How to Stay Fit While Traveling.

It’s not easy to stay fit while traveling, and it’s definitely not always easy to eat healthy and feel on top of your game while you’re away from home. From time changes and jet lag to long flights and walking 10 miles around a new city eating way too many treats, there’s no doubt traveling is hard on your body. Getting exercise helps you stay on top of your game, feel healthier and happier, and make travel less exhausting.

We’re definitely not perfect, but we wanted to share what we’ve found that’s worked for us, so we teamed up with Outdoor Voices to give you a little insight into how we stay active and healthy while we’re on the road. Here are some of our tips for staying fit and healthy while still making the most of your trip!

Choose to Be Active: Do early morning yoga, go for an afternoon swim, or hike to a waterfall. Make time in your travel schedule to do something that gets your heart racing. We like to plan something different for every day, and that way we get to enjoy both the nature and the culture of every place we visit. Take the stairs to the top of the Eiffel Tower instead of taking the elevator (it’s also cheaper). Go scuba diving or snorkeling, because then you get to swim with the fish and get in a little workout. Look for ways to get your body moving while still enjoying where you’re at. The best part is, whatever you’re doing while you’re traveling is most likely going to be different from your normal day-to-day workout routine, which means you get to work new muscles and train your body in different ways. 

Get Outdoors: Go on a hike. I’ll do just about anything for a good view, and that includes hiking. Even though I’m definitely not one of those people that’s super into hiking (I honestly don’t even really like it), but I love seeing incredible views, so if there’s an opportunity to go to a lookout point, we make sure to plan to hike to it instead of taking a trolley, bus, or whatever other way there is to get to the top (even if we are tempted to just send the drone up to get the view, haha). Plus, you’ll most likely save money and find unique spots and incredible views along the way. 

Wake Up Early and Do Short Exercises: Just because a workout is short, doesn’t mean it has to be ineffective. We don’t always have an hour to exercise, or sometimes we’re so tired after walking 20,000 steps all over a city that the last thing we want to do is go for a run before we do it again the next day. And walking is good, but it isn’t always enough. So we love waking up early and fitting in a good body weight workout. I love this 10-minute ab workout or this 15-minute butt workout from Popsugar Fitness. Ryan included one of his “go-to” hotel workouts below.

Eat Smart: A lot of the time when we’re traveling, it’s easy to just live off of bread and treats. And don’t get me wrong, you should definitely still eat treats. Why even go to Italy if you’re not going to eat gelato? But that doesn’t mean you have to stop at every gelato stand you see (although, I know it really is tempting). The reality is, if all you’re eating is gelato and crepes, your body will be super tired, your immune system will break down, and you won’t end up enjoying your trip as much. Fruits are generally pretty accessible. Throw a banana or an orange in your bag before you head out for the day. That way when you get hangry (I mean hungry. But is there really such thing as hunger without hanger while you’re traveling?), you have earth’s natural pre-packaged snacks to eat!  

Bring Effective Devices: Pack a few resistance bands, a jump rope, or a TRX in your suitcase. Then you can make your own gym no matter where you are. You can also fill up water bottles and use them as hand weights, or try and find other things that you can use as weights. I’ve used a watermelon as a weight before, so believe me, anything can work. 

Join in the Local Culture: A large part of a lot of cultures includes exercising, so join in with the locals and take a class. Yoga is a big part of the culture in Bali, so sign up for a practice while you’re there. Go cross-country skiing in Switzerland. Take a salsa dancing class in Spain. Take a spin class in LA. Pretty much anywhere you go, you can find some sort of activity that truly lets you join in on the local exercise experience.

Plan Ahead: When you’re booking your hotels, look and see if they have a gym. It’s not necessary, and not every hotel we stay at has a gym. Actually, a lot of them don’t, but if it’s important to you or you feel like you can’t work out without a gym, then think about it ahead of time and try to find a hotel that does have one.

Here are a couple of Ryan’s favorite workouts that we love doing while we’re on the road:

Ryan’s 15 Minute Power Workout:

Goal: Try to improve your time every time you complete this workout.

1 minute plank
50 push-ups
20 squat jumps
15 burpees
1 minute plank

Repeat 2x as time allows. 

Push-Up Challenge:

Goal: Do as many push-ups as you can in under eight minutes. I promise this will leave you feeling like you did an hour chest workout at the gym.

Press start on your stopwatch and pump out one set (Ryan starts with 25 so he can hit 200)

Rest until the timer hits 60 seconds, then start your second set.

Repeat until you hit your time limit or achieved your goal.

Remember, when you start to feel fatigued, it is okay to rest and continue at the next 60 second mark.

For some other awesome workouts, check out Rocamoon’s Stoked to Sweat Workout, Popsugar Fitness Videos, the Nike Training Club App, and Kayla Itsines Sweat With Kayla.

Have Fun: Most importantly, don’t stress and have fun! You’re still on vacation, so you should definitely treat yourself. Eat a cookie, lay on the beach, sleep in. Do all of it. But make sure you’re staying active and taking care of yourself too. You’ll feel better while you’re there, and you’ll come home feeling better too, so it’s a win win!

Check out these 10 healthy snacks we always bring with us while we’re traveling!

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