Keeping a healthy and active lifestyle while travelling – not always an easy one but it's definitely possible ! Here are my top hacks to stay fit abroad (and enjoy your travels while doing so).
Stay hydrated
You hear this all the time for a reason! You can even bring your own filter bottle to use tapwater or water from rivers everywhere you go (plus you will produce less waste than buying new plastic bottles all the time).
Cook your own meals
Try to cook your own food and to stick to unprocessed ingredients whenever you can. I know this is not possible everywhere in the world, but you can always find some fruits (maybe even a new kind you never tried) to make your meals and snack healthier and more nutritient dense.
View my other blog post about my favourite "travel foods" for some inspo!
Be careful with smoothies
While these colorful drinks are advertised as healthy and natural, more often than not they contain a lot of sugar and can easily cover the calories of a whole meal depending on the ingredients (especially if you add milk, nuts or seeds to it).
In general, you will get more benefit eating the whole fruit or at least preparing your own smoothies with fresh fruits and ice.
Get active!
It's your chance to try a lot of new sports and activities like surfing, yoga, cannyoning, bungee jumping, dancing salsa, cave diving - you name it ! Plus, you'll create a lot more memories this way than lying on a beach all day…
Walk
As easy as it seems, just stay active by walking to places (as long as it's safe) or take hikes to explore landscapes or beaches instead of taking a ride everywhere. Big cities usually offers free walking tours with local guides too, which is a nice way to get familiar with the place.
Choose the right side
Of course you should try new things and eat regional foods – but you could play with your side order at the restaurant and rather have a salad and some water than fries or white bread.
Optional: get your workouts done
There are countless apps and videos that gives you inspo for yoga or workouts you only need your own bodyweight for and you can do everywhere. Use your phone the smart way!
If you want to take it up a notch – my friends and me would always google gyms in the area we were at the moment and it's funny in what locations you can find them! From training with locals only in a little desert town in Peru to working out at a fancy 5 star hotel in Cartagena – we got them all! Some of the bigger ones often times have free entry codes on their websites (guess what happened in Cartagena) so it's really worth to quickly check them beforehand.
In smaller or more remote locations, sometimes the hostels offer yoga classes and workouts – otherwise, you can still stick to point 1 to 6 of this post or find some buddies for a beach run :)
Bottom line, I dont say you HAVE to workout or even do one single thing of this list on your trip. It's your time and you do you. These are just some of the things that helped me a lot in case you DO want to travel that way or are on the road for an extended period of time and don't want to die the day you decide to climb that volcanoe (if climbing volcanoes is a thing you like to do OF COURSE).
Comments