Recently, I’ve been getting a lot of questions that boil down to this:

You travel a lot and you talk about burritos even more. How are you not fat?

Or this:

So, you’re a serious athlete who travels. I want to stay in shape while traveling, but I hate running. HALP ME PUHLEEEASE.

I find these questions pretty amusing, because basically I’m the last person on earth anyone should be asking for fitness advice. I haven’t run for longer than 15 minutes in YEARS and every time I read an article that’s like “10 Awesome Ab-Flattening Exercises YOU Can Do in Your Hotel Room!!” I throw up a little bit in my mouth. In fact, I should probably just redirect this entire topic to Macky since he’s the only one in our relationship who can follow a training plan for longer than, say, five minutes. And he does push-ups. In the airport. Oh and sometimes this happens:

And so, while I should turn this over to Macky, I’m not going to because when I got to thinking about it, I realized that I might have some helpful advice of my own. I can’t tell you how to stick to a training plan or resist that second donut (although I think the latter might involve divine intervention), but I CAN tell you how to travel the world, have fun, and stay healthy with minimal effort. And I feel like that might be of some interest.

Step One: Find your passion and pack it with you.

This is the most important one.

Nobody (I repeat: NOBODY!) is passionate about doing push-ups in their hotel room. Not even Macky who, due to some bizarre genetic anomaly, was blessed with approximately 10 times the will-power of the average human-being. If Macky is doing push-ups in our hotel room, it’s because he’s so passionate about mountain biking that that passion has bubbled up and spilled out into other arenas of life. Or, in other words, he wants to be the best mountain biker ever and his coach has hinted that push-ups will help.

I’m not a huge fan of hiking, so I don’t do it unless I’m too sick to ride my bike. And then I REALLY hate it…

What’s my point? If you don’t enjoy something, you won’t do it. End. of. cuento. So, here’s my advice: don’t bother trying. Instead, find the thing that you actually enjoy doing. Find the thing that keeps you up at night, wiggling your toes and wishing you were doing it. Instead of trying to fit twenty minutes of “exercise” into your travel day, structure your travel around your passion. Play all day, every day. Or, whenever you can, as much as you can.

And so, if you’re a mountain biker or a surfer or a scuba diver or a skier, suck it up and pay the damn oversize baggage fees. If you’re into hiking or running or yoga or pilates, you’re in luck — your passion is relatively easy to pack.

Stairs at Machu Picchu = stellar cross-training!

If you’re reading this and rolling your eyes and thinking, but I hate ALL exercise — STOP. Travel is a fantastic time to find your passion if you haven’t already. Maybe you’ll go snorkeling in the Bahamas or spelunking in New Zealand and you’ll be like OMG THIS IS WHAT I AM MEANT TO BE DOING WITH MY LIFE. Or you’ll be like, that was horrifying, but at least I got some exercise. You can’t lose. The bottom line is this: stop looking for “exercise” and start looking for fun.

Step Two: Cook your own food.

This is as much a budget tip as it is a health tip. You wouldn’t eat at restaurants every night of the week at home, so why would you do it traveling? This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t sample local delicacies, but if you’re traveling for an extended period of time, you will have plenty of time to do so without eating out every night. As a whole, restaurant food tends to be greasier, saltier and more decadent than anything you would create yourself. Not to mention larger portion sizes. In New Zealand, Macky and I bought a $15 dollar camp stove and cooked delicious, real-food meals at our campsite almost every single night. In addition to having healthier food, we also got to be outside almost all the time, soaking up all sorts of Vitamin D and whatnot.

Salmon and veggies over cous cous, cooked on a campstove!

In terms of diet, it is my personal belief that the less you agonize over food the better. Eating is not nearly as complicated as today’s nutritional science pretends. Obviously if you have serious food intolerances, Celiac’s, Crohn’s, food allergies or other issues, you will have to think more about how you eat when you travel. However, for the rest of us, the simpler the better — eat real food (i.e, things that don’t come in packages) until you’re full, then stop. See how easy that was?

