How to travel (and survive) Mexico as a vegan

Travelers seem to be interested in the characteristics of what makes destinations delicious. Not only to find out about the delicious surprises and how locals eat. Sometimes it is challenging to plan and execute a full meal plan when being on the road and having limited time. Road trips are by nature fast and adventurous. The same holds true for food and drinks along the way. I was doing a road trip in Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, and tried my very best to follow vegan nutrition. Without meat, eggs, and dairy products in Mexico? You should read this blog article if you are curious about how to travel (and survive) Mexico as a vegan.

Expectation vs. Reality hits hard for vegans in Mexico

México? That’s always ‚Chili con Carne’ and not ‚Chili sin Carne’. Meat greets you from every ambulant street food wagon on each menu and is a steady part of recommendations for what to eat in Mexico. Burrito, Taco, and Fajitas? Mexican dishes always come with chicken, cow, or pork meat inside. No exceptions possible. Good luck traveling to Mexico then…

In a way these assumptions are true. Like many other Latin American cuisines, meat and animal products heavily influence the Mexican kitchen. It’s also deeply rooted in Mexican culture, and people would impute Mexican dishes as spicy and meaty. Can you travel to Mexico as a vegan to survive having sufficient meals?

If I write ‚to travel Mexico‘, I want to highlight those vacations that don’t include All Inclusive supplies. Full buffets with rich options in Mexican All Inclusive Resorts are great because they offer preferred meals by choice. But all other vacations with plenty of visits to different places imply being fully responsible for one’s food supply. That’s quite a difficult challenge with very few plant-based options in the authentic parts of Mexico far away from touristic hotspots.

No, we are talking about old-school traveling. Hitting the road with a car and seeing what’s along the way. Eating when hungry, drinking when thirsty.

How to supply yourself as a vegan in Mexico?

Of course, this lifestyle also has its price. Vegan products are much more expensive than regular products. What is a general rule of thumb in every country is even more distinct and visible when paying for vegan products in Mexican supermarkets. You can expect 20-25% more costs for vegan products as many are imported from other countries.

Only bigger cities have supermarkets with a good range of vegan products. You would find in a typical Walmart everything a vegan needs. Smaller villages or towns have more convenience stores and tiny shops. It is much harder to encounter a decent variety of vegan products here. Especially oatmeal milk was a real hassle to find and gave me headaches regularly.

Some of the meaningful characteristics of Latin American countries like Mexico are fruit and vegetable vendors with their fresh products. It’s easy to spot them because usually, their little stores are literally bursting with colorful stacked natural products. These vendors sell fresh and ripe products that are ready to eat. I visited these stores frequently to supply myself with everything I need to prepare fresh meals in my accommodations or simply enjoy a sweet taste. And fruits accompanied me and always helped me when I was driving for a couple of hours and felt suddenly hungry again.

Are there a lot vegan dishes in Mexico?

Fully vegan plates are difficult to find in Mexico. Mexican people love to eat meat and animal products in Mexico and the supply of carnivore meals is omnipresent. Street food for example is fully staffed with meat options.

All in all, I must say that it was tough to find vegan options during my road trip to Mexico. The smaller villages are the lesser vegan plates they were offering there. Some regular people in the streets or in the restaurants didn’t even know the word ‘comida vegana’ and confused it with vegetarian meals.

I remember also proper restaurants with dozens of tables and capacities that were not even serving ONE fully vegan plate. Doing a road trip as a vegan in Mexico is a culinary trial and error endeavor. Patience is needed to find the needle in a haystack.

Usually, there are only very few options to encounter them on a menu what takes a lot of time to read the whole menu. Once finding a vegan alternative in the menu, it didn’t have a plant leaf icon or was highlighted otherwise. That made it very difficult to identify the vegan plate. Without language skills and waiter’s consultings it would have been a complicated issue for me. Most of the times, restaurants have meat or animal products on every menu. Vegan options are not marked as such and are difficult to find. To be fully sure I also ask how they prepare the food and what type of oil they use.

I am proud that a typical glutton with a blessed and proper appetite like me survived Mexico without consuming any animal-based product. But the journey to only consume plant-based products was a tough one. If you are interested in the best vegan dishes in Mexico on my road trip to the Yucatan Peninsula, you should continue reading.