You know what travel requires a lot of? WALKING.
So, when you make the decision to book a trip, get your booty in gear and make sure you're physically ready for it!
Now before I continue, let me make a little bit of a disclaimer: this is NOT a weight loss post. This is a post on what you can do to build your endurance so that you can physically last on your trip. If you are trying to lose weight, or aren't much of an exerciser, please make sure to consult a doctor, kinesiologist, or dietitian about your options.
Why is building endurance so important?
That's an excellent question! As you've read in some of my other posts, walking is very important as a method of self-defense, and there are forms of combat and martial arts that you should learn the basics of as a matter of safety. But when touring different areas, you could find yourself in smaller venues, such as museums, or vast estates spreading across dozens of acres, or even going through massive cities on foot. And you know what will detract from your trip and your experiences? Not being physically up to going over 5 miles per day.
Your endurance level is just as important as your footwear. When you can walk several miles per day at different altitudes and inclines, you will be able to make the most of your time wherever you go. If you tire out too easily, you'll have to rest longer to be ready to move again; or if you're traveling with other people and you slow the group down, they'll have to adapt to your level or endurance and wait as long as you have to before you feel up to getting back on your feet.
For the record, endurance isn't necessarily tied to your weight. I have traveled with people who were overweight that were able to knock out over 10 miles per day and able to keep up with that personal pace for the duration of the trip, and I've witnessed perfectly healthy and super skinny travelers who couldn't be on their feet for over 30 minutes without resting. The human body is an incredible thing!
With that said, I advise everyone who chooses to travel, whether domestically or internationally, to start a workout regimen ASAP for the reason of building endurance. And if this is a new routine for you, make sure that you take time to allow your body to rest and recover before trying more difficult routines. Your body will tell when you can work out and when you should take a day off, so listen to yourself.
What sort of workouts should I focus on?
The short answer is low impact workouts. A lot of people assume that in order to build endurance they need to start running, which is a fair expectation. I am here to debunk that theory for traveling purposes. Running is a fantastic means of building endurance, but it also falls under the category of high intensity impact training, or "HIIT" workouts. HIIT workouts are cardio-based and better for weight loss and fat burning. They can also be horrible for your knees and ankles if you're unaccustomed to these workouts.
As I mentioned in my travel hacks blog, having the wrong footwear is one of the first things that can ruin your trip when it causes severe foot pain. Another issue that can derail your joy of traveling is having bad knees. Having sore feet is one thing, but when your joints are bad too? You can hardly move! Doing HIIT on a regular basis is fine, but if you're training to build endurance before a trip, you're better off avoiding these HIIT workouts because they can cause damage that you can't afford to have before you leave.
When selecting which workouts you'd like to do to build your endurance, do your best to avoid the following workouts:
Running
Basic HIIT workouts
Cardio Kickboxing
Cardio Dance/Zumba
Cross Training
Military or combat styled workouts
All of the above workouts are amazing but can be extremely taxing on your joints. The first step you want to take in building endurance is avoiding any workouts that require jumping, bouncing, pivoting, high kicks, and squatting. If some of these are favorite types of workouts for you, feel free to pick them back up when you return from your trip. But to protect your joints, put them off for the time being.
And now, here's a list of low-impact workouts that will help build endurance and be less extreme on your joints!
Walking
I focus on this subject a lot, don't I?
Well, that's because I learned this firsthand. When I made my decision to travel to Ireland the first time, I was at one of the worst physical shapes I'd ever been in. I was working office jobs and not taking time to work out. I knew right as I made that purchase that I needed to get my butt into gear so I could cover as much ground as possible.
The first thing I did was actually not go to the gym, but just start walking. I had hour long lunch breaks at my job, so I would eat my lunch for the first half and then spend the rest of my break walking the business park, which would cover a little over a mile by the time I'd finished. I couldn't always make it to the gym after work but knocking out a mile during my lunch break helped immensely. By the time I left for my trip, not only was I in better shape, but I was able to cover miles in a day that I hadn't been able to at home (well, so long as my poor, sore feet would allow).
So, believe me when I tell you that walking is seriously one of the best workouts out there. It's an exercise that tends to get overlooked because it's a basic function of everyday life, but it can make a world of difference if you take time out of your schedule to focus on walking as a primary means of exercising.
