Introducing Delanie
Meet our guest, Delanie Fischer!
Delanie is a professional podcaster, entrepreneur, and comedian who made headlines by deleting her social media accounts despite her influencer status. She co-hosts the chart-topping podcast, Self-Helpless, and is the Founder & CEO of The Minimalist Business Consultancy. With a background in entertainment, Delanie’s work has been featured in major media outlets.
Today, she’ll share insights on traveling with a non-vegan partner while maintaining a vegan lifestyle. Get ready for valuable tips and an important discussion for vegan travelers!
Join us for this enlightening conversation with Delanie Fischer. Stay tuned!
In this episode, we discuss:
- How and When She Met Her Husband
- Her Vegan Journey: A Result of Extensive Research
- Her concerns about encountering judgment due to her choice to be vegan
- The unwavering support and encouragement she receives from her non-vegan husband
Learn more about what we talk about
- Her outlook while traveling following her transition to veganism
- How does she manage traveling with a partner who is non-vegan
- How do they both navigate and accommodate their differing vegan and non-vegan preferences
- How do they both prioritize and consider each other’s dietary preferences despite having different choices?
- Who takes on which role when they plan their travels together
- Their vegan wedding and her husband’s supportive approach toward it.
Other World Vegan Travel content connected with this episode
- Five Fantastic Cities in Maryland | Rissa Miller | Ep 110
- Things to do in and around NYC Throughout the Year | Verena Erhart | Ep 94
- How to Meaningfully Elevate Your Travels | Claire Burt | Ep 103
- Travel Hacking 101 – The Basics | David Goudreau | Ep 101
- Travel for Weeks With Just a Carry-On | Kim Giovacco | Ep 112
- Two Huge Vegan Budget Travel Tips | Lucy Elkin | Ep 102
Connect with Delanie
Transcript
Brighde: Hello Delanie. Thank you so much for joining me on The World Vegan Travel Podcast.
Delanie: Oh, thank you so much for having me, Brighde. I’m so excited about this conversation.
Brighde: Me too. So before we learn what it is that Delanie does, because it’s very, very interesting, I just want to talk a little bit about what our topic is gonna be today, which is traveling with a significant other who is not vegan. I will say that I am very lucky in this area because I travel with my partner and he is vegan but
Delanie: oh.
Brighde: I’ve heard from so many people who find this to be a bit of a struggle. So, Delanie, I’m really excited for you to share your tips with our listeners today. But before we get into that, why don’t you tell us what it is that you do? You are not particularly in the vegan space, but you are vegan.
Delanie: Yes.
Brighde: So tell us what it is that you do.
Delanie: Absolutely. So I’m a professional podcaster. I co-host the Self Helpless podcast, which is like a comedic personal growth show. I’ve been doing that for over five years now, and then I own a business consultancy. I mainly help mental health and wellness professionals grow their businesses through branding and marketing and media. All with a foundation of mindfulness and minimalism involved. And then before I did all this, my background is in entertainment. So I was a working standup comedian and writer and producer for about six and a half years, got really burnt out with that lifestyle, and transitioned into things that I really enjoy.
So I think most people would probably classify me as like a serial entrepreneur or creative entrepreneur, and I’m just one of those people, like, I have no idea what I’ll be doing in five years and I kind of like it that way. I just kind of take each transition as it comes but yeah, I’m also just a very hardcore vegan. It’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my entire life. Right now, I’m just really passionate about talking about that with people and sharing, my perspective because it’s not something I’ve been super open about, for a very long time. Just out of fear of a little bit of judgment and criticism but now I’m like, you know what? This has really changed my life and I’m excited to connect with people who are open to these discussions. So I really appreciate you having me.
Brighde: We are thrilled to have you on. So, Delanie, maybe you can tell us a little bit about how you met your husband. Were you vegan?
Delanie: Oh.
Brighde: when you met him?
