Being on the road has always meant figuring out a way for me to maintain some kind of fitness routine. Of course there’s access to hotel gyms and paying one-off for classes, but I think GYMBOX in London has spoiled me and I can’t fork up all the extra money for the same classes. Instead, in an attempt to work on my flexibility and inversions, I fell in love with yoga. Yup add me to the yogi club.

I still can’t wait to be on a local project and get back to martial arts, climbing, and aerial classes, but yoga is such a good base for it all. Most of all, for a late 20s woman, I’m amazed at what my body can still do…with practice and patience.

Anyone who travels for work can tell you how tiring it is and how you pretty much spend every meal with your colleagues. Finding time for yourself is hard and to be honest, hotel gyms typically suck and I only enjoy fitness if it feels more like a fun activity. So how did I make sure fitness stayed part of my life when I was in a new hotel twice a week? Here are my 3 tips for staying fit on the road:

1. Travel friendly gear

When I first decided to do yoga on the road, it was mainly due to all the beautiful poses I saw on instagram and wanted to try.  I pretty quickly realized that it wasn’t so easy and I needed to work my way to it.  I would either use a crappy mat (if they even had one) at the hotel gym, or just practice on the carpet of my hotel room.  As I got more into, I finally decided to invest in a nice yoga mat, which no matter how you put it is a faff to travel with and is not travel friendly, but there are things that are.

• Yoga strap – perfect for helping in flexibility and stretching.
• Lacrosse ball – I love rolling out my muscles if I’ve had a particularly hard workout or even a long day at the office, but who can carry a roller around.  These rubber balls are perfect for massaging sore muscles and pinpointing certain spots

2. Commit to a time

This one is still hard for me to do, but whether its a morning workout twice a week or a kickboxing class on Saturday morning. Commit!  Just like when I’m back home, I sign up for classes and commit to certain times that are for workouts.

When I travel, I typically will take 15-20 minutes in the morning to do a yoga flow.  Nothing special, just something to wake me up and stretch out my muscles.  And almost every evening I commit to practicing inversions for 30 min to an hour.  That may include a lot of yoga or just general other conditioning moves I have learned over time.  Apparently my #hotelyoga has become a thing among my friends…

3. Give yourself a goal

This last one is key – this is your motivation to keep you going.  Short term goals, like signing up for a tough mudder (when you were still fit) and realizing it is around the corner, are great to keep you focused and excited when you reach it.

Long term goals or even a stretch goal.  This one keeps you coming back for more, especially as those short term ones give you a glimpse into the progress you have made.  Mine is to do a press handstand by the time I’m 30.  I’ll let you know where that’s at in a year and some months time… I can’t even hold a handstand right now consistently, but there’s progress!

I started on my fitness journey because I reached a point where I was not happy with with my body and where I let it get to, which I wrote about in my post: My Fitness Story and 5 Tips for Keeping to Fitness Resolutions.  About a year later, I started my fitness instagram account to document my progress and even just looking at the 6 months I have been doing yoga, I really do see a difference!  What tips do you guys have for staying fit on the road?