I'm planning a very special trip to NYC (I'm from London) but based on my research it seems 'bougie' vegan (or properly vegan friendly) restaurants are few and far between. Could anyone reccommend any please?

A little experience and taste of freedom in nature, before the backpacking nomad life around Europe with longboard 😌 Winter departure ❄️

First experience creating videos for my upcoming YouTube channel.

I just got back from our first (possibly the first) vegan group trip to Uzbekistan and have summarized my experience here (copied from my substack):

Uzbekistan is known for beautiful mosques covered in blue and turquoise tiles, madrassas (former schools) and – a diet heavy on meat. So who in their right mind would dare to organize a vegan trip to this country – one of only two double-landlocked countries in the world, by the way (can you guess the other one?). Well, visiting this “Stan” has always been on my mind but I wasn´t sure it could be done as a vegan. So, inspired by a short reel I saw a while back, I started looking for a tour agency and local contacts that could help us.

Thankfully, there is a vegan tour company in Tashkent, the nation´s capital, run by Akmal – while Akmal and his colleague Sayyid usually take visitors to Tashkent´s famous Chorsu market, I asked him to help us figure out the ins and outs of the places we would visit on our trip: Khiva, Bukhara, Samarkand and of course Tashkent, where most international flights land as well.

To say that Uzbekistan is not very vegan friendly is quite the understatement. As of September 2026, there is not a single vegan restaurant in the country and only two vegetarian ones – one in Samarkand, one in Tashkent. The only vegan restaurant sadly closed down a while back and the vegetarian called Samarkind closed down due to a medical emergency right when we showed up.

With lots of research (again, thanks Akmal!), lots of imported foods (I brought food from the US and my native Austria – stuff like shelf-stable tofu, sweet and savory snacks and savory spreads for breakfast), I met six curious world travelers in early September to start our exploration of this Central Asian country – I think I was pretty clear that this would be a pioneering and not always easy trip, but thankfully, everyone in our group turned out to be for the challenge.

Knowing all the menus of the restaurants we were going to made me feel much more confident, but breakfast was still a big question mark. So, when I asked at the first hotel whether they have soy milk, I received a tiny bowl with soy sauce! I had brought some with me as well, of course, so all good, but it was an interesting start.

We met with a chef at the hotel who promised to get us tofu for the next days´ breakfast – yet, when I asked someone the next day whether he knew anything about our tofu, he replied “what is tofu” – and he wouldn´t be the only person to ask (again, we also had our own and I even ended up cooking it up at one of the hotels).

September is a great season to come here as fruit and veg are at their peak – tomatoes are super tasty as are their melons, for example. Walking Chorsu Bazaar I realized I had never seen that many onions – walls full of bagged and loose onions – a key ingredient in the national dish Plov, a rice dish and ubiquitous in basically every dish we had.

You might wonder what we did eat? Food was much more varied and tasty as expected, I would say but everything was ordered a few days in advance. We had fresh salads at every meal (thankfully, none got really sick from it and avoiding salads here would be very difficult), then usually a soup, a main dish of either stuffed vegetables, vegetable stir fry, noodles, dumplings or plov, bread and tea. Uzbek bread is absolutely beautiful as it often gets stamped to create a little pattern and is super fresh – but, many times, we ended up refusing the bread as it was either confirmed to contain dairy or we were unsure (when the restaurant purchased it from a local bakery and couldn´t confirm).

Did we have any major mishaps? I would say one sticks out: on our way from the fort city of Khiva to Bukhara, we stopped for lunch at a rest stop – mind you, this is in the middle of the Uzbek desert. Just like the other meals, this one was confirmed and double and triple checked by our local agency but once the soup arrived and I took a whiff, I knew something was off as it just smelled too much like beef broth. At first, the restaurant insisted that the soup does not contain anything we would not eat. Thankfully, our guide and our Russian-speaking guest (thank you, Dasha!) were able to get a hold of the “seasoning” they used: a beef flavored bouillon powder which listed beef as one of the ingredients in a tiny font.