Delanie: Great question. I was not, okay, so this is how I met my husband. I was actually his boss at the time, and he was an employee of mine. This was when I worked, in corporate. We worked at a movie studio together. No, I was not vegan, I think for the first almost two years of our relationship. So that was a transition that I made, like on my own, in a relationship with somebody who also was not vegan. I decided to really change my lifestyle and luckily he was very supportive and we figured it out. But yes, he was not vegan at that time.
Brighde: So did that kind of transition go smoothly for you and your relationship? Because from my experience, what I’ve heard from people, it can sometimes cause a little bit of friction until you get to a status quo where you are happy with the lifestyle choices that each of you have made.
Delanie: Yes. Such a good question. So I remember this is what happened actually. He went away on a trip with some friends for a long weekend. And when I was by myself, I just really had this desire to do a deep dive into all this information. I really wanted to figure it out, I was so confused with all the information about nutrition and health, and wellness out there. And so I took like a full weekend and I was doing like eight hours a day worth of research. I was listening to podcasts and watching TED Talks and reading articles, and I’m just somebody who kind of like hyper focuses on something and like I wanna get to an answer as quickly as possible. I was like, I need to know the optimal thing for me to do, and at the end of the weekend, I was like, you know what?
I really want to do this. I had tried a plant-based diet years prior for very different reasons, more as like, approached it as like a diet and kind of a trend. And this was very different. I looked at it holistically, environmental impact, animals, human health, collective human health, disease prevention, and all of that.
And I was like, this just makes sense for me. This really feels good. So when my husband came back from his trip, he was my boyfriend at the time. I said look, I just wanna let you know that I’ve decided that I really want to start eating this way and basically making this lifestyle change. And I just asked him like, could you please not tell anybody about it yet? I really don’t wanna talk about it at this phase. I felt very new and nervous and I wanted to like kind of build up my confidence around it before I was open about it with other people. He understood and then I just slowly started telling people, it was a little bit of a transition for him to understand why or where I’m coming from, and of course just the logistics of grocery shopping and cooking together and all of that. It can be challenging when you’re with a non-vegan partner who maybe understands in theory why you’re doing it, but they’re not really willing to watch a lot of the documentaries or read a lot of the materials about it.
We do come to a wall where it’s like, I can’t really explain it further, you’d have to kind of look at some of these things yourself and make up your own mind. There have been some moments where I’ve felt a little bit uncomfortable in social situations. That’s been really the hardest part for me, having a non-vegan partner. I’m usually the only vegan at the party or the wedding or whatever it is. There have definitely been some instances where I have felt a little bit ganged up on, where I don’t think my husband meant to kind of add to that.
But there have been situations where I’ve had to share like, Hey, can you not maybe throw me under the bus about this thing? Or when we’re around people, it’s already really hard for me to show up in a social situation as the only vegan. I would love for your support, even if you are not vegan yourself. I remember having dinner with his family and people were asking me a lot of questions about why I was doing it because they knew me for almost two years, as somebody who was not vegan. The last time I saw them I was like fishing with them and doing all that stuff. So they were very confused. I didn’t know how to really voice it, the same way now. My husband just kind of added to that pressure in that moment and it sucked. That felt really hard where I’m like, oh my God, is this gonna actually work as a relationship? Is it possible for a vegan and a non-vegan to thrive together? The reason I did make this change is so important and it’s part of my core values. Will our other values align enough for us to have a good partnership? So I went through all of that.
Brighde: I think many people will resonate with what you are saying. And it’s really interesting because on our trips we often have travelers that come with their non-vegan partner.
Delanie: Yeah.
Brighde: They are so lovely and it’s really interesting because you might think that the vegan has dragged them on this trip kicking and screaming, right?
Delanie: Right.
Brighde: But sometimes the opposite is true. I remember feeling so warm and fuzzy when I was doing a little testimonial video with our lovely travelers, Sue and Marshall. Sue is vegan her husband, Marshall is not and he volunteered that it was actually his idea to take this particular vegan trip because
Delanie: wow.