Step Three: Recognize the difference between traveling and vacation.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to go all “real travelers do blah blah blah” on you. My only distinction here is time. In my book, vacations are under three weeks and they are an escape or aberration from your normal life. Everyone needs a vacation here and there. Travel is a more permanent state. I firmly believe it’s possibly to travel indefinitely — to vacation indefinitely? Not so much, because the central definition of vacation is “break” or “time-off.”

You will find plenty of articles on the Internet telling you not to overeat on vacation, or to do such-and-such body weight routine every morning. I am here to tell you that these articles do not have your best interests in mind. If you’re going on vacation, focus on having a good time, whatever that means to you. This is your body’s chance to recover from normal life, to relax, to explore, to do things you don’t normally do (and if that means stuffing yourself on Parisian pastries, then go for it, damnit, you’re on vacation).

If you’re traveling for long periods of time, you have to take your health into account because traveling is your real life. I think that’s the hardest thing for long-term travelers to internalize, at least, from a fitness perspective. It’s very easy to think “I’m in some fantastic new place every day, I spend tons of time doing fun new stuff and exploring, this must not be real life.” But it is, and the more you take care of your body and your mind, the more fun it will be.

Step Four: Sleep. Seriously, please just SLEEP.

There will be an urge, especially when you’ve just arrived in a new place, to stuff every minute of the day and night with fun activities. RESIST THAT URGE. Traveling, in and of itself, is exhausting. And when you’re traveling and spending all day doing something super fun (like, say riding laps at the local gravity park) you’re going to be tired. Accept it and go to sleep. And if you can, take a recovery drink. No, I’m not suggesting one of those random thick, chalky protein shakes, but an actual recovery drink that’s specifically designed to rehydrate you and help your muscles recover from a workout. And if you have trouble sleeping due to jetlag/too-much-excitement, Osmo Nutrition makes a sleep recovery drink that has saved my sanity on many a redeye flight.

Step Five: Have a stockpile of healthy, emergency rations.

I’m lucky in that I don’t usually have huge junk food cravings. However, when I get hungry, I REALLY get hungry and I become quite miserable to be around. To avoid the hangries I will eat just about anything that is available. Gummy worms. Potato chips. I draw the line at anything that is unnaturally orange. While it’s best to avoid this state of starved desperation in the first place, it does happen, so I try to be prepared. Energy bars are the best option, as they can be stored indefinitely and always be on hand when you need them. Of course, I almost always HATE energy bars so this strategy hasn’t always worked out for me. Luckily, Macky and I recently started working with Taos Mountain Energy Bars, a local Taos company that makes bars that are, GET THIS, delicious. And I’m not just saying that because they give me free food. I swear. They are basically crack, only made out of all natural, real-food ingredients. So many wins.

The bottom line is this: find something you like (and gummy worms DO NOT count) and keep a stash in your suitcase for those moments when the world seems to be collapsing down around your ears. Because, let’s be real, nothing is collapsing, you’re just hungry.

Step Six: Don’t drink like a frat boy.

Here is Macky double-fisting a Santa Fe Brewing Happy Camper and a Recovery Drink. Totally acceptable behavior.

I like beer just as much as the next person (probably more), but I almost never have more than one drink in a night. Especially not when I’m traveling and training at the same time. My body (not to mention my budget) just can’t take it. Again, this goes back to the whole vacation vs. travel dilemma. I don’t see travel as an extended holiday. It’s my life. I’m also just not someone who sees partying with thousands of strangers as a very good time. (More like nightmare.) So this isn’t a huge sacrifice for me. I think there are ways to work alcohol into a healthy travel lifestyle, but it’s important to know your own limits and listen to your body. If you get struck down with a cold the day after a night of partying, it’s not a coincidence. That’s your body saying “stop being a jerk.”

Added bonus: when you do let loose and have more than one beer, things get fun REAL FAST. Wooop woop!

That’s really all the advice I have for the moment. Listen to your body and if you’re not having fun, make some changes. Fin. If you have more questions, or would like to hear about something else in particular, please don’t hesitate to write a comment or shoot me an email.

How do you stay in shape while you travel? Do you balance serious athletics with traveling? What are the challenges you have encountered?! Please share!