In the summer we went on a week-long road trip to Europe in our Mazda Bongo with the kids. We drove 1700 miles from the UK through France, Germany, Netherlands and Belgium. We explored Amsterdam for a day, visited my husband Ben’s Gran in Germany, took an epic 10-hour drive to see many of the Delta Works in the Netherlands and stopped in Bruges before heading back home.

For two nights we camped in the Bongo in Amsterdam, we stayed at Ben’s uncles for a couple of nights in Germany and then an AirBnB whilst in Belgium. Our campervan is not converted, so it’s still an eight-seater downstairs which makes a great large bed for me and Ben. It’s a pop-top so the kids sleep up top.

We don’t have a fridge in the camper, so we had to come up with a whole list of vegan meals and snacks that we could eat on the go. All these plant-based meal ideas had to be made from as much dried food as possible. None of it could be refrigerated.

Plant based road trip food vegan things to eat when you have no fridge

Of course, at Ben’s uncles and the AirBnB we were able to use a fridge and cook, but we had to get the food there without using a fridge, so we stuck to non-refrigerated food ideas.

Between Ben’s uncles and our AirBnB we had a whopping 10-hour drive, so we needed meals and snacks for this. We also had two nights camping in Amsterdam, so had to be inventive with vegan road trip food ideas here too.

Vegan food on the go (with no fridge)

If you’re wondering what on earth you can eat on a road trip as a vegan or when camping, without a fridge, then here’s a stack of ideas.

We came up with as many ideas as we could to create a shopping list before our trip and took loads of food from home. That was a great benefit to driving and getting a ferry as we could really save loads of money on food and visit a UK supermarket before we left.

Here are loads of vegan road trip food ideas!

Superfood bars are great travelling snacks!

Celery and peanut butter – so long as it’s not sweltering in your car then celery will last a couple of days. Take some cutlery with you and spread some cupboard-friendly peanut butter on for a great energy-boosting snack.
Rice crackers with peanut butter or marmite, or plain. Rice crackers are perfect to munch on as a snack or to make peanut butter or marmite cracker sandwiches! These are perfect for kids lunchboxes on the go. Marmite doesn’t need to go in the fridge so it’s the perfect road trip food to create tasty lunches and snacks.
Wraps with peanut butter or marmite. Take an airtight container and you can store bread or wraps for a few days to make vegan sandwiches on the move.
Cereal to snack on dry, or with water or long life plant-based milk. Cereal is perfect if you take bowls and cutlery with you. It’s so easy to make a bowl of cereal with some long life milk. Try and get smaller cartons or make sure you all eat cereal at the same time so you don’t waste any milk. If you’ve milk left over then the kids may want it as a drink as you venture on.

Fresh fruit – some fruit will last a few days and doesn’t need refrigerating so take grapes, oranges, pears, bananas and apples to snack on.
Salad – the same applies to some salads. Tomatoes, lettuce, carrots and cucumber can last a couple of days out of the fridge, so you can snack on this or make your wraps or sandwiches more exciting for a couple of days at least. You can always plan to visit supermarkets whilst travelling to keep fresh salad and fruit topped up. Take a cool box to store it in, though the coldness will only last the first day unless you buy ice too.
Dried fruit makes perfect on-the-go snacks and won’t spoil. We love apricots, prunes and raisins. Stock up on some dried snacks from Graze before you head off.
Bliss balls also known as energy balls are mostly made from dried fruit, nuts, superfoods and seeds so they last ages too and don’t need refrigerating. You can buy these from the shops, but it’s so easy to make your own with these bliss ball recipes.
Bars, bars, bars! We love dried fruit, nut and seed bars of all different kinds. There are Trek bars, Pulsin bars and Nakd bars to name a few. These are perfect to pack in bags when exploring to stop hunger in between meals and on long car journeys.

Crisps – my favourite crisps are the Eat Real crisps and we also get the kids Organix crisps as they are organic and contain no sugar.
Fruit pouches are great for kids and adults too! ‘Baby’ fruit pouches aren’t just for babies, but kids and adults too. The best thing is they don’t need refrigeration at all. These were great for adding some more fruit snacks into our packed lunches each day. The kids get really excited about a fruit pouch in their lunchbox and me and Ben had one every day in ours too.
Breadsticks – nice and easy snack to hand out in the car when the kids are complaining they’re hungry!
Fruit crisps – it’s amazing how many things are made from fruit nowadays! Dried fruit crisps satisfy that crisp crunch you might be craving, but they also provide a portion of fruit, so are much healthier than regular crisps.
Popcorn is another great dried food snack that doesn’t need a fridge.
Nuts and seeds will keep you going when you get peckish.
Sweetcorn is one of my favourite things to eat out of a tin! It’s so refreshing and satisfies any sweet cravings. Most tins have a ring pull so it’s really easy to eat on the go. You just need a spoon. You can drink the remaining water too.
Pineapple – another tinned item that is great for road trips. It’s another portion of fruit and you also get to have the juice! We love the chunks in juice and the kids use reusable straws to get all the juice out of the tin.
Noodles and rice pots are a great idea if you have a way of heating up some water. We took a camping stove with us so we could heat up some water for noodle/rice pots and hot drinks. We enjoyed eating these when visiting the Kinderdijk Windmills in the Netherlands!
Green tea is packed full of antioxidants and great to sip on each day, in the car and out if you take a thermal flask with you.

When planning our road trip, we thought we’d really struggle to come up with vegan food ideas on the road. We actually managed to think up so many ideas that we had plenty of plant-based food options in the car, camping and whilst exploring Europe.