Brighde: he said, we do lots of trips together, we do tours with other companies and you usually get shortchanged with the food. So, how about you get the good food for once? And I’m sure the food will be okay, but the reality was he actually really liked it. So, I think that was a really sweet thing to happen. Also, I think our partners, and I’m sure your partner is like this, even though he wasn’t in that moment that you referred to.
Delanie: Right.
Brighde: become like a vegan ally,
Delanie: Yes.
Brighde: They’ll really speak up for you and protect you and say well, I’m not vegan, but I happen to know that this goes on and da da da. They can be really, really powerful and I think sometimes non-vegans will listen to the vegan ally before they talk with the vegan.
Delanie: Yes. Oh my gosh, that is such a great point. That’s so nice that you know, what you shared about your travelers and everything. But my husband has become absolutely a vegan ally and he will stand up for me in certain situations and he will share with people like, no, this food is really good. You have to try it. His parents were just in town recently. It was his idea to take them to one of our favorite vegan restaurants. It was not my suggestion. So he has been incredibly supportive and I think in the beginning it’s just a learning curve. Like he had no idea how I was feeling and when he was kind of adding onto the questions that, felt like a high-pressure situation or family dinner, he didn’t realize that I was so shut down.
I wasn’t even sure how to navigate it myself, let alone talk about it with other people. And so once I voiced that, he understood and he acted differently in those situations. But yeah, it takes some getting used to like any other lifestyle change, that you can think of. But years later, I think I’ve been vegan probably almost five years now. I don’t even think about it anymore. Actually, a guest on my podcast recently was talking about, gosh, it must be really challenging to have a vegan and a non-vegan in a relationship. And I was like, actually not anymore. Maybe in the beginning, but we don’t even think about it. We’re just so used to doing that with each other. So it’s overall been good. So if you are listening to this and you are kind of stuck in that beginning phase, it does get better and if it doesn’t, then I think there’s a different issue going on that needs to be addressed and maybe not just the logistics of one of you as vegan and one of you isn’t.
Brighde: Hmm. Yeah. I agree. I often call it like when we do these big lifestyle changes, there’s a lot of storming before we are norming. There’s a lot of crazy
Delanie: Yes.
Brighde: stuff going on before it becomes normalized.
Delanie: Yes,
Brighde: For sure. All right. When did you start sort of living in a marriage-like relationship with your partner? Was it when you got married or before that? Like, how long has it been?
Delanie: Yes. So we moved in together, I think after six months of dating. So we have been living together, like six and a half years at this point. I was not a vegan for at least a year, at living day to day with each other, cooking the same things, eating the same things, grocery shopping for the same products, all of that. I’ve been living with him as a vegan for, almost five years.
Brighde: So you must have traveled a fair bit during that time. Where have you successfully traveled to in this kind of, non-vegan Vegan partner setup?
Delanie: Oh yeah. We are planning a trip to Ireland right now, so that’s a trip that we have coming up. Very excited about it. It’s our honeymoon, years after our actual wedding. We have been to mostly just, places in the US, Portland, and Colorado. We’ve been to Mexico together. We haven’t done a whole lot of international travel. We’ve been to like Minnesota a bunch of times in Wisconsin and Illinois. My husband is from the Midwest, so we’ve gone to a lot of places out there, and I’m very surprised by how many vegan options I have been able to find. I remember traveling to, visit his family, in Rockford, Illinois. As a vegan for the first time, thinking, oh my gosh, what am I going to eat while I’m here? This is gonna be horrible. We went to a grocery store and they had more vegan options than I had in my local grocery store in Los Angeles. I could not believe, the number of options they had, I just never looked for them before.
So I had no problem going grocery shopping. His family was very kind and took me to like their local vegan restaurant, which I didn’t even know they had there. So that really opened my eyes of like, wait, what else has been around? I just haven’t been noticing or looking for it as somebody who was not a vegan for 28-plus years of my life. So I think that was a big moment for me when it comes to travel is like, if I can go to nowhere, Minnesota, and find something to eat, I’m probably gonna be okay in most places. I was really shocked. So I’ve just been pleasantly surprised and I’m not really concerned about it anymore. There’s usually something on the menu I can modify or, they have a full vegan option that doesn’t need any modifications. It made me feel better about travel. I was very nervous in the beginning and now I’ve been much more open to it since then.
