G’Day Mate! Travelling to Australia is an amazing vacation and a beautiful place to visit. I took my first trip to Australia recently and had an amazing time seeing kangaroos, koala bears, beaches, and the outback. Of course for any trip I take, being extra vigilant about my food allergies was something I made sure was a priority.

Since they do speak English in Australia, handling my allergies was a lot easier than it has been when travelling to places where there is a language barrier. As you quickly learn though, Australians have lots of different terms and words that we don’t use in Canada. For example, green peppers are called “capsicum” and cantaloupe is called “rock melon.” To make sure people understand you when you are asking about your allergies, do a quick search online to make sure that they don’t use a different word to describe the food you are allergic to!

I wasn’t sure what to expect from “Australian food” as I didn’t know if their cuisine was substantially different from North American cuisine. Overall, they do eat a lot of similar foods that we eat here. They have some unique local dishes like kangaroo, emu, and camel (but don’t worry there are lots of other meat options for you to choose from!) Aussies also love their beet root and will often put it on burgers and in salads. Being completely surrounded by water, the coastal cities often have lots of fish on the menu as well, some of which are not found back here in Canada. So if you have a fish allergy, make sure you are careful about what you eat. They also have lots of fish and chip shops but it is important you ask about what oil they are frying the fish in as I did come across some places that used peanut oil.

Overall the concept of food allergies is quite well understood in Australia so if you tell your server about your allergy they should be able to easily understand and accommodate your dietary restrictions. I did find that food in the country tends to be a little more expensive than back in Canada – although tax is included in the price and they do not tip servers there. Therefore, I ended up buying a lot of food at grocery stores which have a wide variety to choose from at more affordable prices. I also found lots of peanut and nut-free snacks available so it made shopping a bit easier. Allergens are often labelled on any food product making label reading a quicker process!

I found Australia to be a really allergy-friendly place to travel as things are well labelled, no language barriers exist, and food allergies are quite prevalent in the country. If you are ever willing to make the long trek to the land down under, I would highly recommend it and would have few worries about travelling with your allergies!

– Lindsay S.