How to Keep up With Your Fitness Routine During Vacation and Travel

By: Addie Vela, Founder of Soul Fit Collective

Thinking about how to keep up with your exercise routine while traveling can seem like a daunting task. On top of it, working out on vacation or squeezing in a workout during a busy travel week may be the last thing on your mind. Depending on where you travel you might not have access to equipment either. All of these factors may leave you feeling like the best option might be to scrap your routine altogether.

While this is certainly an option, and sometimes necessary and appropriate, at Soul Fit Collective we believe that fitness should be accessible to everyone, everywhere, and anywhere. We also believe that learning how to be flexible with your workout routine and adaptable to any environment is a critical skillset in creating a sustainable and consistent approach to fitness. Ultimately, learning how to become flexible and adaptable with your fitness routine builds resilience by equipping you with the physical and mental tools necessary to overcome obstacles and bounce back from setbacks.

In this article, we will cover how to do your research and plan ahead, how your exercise routine can be easily adapted to your travels, what to do if you opted to ditch your routine altogether, and sample workouts you can leverage on your next trip.

Planning Ahead For Your Trip & Adapting To Your Environment:

Along with all you do to plan ahead for your trip including booking flights, packing your bags, making a plan for the pet, booking accommodations, and making dinner reservations, we’d like you to consider spending a few minutes doing your research on how your exercise routine can be adapted to fit into your trip. Follow these 6 steps during your planning process.

1. What are the ways physical activity can be incorporated seamlessly during your travels? This might include going for a hike, exploring the city by bike or run, or walking the beach.

2. Will you have access to a gym at your hotel? If so, scope it out online and note what equipment you’ll have access to. Most hotel gyms at a minimum will have dumbbells, treadmills, elliptical, and maybe a few stationary machines or cables.

3. If you will not have access to a hotel gym, where else can you find space to workout? This might be the beach, the park, an attached balcony, or in your hotel room or airbnb.

4. Consider packing light equipment if your travel destination has limited resources. This might include resistance bands, loop bands, duffle sand bag, exerbell, or yoga mat. In a pinch without any equipment you can load up a travel backpack for added weight or use our body weight only program below. You can also use a hotel towel as a yoga mat for floor work if a yoga mat isn’t available.

5. Do some calendar planning. How many days total is your trip and which days will your schedule likely not permit you to workout due to travel, excursions, or commitments? Make those rest days. What time of day will you have the best possible chance of making your workout? Knocking out your workout first thing in the morning gives you the best chance at making it happen before plans, people, or alcohol gets in the way.

6. Last, think about who you’re traveling with. If you’re traveling with kids, get them involved! Go to a park and have them run and play while you get your workout in. Have them time your sets or make it a game. If you’re traveling with co-workers, friends, or a spouse invite them to join you. Doing it together keeps you both accountable and builds relationships.

while getting out of your typical routine is incredibly important it’s also important to make sure you don’t fall off the rails