Brighde: Mm. Yeah, I’m wondering cuz this can add an extra little layer of complexity I find in travel. If one or both people are foodies.
Delanie: Yes,
Brighde: Are you both foodies? Because if you both want to really enjoy the cuisine when you travel, this is where things can come a little bit unstuck. So I wouldn’t gauge a sense as to how sort of food-focused you are.
Delanie: Oh, what a good question. I am definitely the foodie of the couple. My husband Cam likes food, but I am truly in love with it and I plan my days and my trips around it. So I think that’s worked out a little bit. But our kind of rule of thumb when we travel to a new place together is, I pick a restaurant that I wanna go to and he picks one that he really wants to go to. And we both go together and he’ll eat whatever is on the vegan menu and he really likes vegan food. Then I will just make sure that whatever restaurant we’re going to, if it doesn’t have a lot of options for me, I will eat before or after, or both, or I will look at the menu and see what I might be able to modify or kind of piece together. But I also want him to be able to feel like he can be himself whenever we travel and tack off the top things on his list as well. So that’s kind of our rule of thumb. But a lot of the time he will surprise me and just take me to a vegan restaurant and he doesn’t feel like he has to eat anywhere else. So that’s been happening a lot more where he will be the one to actually recommend and suggest that.
Brighde: As a part of his choice?
Delanie: Yes. Yes,
Brighde: he’s a keeper
Delanie: I’m slowly turning him, Brighde. But it’s so nice. Even at our wedding, we planned our wedding, last year. We had a mostly plant-based wedding. I tried to get it fully vegan, but there were some, restrictions at our venue, and I asked him, what do you want to eat? Because we can have a non-vegan entree on the menu that you want. He’s like, no. I really liked all the options that we tasted. I’m cool with having an all-vegan wedding, and I never thought that would come out of my Midwestern husband’s mouth. He’s really seen all the different options and varieties out there. And he will be the first one to suggest we go try something vegan and new together. But that’s kind of our rule of thumb when we travel is like we both pick a place at least and then we kind of just play it by ear in other ways.
We’ve also done stuff where if we’re staying in a beautiful hotel with a great view and we wanna eat like on the balcony or patio or something. Maybe one of us orders room service and one of us orders food to be delivered to the hotel and we just eat on the balcony together, or we both order delivery from different spots and eat together. So no matter what we are still together, enjoying a meal and having conversation and all that. The food just might be from different places or different options.
Brighde: I absolutely love that idea. I think that’s, really helpful because it’s so easy to order delivery now through these apps that are everywhere in the world. Everyone can see the food that is available and you can get it delivered. We did that when we were in South Africa. You just meet them outside, you pick up the food and you eat in the room or you can also order takeout or delivery and just go to a nice park.
Delanie: Yes,
Brighde: It’s just so nice to do that and actually enjoy the outside. It’s often nicer than sitting in a hotel room, especially if the weather is lovely. We don’t have to be sitting in a restaurant every single time.
Delanie: Exactly. Oh my gosh, what a good point. My husband and I have done this before too. There’s a great place near us called Malibu Wines where you can bring your own food and have a nice glass of wine in this winery setting outside. We’ll just go to the grocery store. We’ll each get the sandwich and snack that we want and we’ll go. It’s just not an issue at all. I kind of think of it. As my lifestyle change could have been like, if my husband all of a sudden wanted to start waking up at five in the morning to go on a run or something. It might take some getting used to. He might like to wake me up early and I might be a little annoyed about it but I would get used to it. I would figure out how to manage on my end and all of that. So I think it’s just like any lifestyle transition that you figure out as a couple. But yeah, I love doing that.
