Health Tip #91: Eat healthier when travelling abroad or out of town by cooking your own food in an apartment hotel

I tend to eat more unhealthy food when I go on vacation than when I'm at home. It's mostly because when I'm in a new country I, of course, want to try their kind of food, even if I know it's more unhealthy than McDonald's! (Or it is simply because I just can't find any good restaurants that serves real healthy food.)

I just got back from a trip from Amsterdam, Holland. I've been there before, and I've tried their food, so this time I wanted my experience to be different. I decided to rent an apartment hotel instead of a regular hotel room to cook my own food so I could focus on eating healthy this time around.

The reason I'm writing this tip is to let you know that you can indeed be healthy when you go abroad or out of town. There are options. And I actually didn't think of this option of renting an apartment hotel until recently when I got the tip from a friend.
If you're interested in how you can be healthy during an upcoming vacation of yours - get tips on how to do it by reading here on how I did it.

PREPARATION
First of all, it was rather easy finding an apartment hotel on the web. To my surprise, it cost about the same as a hotel room! I found one that was situated only 5 minutes by walk from the central station. Very convenient! Now, finding organic food in the middle of Amsterdam was a bit of a bigger task. I should have looked it up more in advanced - I only found a regular food store, which I'm glad did have some organic foods, like organic apples.
I already prepared my stay by bringing recipes and some of my own food, for example: Tamari (organic wheat free soy sauce), organic honey and organic oats. (I also brought my Chlorella algae tablets on the trip.)

AFTER ARRIVAL
The food store was nearby (thank you, Google Maps!), so I headed to it almost immediately after arrival. I picked up organic apples, chicken filet, potatoes, carrots, broccoli, cucumber, cauliflower and ingredients for an apple dessert. I planned to bring organic spices and herbs with me, but I forgot them at home, so when I couldn't find any in the food store, I skipped using any. (Tamari became my salt during this trip!)
The main goal of my food hunting was to find food that was not processed or filled with preservatives and additives - something my goal back home always is when it comes to food.

FIRST COOKED MEAL
The first meal was to be a chicken soup with potatoes and all those vegetables I bought. To save time for other planned activites, I cooked so I could store some in the refrigerator. (This soup lasted more than 2 days!)
Afterwards I made an apple dessert from a recipe I found in a health magazine. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the results of both the dessert and the soup.
I am considering writing a tip of the dessert though, because it was very yummy and it contained no sugar! The sweet taste came from the apples and the organic honey.

AFTERTHOUGHTS
As you can see on the photos, the kitchen was fully equipped and contained everything I needed to be able to cook. The rest of the apartment was great too! The bedroom was large, and the living room (me in the picture) was awesome, with TV and free access to the internet!
It think this whole experience was very cool and unique. It was such a different feeling to come back to a "real" apartment compared to a hotel room after being out and about for a whole night.

I really recommend renting an apartment hotel if you want to be healthy and try something new at the same time when you're abroad or out of town.
Give it a try!