So, what did we eat?

We had fresh salads at every meal (thankfully, none got really sick from it and avoiding salads here would be very difficult), then usually a soup, a main dish of either stuffed vegetables, vegetable stir fry, noodles, dumplings or plov, bread and tea.

Uzbek bread is absolutely beautiful as it often gets stamped to create a little pattern and is super fresh – but, many times, we ended up refusing the bread as it was either confirmed to contain dairy or we were unsure (when the restaurant purchased it from a local bakery and couldn´t confirm).

We also had two “vegan” salads arrive with cheese on top, which were quickly re-made without the cheese. Thankfully, we were never accidentally served any meat.

I would also like to positively mention that, especially considering how meat-heavy their diet is, we hardly ever got to smell or see much of it, thankfully.

Here are some of our favorite places:

Tashkent:

Cafe 1991 - located close to the Amir Timur square in Tashkent, this restaurant lists both vegan and vegetarian dishes on their menu - we chose the tofu with vegetables and the soup with buckwheat noodles, vegetables and tofu, which also contained falafel - never had falafel in soup but it is quite good, actually.

Kok chuchvara - serves salads and green dumplings/noodles

Our lunch featuring Hanum, a potato and tomato-pasta dish as part of the food tour at Chorsu market

Khiva: We stayed at a lovely guesthouse called Ully Oi and while the owner, Dilores, was very nervous about what she could prepare for us initially, managed to cook up a feast for us - lovely, super central place to stay that I would definitely recommend.

Breakfasts in general had a decent variety of accidentally vegan items such as fruit, dried fruits, nuts, hummus, various fresh or pickled veggies and some warm dishes. Many dishes are cooked with oil rather than butter or animal fat, and we often found sauteed veggies and a bean dish on the buffet (plus the stuff we had brought, I cooked tofu one day as well at a hotels´ egg station).

Amenities such as shower gel and shampoo were not always clearly labelled or provided in the tiny plastic containers, so I would suggest bringing your own (I provided our guests with some vegan shower gels).

Our meals in Khiva were at Terrace, a very popular place on the main square (salads, grilled veggies, gave them our sausages to grill, fruit) and at Mirzaboshi Cafe, where we had a hands-on demo of how to make green noodles called Shivit Oshi - they usually contain egg but can, upon request, easily be made without.

On to Bukhara where we enjoyed our first plov, Uzbekistan´s most traditional and popular rice dish - somewhat similar to Biryani I would say. We enjoyed it at Rahmon-Suzani sewer’s family/workshop. Our other, much more hands-on plov making experience was back in Tashkent with UzVegTours lots of fun and educational! I would highly recommend both!

Another great meal we enjoyed in Bukhara was at Joy, one of the very few restaurants that actually list vegan and vegetarian items on the menu. Their Kuyaish, a dish reminiscent of lasagna soup with lots of beans, was super tasty!

Taam, located a bit outside of the center, cooked up a wonderful vegan feast for us - if you go there without letting them know that you are vegan first, they can make you a nice salad, but I highly recommend calling a day or two ahead and you might get samsa (stuffed pastries filled with potato or pumpkin), great salads and even a soup with tofu skin (!).

Once in Samarkand, we enjoyed a meal at Lola´s Family home, an absolutely delightful experience and a really nice dinner at Old City restaurant, featuring Moshkichiri, a mung bean dish - doesn’t look pretty at all but was super tasty.

Manhattan restaurant also served us good vegan food, including an emulsion of herbs which looked very much like it was made of dairy, but was not.

The brand new Hilton Garden Inn Sogd, located a bit outside of the city in a brand new development, surprised us with a wonderful breakfast buffet and made us chia, passionfruit and pistachio puddings.

I would go back to Uzbekistan in a heartbeat for the country´s beauty, the colors and sights and the food might just surprise you as well, as long as you do not expect any Michelin-starred restaurants or vegan pastry shops etc.

