I also always take a combo of almonds, craisins, and dark chocolate m&ms. Making your own trail mix means you get to decide what goes in it!

-Breakfast sandwiches to eat while waiting in the airport before an early morning flight. Typically bacon and flat fried eggs with gluten free bread. They are good cold and the egg smell doesn’t bother anyone since they are eaten before we get on the plane.
-Grapes all removed from the stems to make less garbage that we have to deal with.
-Homemade muffins, either savory or sweet depending on the mood. Another alternative is banana or pumpkin bread. They are a sweet treat that feel more substantial than cookies and can fill you up more.
-Two salads that are not lettuce based for lunch. An antipasto salad and a sweet potato salad are the two that I packed on the last trip. They hold up well, the dressing is already on them, and they taste good at room temp.
-Meatballs of any kind. As long as they don’t have sauce, they are a perfect portable protein that aren’t messy. And they’re good at room temp too.

I pack everything in plastic containers because I can wash them and fill them with food for the return trip home. We have one carry-on that is dedicated just to food, and have found that if we aren’t prepared ahead of time we very much regret it.

Lots of hotels are starting to put mini fridges in the rooms, so it is easy to store stuff overnight. And some chains will have mini stores which will have foods you can microwave in the room.

It’s amazing what is prepackaged and easy to carry along for a trip.

With respect to flying – the way some people are acting on flights, I would limit eating to the restaurants or the waiting areas in the airports. since it seems that no matter what you enjoy, someone else will complain about it.

Depending on how long the flight is I might also take a baggie of cut up veggies & another with grapes.

Cheese sticks…I must have string cheese.

Peanut butter & butter on a wheat tortilla, all rolled up, is the PERFECT sandwich…just don’t put jam on it or you’ll have a MESS (ask me how I know this:-)

Peeled hard boiled eggs are perfect if it’s an early morning flight and you know the eggs won’t be out of the fridge very long. Or even a fried egg sandwich…once again wrapped in a tortilla.

Crackers…as long as they are NOT the crumbly kind.

Hubby likes to take Trail Mix of some sort.

I’d REALLY like to take a BIG bag of some sort of CHOCOLATE…but (usually) refrain myself.

I tend to make sandwiches and get pre-packaged servings of things like granola or protein bars, cheese-filled Ritz mini crackers, mini Oreos, etc. to accompany sandwiches I make. I bring only enough meats and fresh fruit so we can finish it on the flight though, because most of our flying is international and there are strict rules about bringing that sort of thing across borders. I also bring egg-free noodle soups that come in disposable cups and only need hot water, as well as disposable spoons in case we feel like something hot on the flight. The airlines always have hot water for us to use.

And like others here, I ALWAYS bring an empty water bottle and fill it up after I get through security. I think bottled water tastes gross and is very unenvironmental (hey, I have to do something to make up for my pre-packaged food and soups, right?), even if they do offer it free on the flight.