Optimizing Your Walks
What you can do to start taking your walks more seriously is by using a health app on your phone. Most phones these days come with generic health apps, and there are plenty you can download for free. Once you utilize whichever app you like best, you can set workout goals.
The first goal you should set for yourself with walking is how many steps you'd like to take per day. A good number to set your goal at as a beginner is at 6000 steps, which come out to roughly 3 miles. You can also set a goal for how much time you would like to spend being active or working out. A good amount of time to set is a simple hour. You don't necessarily need to do 1-hour workouts, but you want to have a combined total of 60 minutes of activity to start.
Once you feel comfortable making your goal of 6000 steps per day, increase your steps by about 500 every two or three weeks. The ultimate pace you want to reach is to make 10,000 steps, which equates to about 5 miles. At that point, keep your steps set at that goal, but keep it as your minimum instead of your maximum goal.
Also take the time to find different areas to walk. Walking a treadmill is fine, but when you're out traveling, you're going to be going all over different terrains. It's best to walk outside, and to change up your routes every day so that your body doesn't acclimate to the same path every day.
Elliptical Machines
Now, walking outside isn't always going to be a viable option due to weather, or, in the case of the West Coast, bad air quality due to the fires.
If the gym is the only option available for you, the treadmill is usually the best alternative so long as you keep changing the inclines and keep the pace no faster than a speed walk. The next best choice is using the elliptical machines.
The elliptical machines are ideal due to their low impact nature. When prepping for your trip, you need to take precautions to ensure you don't injure your feet, ankles, or knees beforehand, and the elliptical is just the machine to best prevent those injuries so long as you are engaging it properly. Most of these machines are equipped with handlebars so that you can also work your upper body, though other machines focus on lower body only. Either of these options will work, though I would recommend the one with the handles.
The benefits of working out on the elliptical aside from its protective nature on your joints (again, as long as you're doing it right! Always make sure you know how to safely use whatever machine you engage!) is that you can speed up using this machine. You can build your pre-trip endurance by power walking, but if you are high-spirited and need to go faster, this is the machine for you. Using the handles when working out also helps with your breath control.
These machines also tend to have several different types of workouts programmed into their systems which will change the incline, the focus on your upper or lower body, your speed, reversing to working out backwards, or have a cardio option where you keep your heart rate up that the system will adapt to your level. There are also other options that just the basic elliptical machine; there are Octanes, which have even more options to utilize in your workout, and Arc Trainers, which will show you just how out of shape you are the first time you try it!
Now that we've covered these gym machines, are there any others that are good to use? Yes, there are!
Stair Machines
A lot of gym regulars avoid these machines because they're tough, but they're also one of the best you can utilize before a trip. Why? Because you may be exploring buildings that have winding stairways! And here's a personal example:
The above pictures are taken at the Wallace Monument in Stirling, Scotland. This tower is just slightly taller than the Statue of Liberty, and has a staircase made up of 246 stairs to the top! You will notice that in the lower right picture, I'm looking a little haggard and not wearing my jacket. Believe me, even though I was in decent shape during this trip and had high endurance, walking those 246 stairs winding up that high was quite the workout!
Now, you may say, this is just one monument, and you made the choice to go to that venue. Not necessarily. In many other countries outside of the U.S., the main mode of transportation is walking. And this means that there are stairs everywhere! Some of them are in everyday areas, like this example:
To the left is the track for the Funiculaire de Montmarte, a small tram (not pictured) that bypasses this several tier stairway that leads to the Sacre Coeur in Paris. I went up those stairs, and I'm telling you, they are brutal. I was with a group during this excursion, and about 3/4s of us chose to take the stairs instead of taking the tram. All of us, no matter what physical shape we were in, were huffing and puffing at different levels by the time we reached the top. And the crazy thing? There were locals actually running up and down those stairs like it was nothing!
The point is, you never know if you're going to encounter crazy long stairways or inclines where you go. By exercising on the stair stepper, you can take the incentive to prepare yourself for rough treks such as these. One of the benefits to this particular machine is also that you can take this exercise at a slow speed and still kick your butt. Once you feel more comfortable at slow speeds, you can increase your speed as you see fit and help prepare your body for those stairways of varying lengths.
Or you can just pull a Rocky and hit up stairways where you can find them!
Hiking
With international travel tragically off the agenda for this year, I found a replacement so that I could explore California and Nevada more: hiking. And I'm telling you, I should have picked this hobby up when I made the commitment to international travel. What a wonder it's done for me!
