the idea of going away to having it booked within 3 hours, but that's what made it even more exciting. I absolutely love travelling with my mum, we have really similar travelling styles, always both carrying our cameras, are eager to explore on foot and she's also vegan too (I wonder where I get it from?) - it was such a fantastic trip and I can't wait for the next one. 

Croatia is one of the most beautiful European countries, a quick search will return pictures of turquoise blue coastlines, historic buildings, islands and plenty of greenery, and it truly lived up to the magic. There's a very broad range of cuisine influences in Croatia due to its history; largely Mediterranean with dishes like black risotto, homemade pasta, and stews, traditionally very high in fish and meat, but despite this, we were able to find some great vegan dishes during our stay in Dubrovnik.

We spent 8 days in Dubrovnik, explored the surrounding areas, visited an Island and even had a day trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina, it was filled with some exploring, relaxing, eating and a myriad of steep stairs leading up and down to the walls of the city - which makes for a fantastic walk with a stunning aerial view of the city centre and coast.

Vegan in Chania, Crete | Greece

I recently visited Chania in Crete, Crete is the largest Greek island and is one of about 200 that are inhabited. This holiday was a solo trip and it was one of the best holidays of my life; from incredible food and wine, beautiful beaches, mountains, sunsets, fascinating history, incredible architecture and some fantastic people I met along the way, this trip will be truly unforgettable.

The incredible thing about Cretian, or even Greek food is how vegan-friendly it is. So many of the dishes are accidentally vegan or can easily be adapted and it's centered around locally grown and seasonal ingredients and plenty of fresh herbs and olive oil. So in this blog, I'm going to share with you the food I ate in Chania, some dishes that you can try if you visit, and a few restaurant recommendations, as well as my tips for finding the best restaurants and some fun things to do in Chania! I hope you get comfy and enjoy the read, but I've also included a quick guide below with all the highlights. 

Vegan in Copenhagen

Copenhagen is a beautiful city, filled with breathtaking sights, incredible sunsets, delicious food and plenty to explore. I visited with a couple of friends and over the 4 days we each walked 42 miles; 99,699 steps. Copenhagen is the perfect city to explore on foot, in its full glory when the sun is shining and the weather is a little warmer too. So have a read and virtually explore where you can eat and what you can do in Copenhagen! Everything's listed in the order we visited, which is all pretty close geographically and shown on a map at the bottom of the page, or here. 

I'd heard great things about the vegan food scene in Copenhagen, with tons of recommendations from friends about where to visit and I certainly wasn't disappointed. We explored fully vegan places as well as those with vegan options; from mixed salads to spaghetti carbonara, pulled mushroom burgers to danish pastries, we had a whole range of delicious food to eat! There's a real emphasis on using local and seasonal produce in many establishments and I really love this focus on sustainability throughout the city, from food to transport, with Tesla taxis and dedicated bike lanes. 

Vegan In London

Having lived in London for a year now I've visited more than my fair share of places with incredible vegan options and it seemed selfish not to share them with you all! Here's my ultimate guide of where to eat vegan in London. From matcha lattes to breakfasts, brunches, burgers and desserts, from vegan options to fully vegan, here are 40+ places to get your hands on some great vegan food in London! I'll keep updating this list as I try new places, so watch this space and comment below if you know somewhere I just have to try!

Vegan in Edinburgh

I've just returned from a 4 day trip to Edinburgh, Scotland. Despite having already visited 21 countries, I'd never gotten up to Scotland, so with insanely cheap flights and some holiday days to use up, I flew out to Edinburgh on Monday. This was my first solo trip, filled with plenty of walking, exploring, photography and most importantly - good food!

Edinburgh has a unique balance of gothic buildings, cobblestone streets, modern city life and nature, it really has it all (including a lot of hills) and being on the smaller side it's pretty walkable, meaning you get a good feel for all the elements. There seems to be a gentle hum of bagpipes wherever you go in the city, just reminding you where you are; Edinburgh is a place full of heritage and history and it's something you're completely immersed in during your visit. So put your walking boots on, wrap up warm (if it's winter) and get exploring! 