Brighde: Yeah. Just there’s an extra thing on that, something that has been very strange to me since moving to North America. The fact that you can’t have a glass of wine or a beer in a park, just blows my mind how that’s not allowed.
Delanie: Oh my gosh, I didn’t even know it was allowed in other places besides Las Vegas.
Brighde: Are you serious? In Europe, you can take a bottle of wine and have it in the park. It’s the best.
Delanie: My my gosh. That’s incredible. Well, I’m adding that to my to-do list, when we travel. I just would never think that would be allowed. I would never even try to do that because born and raised out here, it’s like, oh, you get in really big trouble if you do that.
Brighde: Mm. Yeah. In Vancouver, they’re slowly introducing a few small parks where you are allowed to picnic and have a beer or a bottle of wine, but a very small number of places. Anyway, that’s my little North American rant.
Delanie: That’s a hot tip for me though. I’m definitely gonna be doing that now.
Brighde: yeah, definitely head to Europe Picnic. Have wonderful picnics. It’s awesome. Okay, so do you have any other tips that you would like to share about how you navigate this travel with your non-vegan husband?
Delanie: Sure. We covered a lot of the food logistics stuff and then when we just travel together like any other couple, we just really prioritize what is each on like the top of our list. So we always make sure, like, whatever’s your number one and my number one, we try to plan and do that first, and then we just kind of go off of the list from there. So for example, we’re going to Ireland in May coming up. My husband really wants to go on the Guinness tour, so we’re definitely doing that. I wanna see the Cliffs of Moher, so those are like happening in the very front of our trip and then we also just leave a lot of room for spontaneity.
We’ll book the accommodations for the most part. We’ll book some of the activities, but we also just like to walk out of our hotel room and see what happens. That’s a nice part that we really enjoy doing together. Some other things that I never thought of when I was not a vegan is, you might go to a place where a lot of the activities might be animal related, like a horse and buggy ride or a local zoo or something like that. Now I just look at whatever the local animal sanctuary might be in that area. So that kind of fulfills that need to maybe see animals when you’re traveling that I never thought of before. So that’s been kind of a fun one for us. And I even had my bridal shower at an animal sanctuary near me, which was so much fun. Highly recommend it.
These things I just never had to think about when I was not a vegan, of what am I gonna participate in and what am I not gonna participate in, and what does that actually look like? There was a trip that I took with some friends that some of them wanted to go horseback riding or something, and I was like, I just don’t feel like doing that. I’m gonna go over here and do like a wander around kind of a thing, adventure instead. And so it’s just knowing, like what are you going to do and what are you not going to do? And how will you rectify that with whatever group you might be traveling with or partner or something like that?
For me, that’s gotten a lot easier over time. Now like five years later, my friends and family, just know me. They know what I will and won’t participate in. So they don’t even invite me to certain things anymore, which I appreciate. Like, we went to the Bacon Festival last weekend, but we didn’t think the texting, like, I appreciate that. You know me very well, I don’t need an invite, it’s all. So really kind of narrowing down our top one to three things on each of our lists because we usually just travel with myself and my husband. We can get to more than our top choice. So it’s usually like, what are your top three things that you must do when you’re in town here? We will make sure we prioritize that for each other. It just always bums me out. Like if you do travel with maybe a group of people if one person didn’t get to do the thing, but like the main thing they wanted to do on the trip and so I just never want either of us feeling that way, vegan or not.
What’s cool about the trip that we’re planning right now to Ireland is that my grandfather was born in Dublin, and so there’s a lot of family kind of heritage stuff that we’re doing while we’re there. The Guinness Tour that my husband wants to do was like my great aunt had her first job at the Guinness Factory, so it’s like, okay, he’s getting to do something. I’m kind of seeing where a family member used to work and I’m also looking up, what vegan options for beer do they have there? Because a lot of it is not. It’s just kind of that happy medium of all things. , making it meaningful and fun and also making sure we both feel supported in our lifestyle choices. So yeah, that’s kind of a snapshot, but I’m happy to expand on any questions that you might have.
