You love your gym. You go there every day, sometimes twice a day. The staff members know you by name and your closest friends are people you’ve met while working out. And on the days you can’t make it there, you have an at-home gym with the essentials waiting for you. You know that the way to keep up with your strength training and maintain your muscle is to train every day and eat well, and you’re dedicated to this lifestyle.
What about when you travel? It’s not always easy to find a great gym or healthy food choices when traveling — but you don’t have to forgo your wellness when you’re traveling, you just have to be more creative about when and where to fit it in. You may also have to adapt your normal routines to work with what you have available and to fit them into time constraints. While it takes a little more effort, it’s totally possible to stay maintain fitness and health while traveling.
Instead of flying, consider renting an RV for your trip. If you travel a lot, you may want to look into buying an RV of your own. You’ll have a lot of conveniences accessible and you won’t have to forgo your workouts or healthy eating due to a long flight or multiple flights. Make sure that the RV you choose has storage space for your equipment (you can’t have kettlebells rolling around the RV as you drive), plus a fridge to keep your food fresh.
You can stock the kitchen area with the foods, drinks, and supplements you normally eat, and you can bring along some lightweight workout equipment. During your trip, you can stop to workout outside or you can get exercises in on the RV itself. Make a point to stop every hour for 5-15 minutes, during which you can stretch, get some fresh air and even get through a set or two.
Get a Tourism Pass for Active Activities
You don’t want to be cooped up inside your hotel during your trip, no matter how much you want to keep up with your workouts. A trade-off for the cardio you normally do is an active tour of the area you’re visiting. You can even add some strength training by bringing a weighted backpack or vest, or by wearing wrist or ankle weights.
Yes, many tourists opt for bus tours, where they can sit down and only get up to see the sites up close — but there are usually more active tours, too. You can take a guided walking or bike tour, or look up information about self-guided tours that you can plan on your own. You may even be able to find a tour geared toward the adventure or workout junkie.
Engage in Local Fitness Activities
One of the best ways to stay fit on your trip while also having fun and enjoying the locale is to figure out which local fitness opportunities are offered. For example, if you’re going to Colorado, you could take a beginner’s rock climbing class. If you’ll be by the ocean in California or Florida, you could try out SUP or surfing.
Here are a few more ideas:
- Find out if there’s an upcoming 5k where you’ll be traveling. Sign up, pack your running shoes and get a great workout in under an hour. Active.com makes it easy to search for races based on location.
- Plan a trip to one of the healthiest, fittest cities the U.S., like Boston, San Francisco, or Washington, D.C. Bonus: the areas known for a healthy and fit population tend to have more options for nutritious foods, as well as spas and health centers to help you relax and rejuvenate.
- Book a fitness getaway. You won’t have to wonder how you’ll fit workouts in because the entire trip will be fitness-themed.
Don’t knock a physical activity until you’ve tried it. Even a sport like golf, which seems relaxing, can have major health benefits, such as burning calories, working on arm muscles you may not use too often and getting a daily dose of vitamin D from the sunshine.
Figure Out the Main Health Problems You Have to Solve
Know the specific challenges you’ll face so that you can decide how to counteract them. For example, if you’re going somewhere with delicious, less-than-healthy food and you know you’ll be tempted, look up healthier local dishes and create a go-to list for ordering. If you’re booking a tiny hotel room in a big city, look up exercises you can do in limited space with just a chair and resistance bands.
Here are some common health and fitness problems while traveling:
- You usually work out in a gym or at your fully-outfitted at-home gym, but now you have zero access to gym equipment.
- You start every morning (or end every evening) with a run, but you’re in a totally unfamiliar place and don’t know of any local paths.
- You prepare most of your meals at home and ahead of time, but your hotel room doesn’t have a kitchen area.
- Sleep is a major component of your healthy lifestyle, and you know you can never get comfortable on a hotel bed. Or, maybe you’ll be traveling to a different time zone and are afraid you’ll have a hard time adjusting.
If you think outside-the-box, there are solutions to all of these problems. Look for a hotel that has an on-site gym and call ahead to find out what type of equipment it has. Look up safe running trails at your destination or replace your morning jogs with walking sightseeing tours for the week. Invest in a reliable, soft-sided cooler that you can put over your shoulder for transporting meals and snacks. Take along whatever will help you fall asleep faster, like a sound machine, your own pillow, or a sleep mask.
The best way to keep up with your fitness and health goals while away is to plan as much as possible in advance. In the weeks leading up to your trip, figure out what equipment you need to buy to take with you, research local gyms and prices in the area you’ll be staying, seek out the nearby health food stores and restaurants, and find out if there are fitness activities specific to that area. Planning ahead will get you pumped for your trip, give you options to choose from once you’re there, and help you avoid the temptation to nix your healthy plans and order room service instead.
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