Ski/Snowboarding Trip with Food Allergies

Ski/Snowboarding trip with food allergies: Colorado!

Home to 28 ski areas/resorts, Colorado is truly a winter wonderland.

Spectacular skiing, snowboarding, snow tubing, horse drawn carriage rides, ice skating, snow shoeing, snowmobiling, spas & SO much more!

Colorado is the perfect place to learn to ski, up your snowboarding or RELAX by the fireplace. A great family or friends’ locale to vacation especially with food allergies. Because of Colorado’s vast mountain terrain/elevation, winter fun begins as early as mid-October and can go until June. But be aware of early and late travel dates as snow depends on Mother Nature. Usually, best winter sports are from December through March.

Getting Here

Flights arrive into Denver International from all over the USA & Internationally.

Since Southwest Airlines allows 2 checked bags for free, we highly recommend flying for a ski/snowboarding trip. As you can use one of your checked bags for skis/snowboards, in approved bags. Saves you money! Always double-check airline regulations prior to booking as they can change. We took the early flight out of Newark, arriving in Denver at 9 am- plenty of time to hit the slopes today!

 🏂For more tips on flying with food allergies see our Ultimate Packing List with Food Allergies and our Flying with Food Allergies Guide.

As too good not to share, stop at the Allergy Free Baking Company for peanut free, dairy-free and gluten-free cookies, brownies & cakes!

After renting our car, we drove about 2 hours to Keystone Resort. It is also possible to take the Epic Mountain bus or an Uber from Denver International airport to the ski resorts. However, you will need an advance reservation.

Travel Tip: Make sure that your rental car comes with chains. As weather changes quickly, you may need to have chains to drive safely. Also, some resorts require chains in your car during wintertime.

Accommodations: Keystone Resort

Ski/Snowboarding trip with food allergies means our best accommodation is a vacation rental. Although we had very little difficulty eating out in Colorado with our specific food allergies, having a kitchen is necessary for our food allergy family. Not only super helpful ensuring safe meals, but it is also significantly more cost effective to stop at the nearby Walmart and Whole Foods and prepare some yummy, allergy-friendly meals. After multiple snowboarding trips to Colorado, we highly recommend a condo on the free resort bus routes. Makes traveling with our snowboards and gear so much easier!

Travel Tips:

• Not all studio condos have kitchens/kitchenettes.
• Look at free resort and town bus routes & try to book accommodations close to them.
• Check-in is usually in the afternoon, so stop at food stores prior to driving to accommodations.
• Have a food allergy safe meal plan – saves time at stores and therefore more time on the slopes.

We use Airbnb or VRBO for our condo rental. To see exactly where we stay:  Studio and spacious 2-bedroom.

Skiing/Snowboarding Plan

Now the good stuff! Specifically, the reason for this Spring break trip: the slopes!

Travel tip: get a ski pass. We chose a Vail Resorts pass. As Vail offers early-bird discounts & we love their resorts.

With this in mind, we planned our trip using our resort at Keystone as our home base (and one of our favorites for skiing/snowboarding!).

After we checked in and put away our groceries, we were able to snowboard the rest of the day – YEAH!

Then it was super easy on this ski/snowboarding trip with food allergies, to head back to our condo and prepare a delicious, food allergy safe pasta dinner. After all, we have to carb-load as LOTS of snowboarding to come!

Our schedule which we ended up rearranging as different areas got fresh powder over night:

Day 1 – Keystone Resort (Our favorite! Great atmosphere, low key, less crowded, great tree runs/glade runs, lots of snowboarders).

Day 2 – Keystone

Day 3 – Breckenridge (Lovely resort!)

Day 4 – Keystone

Day 5 – Vail

Day 6 – Beavercreek (2nd favorite – had great, fresh powder!)

Day 7 – Breckenridge

Day 8 – Keystone

Ski/Snowboarding trip with food allergies

Food, glorious food allergy-friendly food! 😊

As a benefit of having a kitchen, we always make breakfast in our condo. And we bring our mini-waffle maker and favorite gluten free Namaste waffle mix in our checked luggage. This is perfect for scrumptious breakfasts/brunch. We prepare extra to make into waffle sandwiches to take with us on the slopes. Additional breakfast foods: cereal, eggs with sausage, bagels and English muffins with Sun butter and jam. However, you need to stay safe with your specific food allergies.

By lunchtime, we are absolutely starving! So, having premade sandwiches, #peanutfree granola bars, apples, etc… allows us to take a break and grab some more water or Gatorade too. Stay hydrated! It is significantly different both in altitude and much drier air than we are used to on the East Coast, USA.

One of my family members didn’t bring their Camelbak hydration backpack and ended up at urgent care with altitude sickness. Next post: bars of Colorado! 😊

Travel tip: we highly recommend a Camelbak hydration system and if able to ski/snowboard with a small backpack this allows you to stay hydrated and carry snacks & Epi-pens.

Eating Out with Food Allergies

Traveling with food allergies has taught us to pre-plan our restaurant meals. So, we decided to eat dinner out two nights.

The rest of the dinners we made in our condo. See our blog recipes for delicious #foodallergy meals (especially the slow-cooker Carnitas, Pasta Carbonara and Parisian Hot Chocolate recipes!)

In general, Vail Resorts was not difficult to eat at with our food allergies (anaphylactic to peanuts, chickpeas, peas, shellfish. Additional allergies and intolerances.)

As well as being delicious, The Breck Distillery was super #foodallergyfriendly ! We were able to eat here very easily. As they state on their website, they really want to safely accommodate each guest.

Ski/Snowboarding Trip with Food Allergies Tips

Ski/Snowboarding trip with food allergies is a must take vacation and Colorado absolutely delivers!

For those with young children/1st time or new to skiing/snowboarding, there are great resort schools onsite. Many also offer childcare so that parents can hit the slopes! Also, lots of non-slope things to do: spas, shopping, horse-drawn carriage rides, and there are many quaint towns with great art galleries and shops.

Additionally, bring a bathing suit as the outdoor hot tubs are essential for a good soak apres-ski!

Although there are a few things we noted as have a severe, life-threatening touch peanut allergy. There was PB squeeze packs around (as at all ski resorts), so wore gloves a lot and washed nightly in our condo. We have our own ski/snowboarding gear but if renting, call ahead and let the shop know about your allergies so that they can do an even better job cleaning your rental equipment.

If getting groceries/supplies, bring your own reusable bags. Colorado is very eco-friendly & we love that!

Lastly, there are so many reasons nowadays that a trip is cancelled, or luggage lost. In our opinion, everyone should get travel insurance. We use and recommend: World Nomads or Travel Guard.

Ski/Snowboarding Trip with Food Allergies Final Thoughts

Once you vacation in #colorado you will go back – it’s magical! If you have specific questions, please leave a comment.

We LOVE to hear from you!

Or join our private FB group: Food Allergy Travels & Life 😊 The conversation there is always a blast!

So, get your Crew – you’ll have an Epic time Shredding – you may even become a Snow Bum! Snowboarding jargon/Food Allergy Mom jokes.

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