Living with celiac disease and following a gluten free diet can be challenging. However, so many tools exist today to make living this lifestyle much more manageable. In the Celiac Tools series, we will share our favorite tools with you. They may be informative blogs, unique products, useful websites, or any other kind of service that makes our lives easier. Who needs the extra stress?! If you have suggestions for the Celiac Tools series, email support@CeliAct.com and tell us about it!

So I recently went home to visit my parents for the weekend. Going home is always a treat because my mom still LOVES to make me amazing gluten free meals (not to mention gluten free cookies, pancakes, cupcakes… you name it). Where else can I get a completely gluten free Thanksgiving dinner? A Passover Seder? A homemade birthday cake? Not many places.

As much as my mom likes to cook for me, she still likes to take her nights off (and I don’t blame her!). This happened to be one of those nights…

We were all getting ready to go to Famous Pizza, a nearby pizza place that has great gluten free pizzas, when I had an idea. I had recently heard of a great website that shows user-submitted gluten free dining and travel reviews for restaurants, grocery stores, hotels, resorts, cruises, and even universities!

The website is Gluten Free Travel Site: www.glutenfreetravelsite.com.

My Key to Dining Out Gluten Free

One of my favorite features is the search function that acts similarly to Google Maps. You put your city or zip code into the search field and it populates a map with gluten free restaurants based on your location!

The best part about it is that they only list restaurants that have user-submitted reviews for them, so you’re not just shooting in the dark or responding to advertising. Some places even have several reviews that make your decision that much easier.

On this particular night, I put in my parents’ zip code and sure enough, Famous Pizza was the first and closest result. Now, they have a great gluten free pizza, and I get it every single time I visit them. On this night I was craving something a little different, so I pulled up the Gluten Free Travel Site search bar.

Lo and behold, just 6 miles away was another Italian restaurant. This one also had gluten free pizza, but as a bonus to me, it had pasta too! The decision was made, and instead of going around the corner to our usual spot, we made the trip through the rain to the new restaurant - Piccolo Pizzeria.

As you can probably imagine, I had to try both the pizza and the pasta. Both were amazing (good thing my dad was picking up the tab!). It was such a treat to find Piccolo near my parents’ house, and I would’ve never heard of had it not been for Gluten Free Travel Site.

As I’m preparing to travel to San Diego, Nantucket and Houston in the next six weeks, I’m already eagerly planning which restaurants I’ll be visiting by using this essential Celiac Tool.

After all, using a site like this and finding a new restaurant that has a gluten free menu is one of the only fun parts about celiac disease! If you have to eat gluten free, you might as well enjoy it.

P.S. This site isn’t just helpful for travel - Try putting in your home zip code too! I thought I knew of all the great gluten free restaurants in my area until I did a search in Arlington, Virginia. Now, if only I could afford to eat out more often!