I took up this outdoor activity for the Trailblaze Challenge with the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and to prepare for the distance, a friend and I walked 10 miles non-stop, which took us exactly 3 hours, and left me sprawling on my living room floor for the rest of the night. Afterwards, I began hiking to train for the challenge at least once a week, and every week the hikes were longer and more rigorous. Before I knew it, I was hiking 10 miles and barely feeling tired!
Hiking is a near ideal exercise to prepare you for travel, provided you don't push yourself beyond your limits. If you choose to give this activity a try, here are a few factors to consider:
Hiking Apps
There are several highly rated hiking apps that you can download to help you find your ideal spots to explore. Most of these apps feature customizable searches so that you can find the trail that best suits your level and tastes. Want to hike the mountains? Or find a waterfall? Or wander loop trails that pass by several different lakes? Download an app for that!
The app that I use is AllTrails, and I will be using it for the section as a reference. There are other apps available that are just as good, so feel free to look for one that suits your preferences best.
Length
When you begin hiking, start yourself off easy, preferably after you begin walking for longer periods of time. Once you feel comfortable walking longer spans than normal, try to find hikes within your area that are no more than 3 miles in length. You may be able to walk far more than 3 miles at this point, but there is a big difference between walking roads and pathways versus hiking trails.
Beginning with a hike that's at least 3 miles is a good way to allow your body to experience more strenuous walks. After completing this hike, take a moment to evaluate your level of exhaustion and strain. If your body can handle this length, feel free to increase your next hike by another mile or two. If you were barely able to handle that 3-mile hike, find another 3-mile hike to try and see how well you adjust to that one.
Keep in mind that if hiking is too much for your body to handle that it's just fine to skip it and stick with a stair stepping machine or elliptical instead.
Difficulty Level
The AllTrails app categorizes its hike by three difficulty levels: easy, moderate, and hard. By this standard, you should always begin your first hike at the easy level. Depending on your current endurance level, focus on extending the length of your easy trails before upping the difficulty level.
It may take several weeks to reach a level of relative ease doing these low-difficulty hikes, but in preparation for your trip, it's best to make sure your body is ready to accept the challenge of rougher terrains. When you're ready to take on a moderate level hike, start yourself off which a shorter length trail so that you don't overdo your physical limit.
These moderate difficulty hikes should be enough for you to train on to build your endurance before your trip. Moderate difficulty hikes tend to feature a fair number of inclines and hills that will test your stamina but, if your body is up to the challenge, will make you stronger and more physically able to handle any city or country you'll be exploring by foot.
As for hard levels, I would reserve those only for the trips you'll be taking that will include hiking or backpacking, such as a trip to the Andes or Alps. Increasing your endurance is most important, and the harder the hike, the greater the risk there is for injuries, and the last thing you need to do is hurt your feet, ankles, or knees. But, if you're the adventurous type like me and want to continue hiking even after your trip, wait until you return to start tackling these hard ones.
Traffic
Hiking is a rather popular hobby these days, and there are some trails that are going to have a lot of people. If you're preparing for a trip where you will be going with other people, you needn't worry about the traffic as much. It's when you're planning to travel solo that you should take pedestrian and hiker traffic more seriously.
AllTrails always includes on the hike descriptions the type of traffic you can expect in the same three levels as it does with difficulty: lightly, moderately, or heavily trafficked. In the event you're preparing to travel solo, allow your first few hikes to be done on heavily or moderately trafficked trails so that you feel more comfortable. But after your comfort level rises, you should start moving on to lightly trafficked trails.
Hiking alone is a wonderful way of preparing you for solo travel. It may be frightening on many understandable levels, but if you're going to be traveling anywhere by yourself, then you should allow yourself to experience being alone in an unfamiliar area so that you can develop self-reliance. It's also nice because hiking alone tends to only last a few hours, whereas taking a solo road trip tends to take much longer.
Following lightly-trafficked trails will help to increase your individual strength, develop your ability to pay attention to your surroundings, allow you to listen to your gut instincts around local wildlife, and how to retrace your steps if you wind up losing your trail.
Costs
Something I hadn't considered at the time of taking up hiking is that it can be a pricey little hobby to have. So, if you're strapped for cash before your trip but still want to try out hiking to build your endurance level, try to find local hikes first so that you don't have to pay so much for gas. Also consult both your hiking app and the internet on your hike to see if there's a fee for parking or a day permit required to venture into your area of choice.
