Travel Workouts and Tips for Extended Trips

Travel and exercise seldom go hand in hand. Let’s be honest, the last thing you want to think about between gorging on street food and a few pours of the local hooch is your workout routine. However, it’s an important part of making your experience better, especially if you’re on the road indefinitely or frequently. But if you’re willing to get creative, you’ll find that travel and exercise can actually pair pretty well together.

What Types of Exercises?

Body-weight workouts. That combined with a bit of yoga/meditation will be all you need to maintain your sanity and your vanity. For the most part, the exercises will cover the basics:

• Running
• Pushups
• Pull-ups
• Squats
• Core
• Yoga

That’s it! Sounds simple, but when you add in some variations and/or adjust the cadence a bit you’ll easily be able to design a travel workout that will kick your ass.

Fitness Gear to Pack

If you haven’t seen our Ultralight Packing List, definitely check it out as well. Even when traveling with just a < 35-liter backpack, it’s possible to squeeze in some workout equipment:

• Jump Rope
• Ab Wheel
• Resistance Bands
• Yoga mat (optional)
• Running Shoes

Just those five items bring you endless variety to your workouts.

Where Do You Workout?

The “where” part of exercising does get a little tricky sometimes. For the most part, you’ll have to get comfortable with working out in your hostel/hotel room, possibly even in front of people (no shame). One VERY underutilized piece of workout equipment is the calisthenic park. Most cities have them and luckily for us, the folks over at Calisthenics-Parks.com have compiled a list of them for easy searching. These parks are great because they usually have some very basic pieces of equipment (i.e. a pull-up bar) and, more importantly, space that you can use to your advantage.

Can’t You Just Go on a Run?

Well, yeah, you can. And running is a totally viable option and a fantastic way to see a new city. In fact, early morning runs are great because they can provide a unique perspective on the city while the streets aren’t overly crowded.

Sample Travel Workout

For this workout, we’ll just be doing a simple circuit with some common bodyweight exercises. It may seem simple, but run this circuit through a few times and you’ll start feeling it a bit. And remember, if you’re needing an extra challenge, you can always up the tempo a bit to increase the intensity of the exercise.

1. Push-ups x 10
2. Ab Wheel Rollouts (standing or kneeling) x 10
3. Bodyweight Squats x 10
4. Planks – 60 seconds