How it started:
Hi! My name is Zoey, and I love Spain. For as long as I can remember, I have been obsessed with the idea of becoming fluent in Spanish and living in Spain – though I really can’t explain why Spain held such an attraction for me. After several part time jobs and a lot of turning down plans in favor of saving money, I finally made my dreams come true in 2013, when I studied abroad in Seville for the academic year. I became fluent in Spanish and found out that my inexplicable pull towards Spain was actually some sort of fate – I fell in love with Spain, and knew I wanted to go back there to live. I made plans to move there after graduating, but then something unexpected happened… I met Jordan in a Linguistics class my last semester of college.
While living in Spain with a partner was never in my plans, sometimes life throws you curveballs. I lived in Madrid alone for a year, after which Jordan joined me for two more. During my three years in Madrid, we were working as assistant teachers to fund our budget travels through Europe. Jordan is a linguistics guy who shares my passion for language learning, so I didn’t really have to convince him to immerse himself in a Spanish-speaking environment.
We absolutely loved Spain, and are definitely not ruling out settling down there in the distant future. However, after three years, my Language Assistant contract was up, and we needed to make moves. Our last year in Madrid, I had started learning Russian just for fun. Jordan had also studied Russian for a semester in college, so we looked into it and decided to move to Russia. Language immersion is by far the best way to learn a language, so it would be a great opportunity for both of us to improve our Russian. Armed with nothing more than the most basic Russian skills, not knowing much more about Russia than what stereotypes we had heard, we decided to move to Moscow and continue working as English teachers.
To our surprise, we absolutely loved Moscow and ended up living there for two years, learning Russian and traveling in Russia in our free time. After two years, we took our teaching jobs online so we could continue to travel full time. Now, we are working online and full-time traveling, and don’t plan on stopping anytime soon. We have been living and traveling abroad since 2015 and have learned a lot along the way.
How can we help you travel and/or live abroad as a vegan?
The entire time Jordan and I lived and traveled abroad together, we did so as vegans. There are so many misconceptions about traveling vegan that I’m sure all vegans are familiar with: “But isn’t it hard to be vegan in _____?” “What can you even eat at _____?” Jordan and I have traveled to 28 countries together, and have found delicious vegan food even in the most unexpected places. We’ve gotten pretty good at navigating menus and grocery stores, including in places where we don’t speak the language. We’ve heard hesitation from other vegans about traveling abroad at all, citing being scared about the possibility of finding (or not finding) food. Travel has enriched our lives and expanded our worldview in so many ways, and we don’t want the mistaken belief that there won’t be vegan food to stop anyone from enjoying their trips to the fullest. That’s why we started this blog.
We love learning languages, so between us we have (at least) conversational knowledge of English, Spanish, French, Russian, German, and Portuguese. We want to use our language skills to get excellent advice for anyone reading – to avoid language barriers and therefore make sure that our information is as accurate as possible, and to get a little more of an insider’s perspective in many of the places we travel. We have included language tips in many of our articles as well.
What’s different about this blog?
Many vegan blogs focus on vegan restaurants, which are delicious but not always the most budget friendly. We want to provide information not only about vegan restaurants, but also what vegan products can be found in supermarkets and shops worldwide – expect some international vegan junk food hauls in the near future. We will always include information about the grocery store situation in each place. We also want to help you explore the local food of each place by finding out what typical dishes can be enjoyed as-is, and what local foods you should try a vegan version of for a full cultural experience. We want to go to places where there is a lack of information about vegan food and figure out what to eat there so other vegans can travel stress-free. We shouldn’t have to choose between our morals and our desire to travel the world. We want to prove that we can be vegan anywhere, and so can you!
In the realm of budget traveling, we also love finding places to exercise outside, so we will include information about running routes and street workout equipment where applicable. Finally, we love hiking and backpacking, so we will also look into lightweight, easily rehydratable, and calorie dense options for wherever you want to do a long distance hike. Vegan food on top of a volcano? In the rainforest? On a glacier? You really can be vegan ANYWHERE!
If you want to see vegan supermarket hauls, travel tips, and more… watch this space!
Why do we not usually recommend accommodation?
Having a nice place to stay can make or break a trip, but everyone’s tastes are super different. We don’t feel like it’s authentic for us to recommend a place to stay in which we haven’t stayed ourselves. Because we are working and traveling, we usually stay in air bnb’s to have the amenities necessary for long-term living.