Easy Keto Meal Plan For Vacation

Vacations are a time to relax and recharge—but if you’re following a keto lifestyle, they can also be a bit tricky when it comes to staying on track. Between tempting restaurant meals, airport snacks, and unpredictable travel schedules, it’s easy to fall off the low-carb wagon.

But the good news? With a little planning, you can enjoy your vacation without undoing your keto progress. Whether you’re heading to the beach, camping in the mountains, or exploring a new city, these five tips will help you stick to your low-carb lifestyle while still having fun.

1. Pack Keto Friendly Snacks and Essentials

One of the easiest ways to stay on track is to be prepared. Pack a small stash of keto friendly snacks so you’re not at the mercy of convenience store options or gas station junk food.

Low carb travel friendly snacks to pack:

• Beef sticks or jerky (look for no added sugar)
• String cheese or cheese crisps
• Nuts and seeds (almonds, macadamias, pumpkin seeds)
• Nut butter packets (great with celery or just on their own)
• Pork rinds
• Hard-boiled eggs (for road trips or short flights)
• Electrolyte packets or keto-friendly drink mixes
• Low-carb protein bars (check the net carbs and ingredients)

2. Book Accommodations with a Kitchen or Fridge

If possible, choose a hotel room, Airbnb, or resort that includes a small kitchenette or at least a mini-fridge. Having access to basic kitchen amenities allows you to prepare simple keto meals or store perishables like eggs, cheese, and leafy greens.

Even just having a fridge means you can stock up on basics like:

• Eggs for quick breakfasts
• Pre-washed salad mix
• Deli meats and cheese
• Full-fat Greek yogurt or cottage cheese

3. Check Out Restaurants Ahead of Time

Before you leave or while you’re planning your itinerary, take a few minutes to check out the local food scene. Use apps like Yelp, Google Maps, or TripAdvisor to find restaurants that offer keto-friendly options.

Look for steakhouses, seafood restaurants, or places with customizable meals (like burger joints where you can go bunless or salad bars where you can load up on toppings without the carbs). Many restaurants will happily make substitutions so don’t be afraid to ask!

4. Stick to Simple Meals When Dining Out

When you’re eating out, think simple: meat + non-starchy vegetables + healthy fat.

Some easy low-carb restaurant meal ideas:

• Grilled chicken or steak with a side salad and olive oil dressing
• Bunless burgers with cheese, avocado, and bacon
• Omelets with cheese, spinach, and mushrooms
• Cobb salad (hold the croutons, watch the dressing)
• Grilled fish with broccoli or asparagus

Bonus tip: Ask for extra butter or olive oil on the side to help meet your fat needs and stay satisfied longer.

5. Be Flexible but Mindful

Vacations are about enjoying the moment, so don’t stress over being 100% perfect. If you go slightly over your carb count one day, don’t panic. The key is to be mindful and make the best choices you can in each situation.

Give yourself grace and remember: one off-plan meal doesn’t undo all your progress. Just get back on track with your next meal and keep going.

My Vacation Menu:

Keeping these tips in mind here’s a list of items that I packed for a recent vacation.

Success loves preparation. Since I wanted to succeed then I had to start planning some quick, easy meals that required no cooking or heating. I had access to a cooler and we could pick up ice to keep things cold so that would help. With a bit of creative planning I came up with the following meal plan for our trip.

Always check the stats and the serving sizes of the products that you use and keep in mind that not everyone will have the same macronutrient goals.

DRINKS:

I brought a case of bottled water with us and a few of our favorite no calorie drinks

CONDIMENTS / SALAD DRESSING:

I packed mayonnaise and mustard as well as a bottle of salad dressing. These will be used for the wraps and salads that will make up my vacation meal plan.

I also brought along some salt and pepper because we enjoy it on our eggs. Check your local grocery store spice isle for a set of cheap salt and pepper shakers. I found a set there for about a dollar.

BREAKFAST FOODS:

I packed the following to eat for breakfast.

• Cooked breakfast sausage
• Hard boiled eggs
• Avocados
• Low carb tortillas

The picture above shows some of the items we brought on vacation. In the plastic containers on the left are a mixture of sliced steak, peppers and onions that I cooked, cooled and then froze. The hotel we were staying at had a microwave so this mixture could be reheated before using in the wraps.

The idea was to have easy grab and go items to start the day such as hard boiled eggs and sausage. I also brought low carb tortillas so I could make breakfast wraps.

For our next trip we are going to include a small jar of salsa to use in our breakfast roll ups.

LUNCH FOODS:

• Low carb tortillas
• Cooked, shredded chicken
• Cooked steak, onions and peppers
• Sliced cheese
• Avocados
• Cheese roll ups

The cheese rollups are made by taking our favorite sandwich meat and rolling it around a cheese stick. For our trip I used mozzarella, cheddar and pepperjack cheese sticks. The sandwich meat included turkey breast, ham and a delicious rosemary ham that I found at the deli counter. They make a great grab and go snack or can be used as part of a heartier meal.

Our planned lunches included low carb burritos filled with a mixture of shredded meat (chicken or steak), cheese, avocado and salad greens topped with dressing or mustard. We also made burritos filled with avocado, several cheese rollups, salad greens and mayo/mustard.

DINNER FOODS:

• Prebagged salad mixes (Fresh Express kits include the salad dressing so I like using these)
• Cooked, shredded chicken
• Cooked steak, onion, pepper mix
• Avocados
• Hard boiled eggs
• Cheese
• Dressing

How to create Salads To Go:

The original plan was to make a big loaded salad to eat for dinner each night. But it takes a lot of cooler space to pack individual salad items. We bring our scooters with us so we can travel around to see the sights while on vacation. The small cooler we strap on the back doesn’t hold a whole lot. Packing on those ingredients would have been impossible.

