Traveling girlfriends get hungry, and when we get hungry we get cranky.  Stock that mini-bar!  But instead of candy bars, potato chips, and sodas, try some snacks that won't kill your diet, or baffle your digestive system.

Our Top 10 Healthy Mini-Bar Stockers:

1)  Water - hydrate, hydrate, hydrate!  You know you're going to be imbibing, so make sure to balance the drinks with water.  If you forget to do this, you will need twice as much the next morning.  

2)  Fruit - dried or not, it's as close to candy as possible, yet still contains nutritional value.  If you need to, we give you permission to consider wine a fruit.

3)  Cherry tomatoes - they're so cute and juicy, and have you heard all that good stuff about lycopene?

4)  Baby carrots - another cute snack option, they're also crunchy, and they have beta carotene.  Is this starting to sound like science class?

5)  Plain pretzels - most mini-bars include overly salted or oddly-flavored versions of our friend, the pretzel, but the original is the best healthy option. We wish we could recommend those giant, smooshy pretzels as a healthy snack option, but they're just not.  Sorry. 

6)  Hummus -this is so much better than those artificially flavored chip dips.  Have you read the ingredients on those?  Yikes.  Hummus is creamy, garlicky, and the perfect dip for #s 3, 4, and 5.

7)  Salsa - dipping snacks in goo is second-nature to Americans (see #6).  We can't NOT do it.  Salsa is fat free and zesty, and we LOVE saying "zesty".

8)  Nuts - almonds, cashews, peanuts, macadamia nuts - keep an eye on the salted versions, but it's all protein, which satiates the hunger.  These are perfect for when your dinner reservations aren't for another hour and a half, but you're starving.  STARVING!  Who makes dinner reservations for 10:30PM?!

9)  Pita chips - a fantastic substitute for potato chips, and they're even more satisfying because they're thicker and very, very crunchy.  Bring these in the safari van, just keep the crunching to a minimum so as not to frighten the cheetah.

10)  Low fat string cheese - who doesn't love string cheese?  No one, that's who.  It reminds us of when we were little, plus it's cheese that is convenient to eat, even if you're running out the door on the way to go hot air ballooning.

Girlfriend getaways should be happy things that we all look forward to.  We don't want to associate them with weight gain, so snack smart, and save the calories for those Margaritas.