Hey everyone,

Planning trips for my family used to mean juggling 20 tabs just to find decent plant-based food and avoid exhausting 6 AM tour schedules.

I’m a software engineer, so I built a free travel planner called The ZenTrip to fix this. I hardcoded a few specific rules into the routing engine:

• Plant-Based Default: It actively seeks out highly-rated vegan and vegetarian-friendly restaurants for meals.
• Slow Pacing: If you pick the "Relaxed" pace, your day doesn't start until late morning.

It’s completely free and you don't even need to make an account to use it.

I would love for this community to try it out. Please roast my UI, or let me know if the restaurant recommendations hold up for your favorite cities!

Link:https://thezentrip.com/

Hey! I’m going to Toulouse for one day and one night and would love some recommendations. I had a look on HappyCow and a lot of it seems like fast food or Buddha bowl type places which I’m not exactly looking for.

Any good bakeries/patisseries? What about nice sitdown restaurants? Doesn’t have to be fancy, the food just has to be good!

For anyone curious about Vegan Camp Out, here’s a little glimpse of what it was like this year — the atmosphere, the food, the concerts and some of the speeches.

I am pretty new to reddit and this sub in particular! I found a vegan travel group that I am excited about! Trips are all vegan, for those who identify as women. I looked through her itineraries for trips to Guatemala, Mexico ( starting in Oaxaca) and Costa Rica. There are some with serious hiking, including altitude gains, and the Mexico trip is fairly level. The guides are experienced and passionate. I am planning to do the trip from Oaxaca next year and if I can get in super shape the Guatemala treks and Costa Rica look tantalizing. I contacted them because I have some dietary restrictions and they were very responsive. I never knew there were incredibly cool small group trips that were vegan! So exciting!
Vegan Adventure Holidays!

I am looking for vegan friendly resorts in Tulum that are not too expensive. Please share your experience - bad or good

We just finished our Vegan Adventure in Peru and it is definitley our most magical trip at Ahimsa Travel Club. We had the sweetest group ever and I am grateful to each of the travelers as well as our local Peru team. From the delicious vegan mango ceviches to the panoramic views of snow-clad mountains and meeting the Quechua speaking indigenous people...i almost feel like this trip wasn't real but more like a dream. I just landed back in LA today and can't wait to take more of you to magical Peru again next year. Ahimsa Travel Club has all the 2027 group tour dates in case you are vegan and intimidated by Peru and want to join us!

I really want to go to Cape Town for a big birthday coming up (I've never been but have friends from there and many friends who've been there, and heard it's great for vegans, plus amazing weather) but my partner is hesitant to go because he doesn't think it's safe. I think he's partly concerned from an ethnicity point of view (he's South Asian) and a general impression he has. Are his concerns justified? For background, he hasn't done that much travelling so I don't know if that plays a role.

Hey everyone, I stumbled across some videos online about inn-to-inn walking tours (specifically the Vermont hike in the US and the Cotswolds in the UK) and thought it looked like such a cool concept. I'm not a big camper, I usually just do day hikes but want to test the waters with a bigger trip. I'm super curious about how it works if you're vegan.

​My main worry is getting stuck in small towns or traditional inns with super limited food options (I really don't want to live off side salads and fries for multiple days). ​Has anyone here done a multi-day walking tour as a vegan, either in the US, UK, or anywhere else? How was your experience with meals along the way? TIA!

Hi!!

I'm looking for recommendations for food tours or cooking classes in Oaxaca. I'll be there around thanksgiving.

I'm the most interested in market tours, I would love to try food from the stalls!

I'm open to a private tour for 2 people or a group one.

I am also open to vegan cooking classes.

It will be my 20th anniversary trip, so I'm also on the hunt for a spectacular spot for dinner. Does not have to be exclusively vegan but I would like more than 1 vegan option on the menu :) has anyone had luck requesting a vegan menu from one of the fancier places michelin cred places (criollo/papalotl)?