Do you try out local restaurants when you travel?

Same!

I wouldn't say we're foodies, but part of the joy of travel is finding fun local places. 

That said, I did at McDonald's and Pizza Hut in China. 🤣 The Pizza Hut was SO FANCY! Wait staff and cloth napkins! 

We eat local too, heck we eat local here too. It is very rare for us to eat at any chain restaurant even at home. If we eat at a chain it is Burgerville (which is a local chain) McDonald's (because I don't care what people say I love their fries) or very occasionally 5 Guys, but even at home we have local restaurants we frequent.
I have very odd allergies that are also life threatening and I only eat chicken for meat, so it does take some research, but I always manage to find places to eat wherever we go.

Dh will not do fast food, I prefer not to, whether on the road or at home. We try to do local when we travel, but I can see the food allergy side to safe eating when traveling.

We try to eat at new places when going to a new vacation destination. However, when we travel to the same place for vacation (say, San Diego), we've already established some of our favorites and stick to those (there's a couple of beach restaurants we love to eat at). Same for when we go to our son's college town. Both of our older kids went to the same college about 250 away from us, and we have our faves there.

We did go to Glacier Park just recently, though. Our oldest son is working a seasonal job at one of the lodges up there. We stayed in Whitefish, Montana and there was one place that was to die for (The Wich Haus). Their food was amazing, farm-to-table. They pickled their own onions, made their own pickles, that type of thing. We had a smoked beet salad that was amazing! Even their custard was great, they had a rhubarb flavor that my husband loved.

Yes. Why go somewhere new and eat something you can get at home?

In response to your why travel at all question, my answer is I just literally don’t care about food.

When we are on a trip and need food my husband says “we just need some calories,” meaning he doesn’t care what the food is, he just needs something to make energy so we can keep going.

We hate stopping whatever we are doing to eat, so we will choose whatever option will take the absolute least amount of time so we can keep sight seeing. Having to stop for food is not part of the fun, it’s an annoyance.

I feel like we’re pretty adventurous. We go lots of places, we do lots of things. We are not relax on vacation people. We are cram as much into a trip as possible people. We just aren’t food people.

Although I understand perfectly that chain restaurants best suit your family's needs, I can see where stopping to eat there is soul-sucking. But I've had awesome experiences eating in local restaurants--one we went to by the airport in Tulsa was priceless, in terms of local color and character. I experienced a twinge of sadness that I no longer lived there. Tulsa has a quirky character that Connecticut can't compete with. That, to me, is as valuable as visiting points of interest in an area.

Oh sometimes.. it's not a must thing to do but we do like to check out different places than what we have either chain or local type places.

Since I go to KC all the time, there are must places I have to go to because it's what I ate when I lived there or places that are on our way to KC..

So I go to these following places which are nothing fancy:

Carlos O'Kelly's (because of an appetizer they have.. Fajita Garlic Nachos

In-A-Tub (because of their tacos.. this is a total greasy spoon place)

Imo's Pizza (because it's pizza.. either you love it or hate it)

A few BBQ places because you can't go wrong usually. Smokehouse is one of our favorites. 

One of the reasons we prefer to stay at an AirBnB rather than a hotel is the “just need calories” situation. While I love to try new foods and eat in local establishments, I do not want to eat in a restaurant three meals a day for the entirety of the trip.

I always buy groceries at the beginning of the trip (can be an adventure in a foreign country!) so we can have breakfast at “home” most days, pack a picnic lunch for hiking/beach days, or have a quick simple dinner after a long day of seeing stuff. Most days we will eat out once and the other two meals are simple and from the grocery supply.

I also always, always carry nonperishable snacks like protein bars and almond packs in case we find ourselves in the middle of nowhere and getting hangry. I’d much rather have a Luna bar than stop for fast food in most cases.

(Can I please assure anyone who travels to Texas that we have many excellent local restaurants, and Whataburger should be at the very bottom of your list to try. You can do much better. 😂)

Try turning that thought around - maybe a local place will have the best meal you've ever had in your life! That happened to me back in 2011 in London. I still rave about the panzanella salad I had at a little outside bistro.

I understand this. I'm lactose intolerant and can only handle certain cheeses and other milk products. I love ranch but can't have ranch at most places because they make their own with heavy cream or buttermilk or use a brand that I can't use. If the wait staff can't tell me how they make their dressings/sauces, I avoid anything that says "creamy." I usually find that the smaller local places know more than the chain places do. I've been finding that more places, small and chain, are putting GF symbols on their menus.

Yes, I refuse to eat at a chain when I'm on vacation...I can eat that crap at home.

Usually we look on trip advisor and try to hit the top rated restaurants that we can’t find at home. Works really well for us