Vegan in Amalfi, Pompeii and Naples

Being vegan in Amalfi, Pompeii and Naples, is very similar to Sorrento and Capri - covered in my last post, the options are pretty similar and the food is delicious. Have a read of what we did, what we ate and my top tips for picking the best restaurants whilst travelling.

Amalfi

You can get to Amalfi from Sorrento via ferry or via coach, the ferry is quicker and probably the most pleasant way to get there, but the last one back is around 4/5pm, so isn't ideal if you'd like to spend a bit more time exploring Amalfi. The ferry also stops at Positano on the way and runs twice a day from Sorrento, we also saw some other boats, which give you two hours in Positano before taking you to Amalfi. The town is just a few minutes from the port and beyond this is thousands of lemon trees, then 3KM uphill from the town is a lovely walk through the woods, via some ruins to a waterfall, with many little waterfalls along the way.

Head straight up through the main square and up the streets and follow the steps up to Valle delle Ferriere, at the top there's a little organic cafe/farm shop with lemonade slush (made with their own lemons), fresh fruit and veg and only biodegradable cups. Another 45 minutes or so uphill from here you'll reach the top of the waterfall - or as far as you can go; you'll see a gated off area with some steps across the waterfall and further up, but as this is part of the national park, it's closed for nature preservation. Our favourite site was about 20 minutes from the top, there was a little building in ruins, which we went into and under a little archway to reveal a stunning waterfall from a little viewpoint. 

Vegan in Sorrento & Capri

Since I first visited over 10 years ago, I've always loved Italy, the scenery, the culture, the food and something I most recently learned to appreciate...the red wine (and limoncello!). There's just something about Italy and that's why I wanted to see more of it, having previously visited the main cities and lakes, mostly in the north.

This time around we visited Sorrento and the Amalfi coast, with a brief half-day stop in Naples before our flight and it was the best birthday present I could ask for, so thank you to my parents who I had the best week away with! This being my first trip to Italy since going vegan, I'd almost anticipated to eat a marinara pizza for every meal, which, when you're going to the place that pizza was invented and the specialty is a cheese-less one, you can't really complain, but I was pleasantly surprised with the accidentally vegan choices there were! Keep reading for a list of accidentally vegan menu options in Sorrento! 

Sorrento

We had 5 full days in Italy, we were based in Sorrento and took trips to Capri, Amalfi, Pompeii and finished our holiday in Naples. The whole week was filled with plenty of walking, some incredible food, sunshine and a healthy amount of red wine and limoncello, all in the presence of great company. Cheers to that!

Vegan in Slovenia: Ljubljana & Bled

Travelling as a vegan is certainly becoming easier and makes it that much more enjoyable to explore new places. Part of the joy of travelling to me is trying new foods, which is made easier by how vegan friendly both Ljubljana and Bled are! I'm going to do two posts about my week trip to Slovenia; one on food and one on all the amazing things we saw and did. I would highly recommend Ljubljana and Bled to anyone and I hope that some day I get to see more of this amazing country! What's best is almost everyone we encountered speaks English, which means you can ask for a cheese-less pizza etc if you wish, without worrying about misunderstandings, though there are plenty of places that serve vegan food so you shouldn't ever be stuck for options!

Ljubljana 

Barbarella Arkade Bistro

We visited this vegan bistro for breakfast on our third day in Ljubljana and were so impressed that we just had to go back for lunch. The restaurant is located along the river bank by the central market, it has a small inside seating area with more room for tables outside. The Barbarella Arkade Bistro was one of my favourite places in Ljubljana and possibly ever - the food was so fresh and it was clear that a great deal of thought and creativity has gone into the menu.

Vegan in Budapest - Day 4

Day 4 of our trip to Budapest was going to be the hottest one yet, so we decided to go to Margaret Island, where there is a series of open air pools, along with parks, playgrounds, fountains and an open air cinema, you can hire bikes too. By this point we had explored so many places that our feet were aching, and 34°C weather is hardly that for exploring. So we hopped on the metro, then took the 26 bus using our Budapest cards to Margaret island! Being around water all day also meant however, that I decided not to bring my camera, so pictures are from my mum's digital.

