If a connection is tight, lunch may be whatever fits in your hand between platforms. Plan for that moment rather than writing an ideal menu for the whole trip. Pick something you enjoy, identify where your next proper meal might come from, and pack a fallback that will remain suitable until you need it.
Plan around the gap in your day
Read your itinerary as a sequence of meals. A hotel checkout before breakfast followed by an early train leaves a different gap from a long afternoon on a bus. Decide which meal you want before departure, what you can comfortably eat in transit and where you will have time to sit down. If the transfer is short, treat food sold there as a bonus rather than the only option.
Think in components when choosing food. A starchy base such as bread, rice or potatoes can be paired with something from the protein group and a fruit or vegetable you like. Depending on what is available and suits you, that could mean bread, a hot bean soup and a banana, or rice with cooked vegetables and tofu. The NHS Eatwell Guide describes balance across the day or week. There is no need to make a station snack reproduce every part of the guide.
Choose something that will travel with you
If you cannot keep food cool, choose a backup labelled suitable for storage at room temperature. Crackers and an unopened portion of nut or seed butter, if appropriate for you and allowed where you travel, might work; so might fruit you can peel. Pack something you have eaten before. You want a fallback you will actually eat, not a virtuous-looking item that returns home unopened.
For a chilled meal, plan where it will stay cold until you eat it. If refrigeration is uncertain, buy the perishable part at the stop where you will eat it. When crossing a border, check the destination’s rules before carrying food onwards; an item that is convenient on the train need not travel all the way to the hotel.
Order with the local food and water conditions in mind
If the safety of food handling or drinking water is uncertain, the CDC’s traveller guidance favours thoroughly cooked food served hot and fruit you can peel yourself. Choose a safe water source, including for ice, and wash your hands before eating when possible. At a buffet, look for food kept hot or properly chilled; move on if a dish that should be hot is sitting lukewarm.
For a late hotel arrival, identify one option near the station as well as one near the room. If the restaurant closes before you get there, a simple meal from a shop can do the job. Keep the fallback for the stretch where you have the fewest choices and leave space for the food you came to try. If cost is the constraint, plan which meals to buy and which to bring.
Sources checked on 5 November 2026.