How to Cook with a Travel Iron and Other Travel Tips

When you're traveling, you sometimes have to cut corners. Here's a couple tips for cooking on the go.

One of the big problems I've faced while traveling is the lack of a microwave or cooking device at some hotels or motels. This can be a problem if you brought back leftovers, or if you wanted to heat up some soup.

One way you can heat up food in a motel or hotel is with an iron, either a travel iron or the one provided by the hotel. If you do use the hotel's iron, you have to be careful not to drip food on it or otherwise mess up the iron. While an iron isn't a very effective cooking device, it can work if you are patient. For instance, you can use it to heat up a leftover slice of pizza on a paper plate, or use it to make a slice of toast.

You will most likely need to turn the iron up to the highest setting for it to work.

Another handy device provided by most hotels is the coffee maker. While it is designed for making your morning java, you can also use it to heat water, then use the hot water to make instant soup, ramen noodles, hot cocoa and many other things.

To do this, you'll first want to rinse out the coffee maker well, so whatever you make doesn't taste like coffee. Then fill the back of the coffee maker with water and turn it on, running the device without adding coffee or a filter.

The hot water will collect in the coffee pot, and then you can use it to make a variety of instant foods. Plain ramen noodles is one idea, but you can also spice up your ramen by adding your own flavorings or vegetables. Hot cocoa and tea are also easy to make in a hotel room using the coffee maker.

Traveling tends to make you tired, so a hot cup of soup would be soothing at the end of the day. You can bring a couple packets of soup mixes along and make soup at the hotel with hot water from the coffee maker. This is a lot lighter than bringing entire cans of soup along with you!

Those are a couple ideas for ways you can cook or heat up food in a hotel or motel that doesn't have a microwave.