But then I had a great idea for a quick and easy meal. Before we set out on our adventure we cut the top of the salad bag open, added our extra salad fixings (shredded chicken, steak, cheese, avocado, diced egg, etc), packed the salad dressing and forks then we were on our way!

These salad on the go were great! No plates to pack. No extra ingredients to take up cooler space. Super easy to clean up after eating. When you’re done you just toss the bags.

A quick word on the bagged salad mixes. The bagged salad blends from Fresh Express include chopped cabbage which gives it a great crunch.

These salads contain a blend of greens plus a packet that contains dressing and some other ingredients. Not all the extra ingredients are keto friendly. Some of the dressing mixes are high in carbs as well as some of the extra ingredients such as tortilla strips and croutons. Depending upon how many carbs you eat in a day you may want to avoid those mixes, or at least remove some of the ingredients, and stick with the mixes that only contain salad greens.

SNACK FOODS:

• Almonds
• Cheese slices
• Hummus/Carrots (please note: these are higher in carb items and not typically eaten by those on a keto diet. Occasionally I enjoy having them but I am aware that I can eat a higher amount of carbohydrates and not get kicked out of ketosis. Your mileage my vary on this item).

In the end we found the meals to be filling enough that we didn’t really snack on anything except for a handful of almonds here and there.

And how did the meal plan work out?

Except for one meal out at a steak house, my husband and I ate all our meals from the food we brought. The food was tasty and we didn’t spend a small fortune on purchasing meals out. There was enough variety to not be bored. The meals were able to be easily packed into the cooler for traveling. And the best part of all, unlike other vacations away, I returned weighing exactly what I did when I left. That’s a win in my books!

Below you will find some of the nutritional information for what we ate. Of course, depending upon what you use, this might not be exact.

Key:

F = Fat

C = carbohydrate

P = Protein

FB = Fiber

K = Calories

gm = gram

– Cooked breakfast sausage (1oz serving/1 link K=95, F=8gm, P=5.5gm, C=0gm, FB=0 )

– Hard boiled eggs (K=72, F=5g, P=6.3 gm, C=0.4gm, FB=0)

– Avocados (1/2 avocado, K=183, F=16gm, P=3.5gm, C=12gm, FB=8.5gm)

– Low carb tortillas. The burrito sized tortillas I found at my local grocery store had the following K= 110, F3.5 gm, P=7gm, C=23, FB= 13.

– Cooked, shredded chicken (½ a chicken breast K=142, F=3.1gm, P=26gm, C=0, FB=0)

– Cooked steak, onions and peppers (3 ounces of steak K=155, F=6gm, P=23.4 gm, C=0, FB=0/ onions/peppers (1/3 cup cooked has K=20, F=0.2gm, P=0.7gm, C=4.6, FB=0.7gm)

– Sliced cheese (1oz American sliced cheese has K=92.7, F=6.8gm, P=5.5gm, C=2.3 gm, FB=0gm)

– Feta cheese (1 ounce K=74, F=6gm, P=4gm, C=1.1gm, FB=0)

-Cheese roll ups (1 cheese stick with 2 slices ham sandwich meat (K=140, F=7.4gm, P=16.6gm, C=1.4gm, FB=0gm)

– Salad mix (½ bag of Chipotle Cheddar Fresh Express Salad mix (K=195, F= 13.5 gm, P=4.5gm, C=13.5gm, FB=3gm)

If you stick with a plain bag of salad mix such as the Fresh Express Premium Romaine then ½ a bag of salad mix contains (K=30, F=0gm, P=1.5gm, C=6gm, FB=3gm)

– Ranch dressing 2 tablespoons (K=110, F=11gm, P=1gm, C=2gm, FB=0gm)

– Dry roasted almonds (22 nuts/1 ounce K=169, F=14.9gm, P=6.2gm, C=5.4gm, FB=3.3gm

Total for a day of eating ½ breakfast burrito with 2 sausage/2 eggs, whole lunch burrito with chicken, feta cheese, ½ an avocado, bit of salad greens and some dressing and ½ a bagged salad with steak, onions, peppers, hard boiled egg, cheese and ½ an avocado came in around 1,700 calories, 102 grams of fat and 40 net grams of carbs. As I aim for 50 net grams of carbs and under this worked for me.

Looking to cut more carbs out? Simply eat the breakfast and lunch items without the low carb burrito to reduce the carb count to 25 net grams.

The three day meal plan is also easy to adapt to some of your favorite types of foods.

The meals are very simple and designed to be portable and require a simple cooler for storage during your trip. Swap out some of the food items you don’t like and replace them with your favorites.

The meal plan gives you a good foundation of quick and portable meals that you can build on.

Planning a vacation? Wondering how you will be able to stay on plan while away? Looking for some quick, no cook meals? Then stop by, check out the post, grab the menu with all the nutritional information to help you eat keto on vacation. It’s easier than you think!

Not going on vacation and just want some ideas of what to eat? Why not use the meal plan to create some meals at home? The meals are filling and you can switch things up to create a variety of meals for yourself.

Looking for another easy keto meal plan? Check out this budget friendly 7 day Keto meal plan.

 

Want to get new recipes sent directly to your inbox? Then subscribe to our newsletter (see below) and be the first to know when we post a new recipe as well as get weekly shopping, cooking and meal planning tips. Follow me on Pinterest where you can find links to our recipes as well as other recipes you and your family will enjoy.

Share this recipe with a friend!