Brighde: Yeah. I think you’ve explained this. It’s obvious that your partner is really supportive and an ally and open to vegan food. As you said, if that’s not the case, then you know, maybe the relationship might not work out. But I’m really that you guys have figured out a way that works for you.
Delanie: Yes.
Brighde: I’m sure our listeners will use these tips. That’s awesome. I’m wondering if you might tell us a little bit more about your upcoming trip to Ireland. It’s a destination that I don’t know much about. Are you the person that does most of the planning for travel?
Delanie: Actually, we do pretty much 50-50. My husband is very good at finding the flights and booking that and figuring out, I don’t know, credit card points and how they apply to hotels and like all that stuff just is over my head. It’s very overwhelming. I like looking at the activities and the Airbnbs and the hotels and all of that kind of stuff. I would say it’s very equal, which is really nice. And We both do the things that we enjoy when it comes to planning. This is a trip that we’ve wanted to take for so long. I’m actually just so grateful that it was both at the top of our list for places to travel. Because I’ve wanted to go there since I was a kid because a lot of my family is from there, and it just happened to be on his list too. And so while we’re there, we’re gonna do, of course, a lot of the touristy things, but we’re also doing a lot of things that are very meaningful to my family, like, visiting the Glass Nevin Cemetery. Not as a tourist, but that’s where my family burial plot is. Maybe not the sexiest thing to do on a honeymoon, but he is like very willing to do those things with me. I’m gonna visit my grandfather’s parish, where he used to go and we’re actually staying in a hotel in Dublin. Before it was the hotel, it was my grandfather’s childhood home or like an apartment. So we’re actually staying on the exact floor that he lived and that he was born on and all of this stuff. it’s so cool that we are wrapping all of this into something just really meaningful for, myself and my family, but also me and my husband.
It’s a mix of just everything that’s good for the soul, I feel like is going to be in this trip. The beautiful scenery that we’ve been wanting to see, but also the meaning behind it. Those are a few things that I’m really excited to go to. There’s also a cafe, I think it’s called Buies or Breweries or something along the lines out there
Brighde: I’ve heard of that. I think.
Delanie: yeah, apparently that’s been around for a very long time. My grandfather, his sister used to work there. My grandfather passed away last year at 94. So this has been around for a long time and we’re gonna eat at that cafe. I looked it up and it has plenty of vegan options. I couldn’t believe it. I was like, oh my God. It’s just, everything feels like it’s very much falling into place around this trip where every location we’re doing, it’s multiple things behind it. It’s a great vegan experience. It’s a great experience for myself and my husband and we wanted to see it, but it also has this deeper meaning of where I’m actually gonna see where a lot of my family grew up and came from.
I think that is just really cool. I’m so excited. Of course, we’re gonna do the touristy stuff too. Kiss the Blarney stone, all that stuff. But I think I’m looking forward to the local spots and going to some of the places that are meaningful for my family.
Brighde: Delanie, would you come back on and tell us all about it?
Delanie: I’d love to. Yes. Oh my gosh. I’m keeping a journal. One of my friends gifted me a journal just for this Ireland trip to write down all the places we go to and maybe how it’s connected to my family of origin and all that stuff. So I would love to share that.
Brighde: That would be awesome. Well, Delanie, we would love to have you come back on and talk about this, upcoming trip to Ireland. It really does sound so lovely. And thank you also for sharing all of those tips about traveling with a non-vegan partner. Really helpful things there. Before we say goodbye, would you mind sharing some of your handles or your podcast details, and your website so people can follow along with what you do?
Delanie: Absolutely everything can be found on my website, delaniefischer.com. I’m no longer on social media, but you can find my podcast there, my consulting services. I also like to share a lot of free resources around career transitions, lifestyle transitions, and all of that as well. You can join my email list for all that information.
Brighde: Amazing. Delanie, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today.
Delanie: Thank you for having me. This was so much fun.