Once these pre-hike costs are checked off, focus on the most important part of your hike: water. I did some research on the subject, and most of the sites I checked advised that you have at least 1 liter of water on you for every 2 hours you plan to hike, whereas the hikers I spent time with told me that they planned for 2 liters of water for every 5 miles they planned to hike. When I hike, depending on how warm it is, I will usually bring about 3 liters of water split between a hydration pack and a reusable water bottle, which at least one other bottle of Gatorade.
If you don't have any reusable water bottles (as I covered their importance in a previous blog), consider the cost of investing in them, or if you want to go the route of a hydration pack, which could get a little expensive.
Then there are other costs to take into consideration. I have covered shoes and hiking low intensity trails would be a good way of helping to break in new shoes or boots before leaving. There there's the snacks, which you should not be without when you venture out into wilderness areas. And there's also gear. Do you have the right hiking clothing and equipment? Do you have bug spray?
While hiking is easily one of the best pre-trip exercises to take on before leaving, it could be costly. Make sure that if you are willing to try this one out that you do consider the financial cost.
Cooling Down with Stretching
I learned this little tidbit of information several weeks into my hiking excursions. Whenever you do a workout class, or do an online workout, a good instructor will spend several minutes helping to bring your heart rate down with a cooldown involving stretches.
After you hike, no matter the length or difficulty, take time to stretch. And I don't just mean your legs, I mean your arms, back, and shoulders too. Hiking works more of your body than most people realize, and if you're unaccustomed to hiking, stretching your muscles afterwards will leave you feeling less stiff and tight, especially if you have a long drive back home. Stretching will also aid in your recovery time so that you can take on your next endurance building workout sooner. Just make sure to allow yourself a minimum of 24 hours without doing any major workouts to allow for your body to heal from its new excursion.
Line Dancing
Wait, didn't you say earlier that dance was a bad idea?
I did, but I specified with "cardio dance." Cardio dance is an enhanced form of dance meant for HIIT workouts, focusing on fat burning and body sculpting. Line dancing, on the other hand, is low impact form of dance that will not only acquaint you with dancing as a whole but will prepare you for cultural immersion as well.
I have participated in dances in Ireland, a ceilidh in Scotland, and have been to several cultural festivals here in the States, ranging from Peruvian to Jewish, and have observed from these that many cultures usually have at least one form of line dancing that is relatively simple and is often taught to foreigners and tourists. If you're unaccustomed to dancing, then start with line dancing, because if you want to ingratiate yourself into local customs, dancing is often the most accessible!
Now the American form line dancing is usually associated with more country western styles, but the overall format of this style is rather universal, which is in its name: dancing in a line. From what I've observed, many countries have at least one form of line dancing. In many areas featuring cultural immersion, they will teach these line dances to visitors, and are of often comprised of two lines of dancers facing each other. By taking time to study line dancing, you are giving yourself the minimal preparation to learn another country's dances.
Dancing is almost always a part of a country's culture, and you will probably be invited to partake at one tourist venue or another (not in clubs though). Building your endurance by taking line dancing lessons will help bring your body into a dance-ready state if you aren't someone who dances often. And believe me, you will work up a sweat when you dance! You will do this country's culture great honor if you can keep up with their form of line dance.
As mentioned in hiking, this is an activity that can cut into trip budget if you're low on cash. Never fear, for we have access to a wonderful little site called YouTube! You can find free line dancing videos there, and if you want to go the extra mile, you can also look up your country of choice's forms of dance and study from there! And employ the subtitles if the videos are in that country's native language!
A Healthier Conclusion
Having a higher endurance level, as said multiple times, is one of the best physical ways you can enjoy your trip. And once you develop healthier habits, they can become part of your regular routine and help make you a stronger person overall! The longer your body can endure, the more activities and feats you can conquer when you're out there in the world. Isn't it amazing at the many ways that travel can enhance your life?
At the very least, if you don't have the time or money to spare to try all of the above exercises, focus on the walking. Remember that the more miles you can conquer before your trip, the longer you'll last.
So, what's to come next month? Since some countries are starting to open their borders to tourists again, I've decided to focus on how you should handle your first day in a foreign country by yourself. In the meantime, please stay safe, and hopefully we'll be back out in the world soon!
