How to stay fit while traveling is simpler than you might expect. Sure you won’t always have a gym available but follow these simple steps and you’ll keep your fitness goals on track.

How To Stay Fit While Traveling

Running

I’ve always liked running for its lack of equipment and freedom of location. You put the shoes on and step out the door.

But since I’ve been traveling, I’ve thought of a few more reasons why you should pack your running shoes when you travel:

Running while traveling takes care of one of the most common complaints about running, that its boring. Because you are exploring new places all the time, I find the time goes quite quickly. Running somewhere new is just more fun.
Running is a great way to explore when arriving somewhere new. When you head out later you already have a basic lay of the land.
If you’re traveling with a partner or a group, running can build in some fabulous alone/thinking time.
And sometimes, when you are just passing through a place, a run is all you can fit in to get a feel for the place. You can see a surprising amount and cover a lot of ground in even 20 minutes.

Last month, we were on an organized tour and stopped at a hostel in the evening. I’d heard about how beautiful Killarney National Park is and the gate was only minutes from our front door, but we were leaving at 9 the next morning. I knew the only way I was going to see the Park was to take a run.

Another traveler at the hostel mentioned I’d probably hear the Irish red deer bugling if I went in the morning and I was sold. In the morning I slipped on my shoes and had a beautiful run in a forest so thick it seems like it never really gets light in there. It was a great way to start the day, almost meditative. I wished I had more time (and fitness) to keep exploring, but I saw more than I would have without the run and it got my day off to a good start.

This is a great way to answer your question, how to stay fit while traveling!

Yoga

I generally choose super basic, non-strenuous yoga, it just helps wake me up and get moving and it helps to work out the stiffness from things like 10 hour bus rides. After a YouTube search, I settled on Esther Eckhart’s Yogatic videos because the moves were really basic – I thought I’d actually do it. After a few run-throughs with the videos, I memorized the series from Part 1 -3 and now I can have a peaceful wake-up session with no video.

Walking

Most of the reasons for running apply to walking as well, you just don’t cover as much ground, at least not as quickly. Daryle and I tend to walk a lot when we travel. We average about 4-5 miles a day and we’ve maxed out at 11. (That was sort of a mistake and probably won’t happen again.) I always find that a mile sounds like a long way, but a 20 minute walk – that sounds reasonable. And we’ve saved some serious public transport money in places like London by walking instead of taking the underground a stop or two.

Bodyweight exercises

A quick set or two of push ups and situps don’t take much space or time.

Visiting the playground

While we don’t frequently stay where we have access to a gym or weight room, we do often find ourselves near parks. There are a lot of fun activities that are like covert exercise. On this one you can even bring your kids. (You can find lots of ideas of varying intensity with a Google search, but here are a few. (One easier and one more challenging.)