On the way we noticed a 'vegan' restaurant, called 96 Zen that we thought we could get some smoothies from for breakfast. We had a frozen mango smoothie, which was so delicious, and we were assured was 100% vegan. The only bizarre thing was that the owner was selling bubble tea with cows milk, despite the word 'vegan' plastered in big letters over the front of the window. So, I don't know if this was mistranslated, whether they haven't updated the front of the building, or the vegan part just means the Chinese buffet style food they were serving. But, I would highly recommend the mango smoothie (frozen mango + ice), just make sure to ask exactly what's vegan if you happen to go in there!

Vegan in Budapest - Day 3

I woke up this morning, at 5.38, sun shining through the windows of my new (and very first) apartment and I couldn't have been more excited to be awake! So, even though it was about 3 hours until I'd usually wake up, I thought I'd make use of the time! Since getting back from Budapest I have been busy with a few bits for uni and mostly packing, to then unpack it all again yesterday, which was thankfully pretty enjoyable - finding a new home for everything. And most importantly, I now have my own kitchen to cook and blog in!

I've still got a few more days of Budapest to share with you all - so here's day 3!

Day 3

On the third day of our holiday an old friend of my mums showed us around for the day. We started off by meeting her at a little vegan restaurant on the Buda side for fresh juice and a snack before we headed off on the train to the little town of Szentendre with her an her little boy.

The town of Szentendre is stunning, it's quite old fashioned with its cobbled streets, but the buildings are painted the most wonderful colours; bright yellows and pinks, which with the sun shining on, makes this town feel like something really amazing.

Vegan in Budapest - Day 2

Day 2

Vega City

Vega City is a cafeteria style restaurant, where you are served immediately upon ordering, this, the convenient location and the delicious vegan options meant that it was a very popular lunch spot for many Hungarians. Being across the road from the Hungarian National Museum meant that we had both breakfast and lunch in this spot. We had smoothies and a brownie for breakfast, all of which were delicious! There was a choice of about 8 smoothies out when we went in, some of which quite unusual combinations, but the ones we tried were quite delicious! 

After the museum we went back for some lunch; upon walking in we noticed these amazing looking burgers, one of which had a stripy bun like a tiger! I ordered a layered rice, tomato and kale bake, topped with sunflower seed sauce and a side salad and my mum had a mushroom and kale pasta dish. The rice option I ordered seemed to be quite popular among the other customers, it was packed with flavour and I would definitely order it again, though it was very filing and I struggled to finish it!

Vegan in Budapest - Day 1

With the breathtaking architecture and beautiful places to visit Budapest is building up popularity as a must visit place for those who love to explore. It's also building up momentum as a must visit place for vegans, all over the cities there are more and more vegan & vegetarian restaurants and with an influence from a few middle eastern countries, hummus and falafel are never too far away!

We only had 5 days to explore both cities (one side of the river is Buda and the other Pest), so my mum and I thought it was important to do lots of research and put together a bit of an itinerary of 'must visit' places, to get the most out of the trip, I then plotted these on a map, so if we did change what we were doing, we could see what other things we wanted to do were around that area, and where we could eat too. We needn't have worried about how far everything was in walking distance though, the cities are well connected with buses, trains, trams and the metro line, which are all included with the purchase of a 72 hour Budapest card, and can take you wherever you need to go within the cities (with a little assistance from Google maps for direction & how many stops).

Elephant Nature Park & Other Days

The baby

Thought I would update again to share more of my experience, from today we have a week left and it has been such an amazing trip, I love to travel and explore the area we are in so this is truly amazing!

We have visited many different places over the past week, including the elephant nature park (full review below), many different restaurants, temples, mountains and waterfalls, as well as meeting many more of Ploi's family. The history in Chiang Mai and it's surrounding areas is incredible and it is evident that family means a great deal, it is how family is supposed to be; they look out for one another, take care of one another and always stick together which ensures greater success from the strong support system.

Chiang Mai

Pad Thai

Hi, sorry I haven't updated in a few months, I had all my exams, then my birthday, prom, then my Spain holiday with friends and I'm currently in Chiang Mai, Thailand. So as you can see I've been extremely busy and really haven't had time to blog. We are mainly eating out here or being cooked for so instead of posting my recipes I'm going to post some pictures of my trip and the food I've had here. My mum and I arrived here last Thursday and from today have two weeks left.