Eating out while travelling as a coeliac/ gluten freebee is a pain in the arse.
Everywhere I’ve travelled, and particularly across Asia, there is very little understanding of what “gluten” means. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had wait staff respond “Oh yes, gluten free, no problem, we have lots of vegan options!”
It’s very common to find “gluten free” marked on menu items that are absolutely not gluten free (e.g. dishes that contain soy sauce, granola, oats etc).
One thing I’ve found that helps a LOT, is having a decent gluten free coeliac travel card in the language(s) of the country I’m visiting.
However, I’ve found that the coeliac cards you can buy and/or download for free online are pretty average at getting across the key details, especially when it comes to commonly misunderstood gluten-containing ingredients like soy sauce, stock powder, etc.
So I’ve spent an unreasonable amount of time using Photoshop and Claude to make and test out my own gluten free coeliac travel cards while travelling. Hopefully you find them helpful too – I’d love to know if you try them out!
I print these out, cut them into two credit card-ish sized rectangles, put them back to back so I have the English translation on one side and the translation on the other side, then laminate them and pop them in my wallet. You can also put them on your phone, but I find it’s better to have a laminated version since most waiters like to take it with them and confer with the chefs or other wait staff.
In Indonesia and Sri Lanka, the cultures are such that it’s common to have 8 people all standing around reading your card and discussing it together to figure out what you can eat, I love it!
Even if staff tell me they know what gluten free means, I ask them to take the card to the chef to double check the ingredients.
If you spot any translation mistakes or experience any repeated misunderstandings while using these cards, please contact me here so I can fix them up for others to use. I’ll add to this page as I create more in different languages.
Without further ado, here are mine and Claude’s coeliac gluten free travel cards! Click the thumbnails below to download the printable PDF.
Indonesian gluten free coeliac travel card for travelling in Indonesia (including Bali):
Vietnamese gluten free coeliac travel card for travelling in Vietnam:
Sinhala gluten free coeliac travel card for travelling in Sri Lanka:
Tamil gluten free coeliac travel card for travelling in Sri Lanka:
Thai gluten free coeliac travel card for travelling in Thailand:
Myanmar/ Burmese gluten free coeliac travel card for travelling in Myanmar and Thailand:
When travelling in some areas of Thailand (e.g. Koh Tao, Koh Samui, Koh Phangan), I discovered that a large majority of wait staff were actually Burmese and could not understand my Thai coeliac travel card! I went back equipped with both Thai and Myanmar/ Burmese gluten free travel cards, and the Burmese staff everywhere loved that I wasn’t just assuming they were Thai and were so grateful and helpful.
