Gluten Free Rant - Travel Preparation

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I am getting ready for a bit of travel, and like a good gluten bigot, I am researching GF options in each city I am visiting. The first place I look for places to eat is blogs, real guidance from other celiacs/gluten intolerant is priceless. And I easily found blogs with good tips. Then I did some good old google map searching which yielded even more as they scrape reviews from across the web (including TripAdvisor). This time though I came across a guidebook. Travel guidebooks are all a bit dear, but I was astonished at what was being charged for this particular one. Based on how many actual eateries were lists, it worked out to be more than a dollar per suggestion, which I think is crazy since I had starred at least as many on my map based on fast and few internet searches.

The reason this gets under my skin is there are so many people making money off the fact that I cannot eat gluten. A 'cheap' loaf of bread is $5, and I've paid up to $12. Dining out I'm often charged for gluten free substitutions. Or they remove most of the food from my plate and I am charged the same amount. We pay a premium to be gluten free, and it bothers me, and I certainly think that the gluten intolerants and celiacs of the world should not be inflicting that on each other - especially if you're charging for something that can easily be attained for free. Of course if you're printing a book, the cost of research and your time writing, there needs to be a markup, etc, and the authors may not have had a say in what the final price was. But I just found it to be one more way to try to monetize off of a medical condition in which the diagnosed have no choice but to have to navigate the world gluten free, which can be challenging.

Needless to say, I did not buy said book. I just stared more than the number of restaurants and grocers on Google Maps. This was at no cost other than about 15 minutes of my time review reading included. I will post everywhere I ate whist there after my trip. And I promise I will not charge for it :)