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Feeding Kids Abroad: Realistic Ways to Cut Down on 'Won't Eat'

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Your child won't eat on the trip—it's one of the big, familiar worries of traveling with kids. Unfamiliar flavors, too spicy, portions too big… Here are the realistic tricks our family uses to cut down on the "won't eat" moments.

What you'll learn

The one dish that worked everywhere for us
Why siblings do not have the same safe food
The unexpected thing we always packed
Practical preparation so mealtimes stop being a problem

1. What worked everywhere: chips

*A steakhouse in Bali. What they ate most of, in the end, was the side of chips*

Working out what the children will eat is a daily job on a trip abroad, and it is tiring every single day.

So here is our answer up front. The one thing both of our children ate in every country was chips.

It is an unglamorous answer, and it saved us repeatedly. Whatever the country, whatever the class of restaurant, they are usually on a menu somewhere. Knowing one dish that will get you through the day takes a surprising weight off a parent.

It is not a nutritional triumph, but across a few days of travel I decided that eating something beats eating nothing. Sightseeing with a hungry child is far harder.

2. Siblings will not agree

This one caught me out. Two children does not mean two children who eat the same thing.

For us, the elder would eat pasta with meat sauce, the younger would eat pizza. Same parents, same food at home — and yet their idea of "food I will accept abroad" differed.

The practical consequence is that ordering one dish to share does not work. You need to know each child's safe option. Deciding, before you go, one dish per child that they will definitely eat makes decisions much faster once you are there.

3. For us, the answer was yukari

This may be the most useful part of the article.

While children are small, bringing something you know they eat is the reliable move. In our case, for both children, it was yukari — a dry Japanese seasoning of salted red shiso.

On rice, obviously. What surprised me was pasta: they would skip the sauce entirely and eat it with yukari.

It sounds like a joke and it was remarkably effective. Plain rice or unsauced pasta becomes a meal. When a child stalls in a restaurant because the sauce is too spicy, too rich or simply unfamiliar, plain pasta plus yukari solves it.

A dry seasoning also happens to be ideal for travel: light, compact, shelf-stable and hard to spill. Single-serving sachets are easy to carry in a bag.

💡 Packing tip: find the one thing your child will always eat and bring plenty of it. Dry seasonings, seaweed and powdered soups travel well. Do check the destination's rules on bringing food in — processed meat and dairy are often restricted.

4. Preparation that pays off

The same holds at home: the taco rice place we went to in Okinawa had a children's portion, so we never had to divide up an adult one.

*A street-stall snack in Seoul. Once they get used to it, they start reaching for local food themselves*

"Not spicy, please" in the local language — especially valuable in Southeast Asia
A small plate and spoon for dividing adult portions
Know what the supermarket has — bread, fruit and yoghurt make a breakfast
Check for a kettle or microwave at your accommodation; either widens the options
Shift your mealtimes — off-peak, restaurants tend to welcome children more warmly

One more thing that matters more than expected: how good the hotel breakfast is. A solid breakfast carries the day even if lunch falls apart.

📌 Last updated: July 2026. Rules on bringing food into a country differ and change. Always confirm with official sources before you travel.

FAQ

Q. What if there is nothing they will eat? A. Chips were our universal fallback. Beyond that, having plain pasta or rice plus a familiar seasoning in reserve means you are almost never stuck.

Q. What should we bring from home? A. Whatever your child reliably eats, as long as it is light and keeps. Ours was yukari, which worked on both rice and pasta. Check import rules for your destination.

Q. What if siblings want different things? A. Know one safe dish per child. Ours were pasta with meat sauce and pizza respectively, so sharing a single plate was never going to work.

Useful for planning

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