My wife and I are in our fifties and try to live a fairly active lifestyle. At our age, if you're not making daily strides in terms of your fitness it doesn't take long to fall behind. My regular workout routine consists of walking, cycling, and lifting weights. When you’re traveling it’s a challenge to find access to a gym or workout equipment and can also be very expensive.
Resistance bands seem like a good option because they're easily packable but I’ve never found a brand that I’ve felt has given me a decent enough workout to continue using, and I’ve tried a few.
Of course, packing heavy dumbbells or Russian kettlebells is completely out of the question. Although I do have a folding bike (my trusty Brompton) it’s not always convenient to fly with it.
What is a traveler to do?
Over the past few years of travel I’ve honed a wellness, cardio, and strength training routine for the road that requires little or no equipment. These give me as good of a workout as I get at home and keep me functioning at the highest levels so I can get the most out of each trip.
QIGONG
I’ve practiced this simple twenty-minute qigong routine all across the world these past six years. This particular routine from Judy K. Young is my favorite and judging from the millions of views it must be a lot of other peoples’ go-to qigong workout as well.
This is free and can be streamed from a phone, laptop, or tablet. Qigong melts away the stress and centers you into the present moment, both very valuable while you’re traveling. I instantly feel more at ease after I practice this.
STAIR CLIMB
Whether you’re staying in a hotel, Airbnb, or hostel, if you have access to even one flight of stairs you can get an excellent cardio workout in minutes. We have one flight of stairs in the Airbnb we’re staying in here in Sedona and I strap on my headphones and climb up and down for twenty minutes every day.
WALKING
Traveling by planes, trains or automobiles means sitting for long periods of time and there’s nothing worse for your health. Walking is something you can easily do while you’re waiting for a flight and it's better than sitting at the gate while staring at your phone.
MEDITATION
I’ve been meditating now for more than half of my life but sometimes I need extra motivation to keep me on track while I’m on the road (or in the air). I’ve tried a few meditation apps to help keep me on track but my favorite, by far, has been Headspace.
This app provides you with a slightly different guided meditation every day, tracks your progress, and also reminds you when it’s time for your daily practice. Here’s a referral link if you’d like to try Headspace free for 30 days.
NAVY SEAL BURPEE
Last but not least, is the burpee. If I could only do one exercise for the rest of my life it would be this one. Burpees are the most efficient exercise I’ve found for both strength training and cardio. They’re not easy at first but you’ll be amazed at how much this one routine transforms every major muscle group of your body.
If done regularly these quickly increase overall strength and muscle mass. The key factor to utilizing the benefits of Navy Seal Burpee is your form must be absolutely perfect. At first do them very slowly until the exercise is integrated into your muscle memory. If you allow yourself to slip into a sloppy version of the exercise they won’t be nearly as beneficial. Burpees take discipline but the results are nothing short of incredible.
T R A V E L - T I P S
Swiss Army Knife
I can’t even begin to tell you how useful this little Swiss Army Knife is, especially when traveling. You can buy them for around $20 and they’re worth every bit of that. They take up essentially zero room in your bag and have scissors, tweezers, a toothpick, a nail file, screwdriver, and a blade. Just make sure to pack this in a checked bag or TSA will confiscate it. This is, by far, the most useful thing I carry in my pocket aside from a credit card. Just yesterday I used the tweezers to pick out a cactus thorn that was stuck in my leg after I backed into it while taking a picture on the trail. Ouch!
A Good Book
You can't get any more low tech than this. Life can be hectic and it can sometimes be difficult to find time to read. When you’re planning a trip, pick at least one book to bring along. Travel days usually consist of short, intense periods of stress then lots of empty hours of sitting and waiting. There’s no better way to pass the time than with a good book. It's good to have an option to fill the hours with something other than in flight movies or staring at a digital device.
All for now. Trust your instincts, invest in you, live boldly, and take chances.
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Poetry should move us, it should change us, it should glitch our brains, shift our moods to another frequency. Poetry should evoke feelings of melancholy, whimsy, it should remind us what it feels like to be in love, or cause us to think about something in a completely different way. I view poetry, and all art really, as a temporary and fragile bridge between our world and a more pure and refined one. This is a world we could bring into creation if enough of us believed in it. This book is ephemera, destined to end up forgotten, lingering on some dusty shelf or tucked away in a dark attic. Yet the words, they will live on in memory. I hope these words become a part of you, bubble up into your memory when you least expect them to and make you feel a little more alive.
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