Will

Hello,

I have celiac disease, as you might have guessed. I spent the first 5 years after diagnosis living in denial, and the following years after that also living in denial.

I met Annie on a celiac dating website. I joke, but wouldn’t it be great if such a thing existed? Life is so easy when you both have the condition, you can live in a completely gluten free household.

Do you know what I think all celiacs need? A disease explainer card. That way, when you go out for a meal with friends, colleagues or family, and it comes around to ordering, and you ask for something gluten free, you could avoid all of the questions that people normally ask. Even better, I think we need an international hand symbol for gluten-free, that only waiters and celiacs know about. How I would love to never answer the question “What happens when you eat gluten?”.

So who am I to be Writing About Gluten Free Travel?

Well, I travel, and I have celiacs disease. This was a bit of a dud question in retrospect.

Why do I write this?

Food makes up a big component on how happy I am in a foreign country. If I’m barely able to eat, the local people can be the nicest in the world, but I’ll still struggle to have a good time. Whenever we arrive in a new country, one of the first things we do is hit the supermarkets, markets and shops to figure out what we’re going to be able to eat. We’ll then spend the rest of the time in the country figuring out new ways to increase the variety of the food we cook with the available ingredients, and figuring out eating-out.

Thanks to this, important things have been pushed out of my memory and replaced with knowledge on how to survive each country as a celiac. So why not disperse this knowledge into the world wide web, so that others can get a heads up, or some advice before visiting a country.

Where do I like to travel?

I prefer to visit the places less travelled. Not because it’s cool, but because they’re not crammed full with other tourists. In the past, this has included South America and Eastern Europe. We’re currently in Africa, and in the future hope to tackle Asia.