While the number of vegan hotels, hostels and rooms is on the rise, their numbers are still sparse compared to non-vegan hotels. This makes tracking them down a bit tricky. Thankfully, there are websites that eases the process.
Veganism isn’t just a diet, it’s a way of life. Vegans want to ensure that the way they live their lives does not result in them participating in animal cruelty. This extends to all facets of a vegan’s existence, including where they choose to stay on a trip.
In this post, we’ll briefly cover what a vegan hotel is, before we highlight some of our favourite tools for finding vegan hotels. We’ve also included some extra pro-tips for how we’ve previously found vegan places to stay.
What is a vegan hotel?
There are now many hotels around the world that caters to vegans. A true vegan hotel though attempts to take veganism into account when making every single business decision.
This applies far beyond the food on the menu at the in-house restaurant. A true vegan hotel will have ensured the furniture, bedding and fittings in the rooms are vegan, that the toiletries in the bathrooms are entirely plant-based and that even staff uniforms are made solely from vegan textiles.
As with most things to do with veganism and sustainability, it’s difficult to be perfect. A true vegan hotel will have reached a stage where it is happy that all the boxes are ticked, but it will also be open to discovering new ways to ensure its business is entirely cruelty-free.
Best tools for finding vegan hotels
Here are some of the best online tools we’ve found for finding vegan hotels, hostels and rooms all over the world.
Vegvisits – The veg ‘airbnb’
Vegvisits is effectively the ‘airbnb’ of the vegan world, albeit a version of airbnb that retains the community spirit that airbnb once enjoyed in its early years.
With listings all over the world, vegans needn’t worry about unsuitable bedding or whether kitchen utensils have previously been used to prepare meat. All properties on the site are screened and verified and are run exclusively by vegans, meaning your money will only ever be spent on plant-based products.
Many of the property hosts also offer vegan breakfast (often for free) alongside other services, such as one-to-one yoga practices.
VeggieHotels – Hundreds of vegan hotels
VeggieHotels isn’t necessarily our favourite tool for finding vegan hotels, but it is a good starting point from which you can do further research.
For example, if we’re planning to visit somewhere, we’ll use their map feature to zone in on the area to see what’s listed. We’ll then take that info and verify it ourselves using Google and/or the property’s own website.
The Vegan Stay – Supporting animal sanctuaries
We really like The Vegan Stay. It’s fairly similar to Vegvisits (above), in that it’s quite ‘Airbnb’-esque. But The Vegan Stay goes a bit further and offers something really unique.
While searching for somewhere to stay, you can filter your search not just by ‘vegan stays’, but also ‘sanctuary stays’. Yes, you can stay on an animal sanctuary. How lovely is that!?
On top of providing a useful service, every booking on The Vegan Stay generates financial support for animal sanctuaries. So, even if you’re not staying on a sanctuary itself, you will still provide essential support for one.
VeganWelcome – Discover hotels with vegan cuisine
VeganWelcome doesn’t have a huge catalogue of places to stay, but it does include a lot of mid to high-end hotels, particularly in major European cities, making its offering fairly unique.
We particularly like the detail in the listings on how the properties hit their vegan and sustainability targets.
More ways to find vegan hotels and places to stay
Here are some more ways to find vegan hotels, hostels and rooms, some of which require a little extra work on your part, but are still very much worthwhile.
Happy Cow
Users of Happy Cow will already know how useful it is for finding vegan cafes and restaurants, but did you know you can also use it to find BnB’s?
Once you’ve searched for a location, you can jump into the filters and select the ‘B&B’ option to narrow your search.
Facebook Groups
The only reason we’re still using Facebook is because there are still lots of active and useful communities on there. Here are a few of our favourites where it’s easy to find vegan places to stay.
- Vegan Holiday Accommodation UK
- Vegan Friendly Holiday Accommodation UK
- Vegan Travel
- Vegan Travellers
There will undoubtedly be others, including groups with much narrower focuses that will be worth checking out. If these groups don’t serve you well, do search around for others.
