My wife and I just returned Sunday, from a 16 day road trip through North and South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. We visited friends in Hilton Head, St. Augustine, FL, and Southport, NC, and also stayed several days each in hotels in Charleston, SC, Tarpon Springs, FL, Orlando, FL, and Tybee Island, GA. Whether in people’s homes or in hotel rooms, I managed to exercise every day on the trip except one. Through exercise, I managed to stay loose, flexible, active and awake, both at the beginning and at the end of each day.
It’s VERY important that you do some sort of exercise when you travel, whether by air or by car. You are confined for long periods and you get stiff, uncomfortable and you will experience some muscle loss if you do nothing but drive.
I thought that for this article, it might be useful to explain how, where and what equipment I used.
It’s simple, really. I used my own body as equipment for most of the exercises. I also brought exercise bands to use for basic strength exercises. Although many hotels have some sort of minimum exercise facilities, they consist mostly of treadmills and exercise bikes. We were tourists, so we got in plenty of walking. We also managed to climb two lighthouses in two days: 219 steps for the St. Augustine, FL lighthouse and 187 steps the next day in the Tybee Island, GA lighthouse. The interesting part is that I was not out of breath and my legs weren’t sore later.
Exercising in other people’s homes can be a little disconcerting. But, as most of my readers know, I recommend a lot of “floor and core” exercises and movements, They are quiet and don’t bother anyone with a lot of noise. Also I managed to get up early and did most of the exercises before anyone else was awake (people seem to sleep later in the South). If there is enough room for you to lay on the floor at the end of the bed, there is enough room to get plenty of exercise.
Some people are uncomfortable with floors in general, or hotel room floors in particular. If that’s you, many of the stretching movements as well as some of the bending and twisting movements can easily be done in bed. Just don’t fall back asleep.
The exercise stretch band I brought worked perfectly for arm and back strength exercises. They require nothing more than a bit of pulling and pushing, necessary for most upper body strength exercises.
The particular exercises I did are mostly irrelevant. The important thing is that when traveling, it is important to exercise, particularly if you are doing a lot of driving or flying. Leg stretching and flexibility exercises are probably the most important things you can do during a trip of any length. Floor and core movements come in a close second. You’ll find yourself more active and able to last through the trip without getting overly tired and irritable. You’ll enjoy your trip much more.
Thank you for reading