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Active Vacations: A Moving Experience
by Joe Sweeney
Always consult a doctor before starting an exercise program
Did you spend your last holiday stuck to car seats, sequestered on tour buses or
glued to a lounge chair? Did you return from your trip feeling sluggish,
stressed and out of shape? If you arrived home needing a vacation to recover
from your vacation, you could benefit from a more moving experience.
Consider the advantages of an active vacation
You can jump start your exercise program.
You can eat without guilt.
You can escape. While you are maneuvering a raft through rapids or coasting down
a tree-lined country road on a mountain bike, you will find it easy to leave
your everyday problems at home.
You can have fun. A fitness resort often resembles summer camp for
adults—offering playful activities such as water volleyball, tennis, dancing,
hiking, improvisational comedy games and bingo. Your smile muscles may be in
for a vigorous workout, so pace yourself.
You will get motivated to move. Beforehand, to get in shape for your adventure.
After, to maintain your new level of fitness.
You will return feeling energized, refreshed and ready to confront life’s daily
challenges.
Imagine…
Imagine you are on a bicycle tour in Vermont during the peak of the fall
foliage season. Pedaling at your own pace, you stop whenever the urge
strikes—to chat with the local folks, to browse the quaint shops in the small
villages or to capture on film the brilliant oranges, yellows and reds that
blanket the hillsides. At midday, your congenial group of co-travelers
rendezvous at a scenic spot where your leaders have prepared a tasty and
generous picnic-style lunch.
If rain threatens to dampen your day or you grow tired of pedaling, you flag
down the support van, which will transport you to this evening’s accommodation,
a charming nineteenth century country inn. At the end of the day, after
soothing your sore muscles in the Jacuzzi, you enjoy a hearty five-course meal
with the group, while laughter and stories of the day’s experiences bounce
around the table. You discover that camaraderie spreads fast among people who
share the same adventure.
The next morning, while feasting on a breakfast of whole grain pancakes and
locally-produced maple syrup, you notice your tour leaders are outside tuning
the bikes, wiping road dust off the frames and pumping air into the tires. For
a moment, you feel a twinge of guilt, but it soon passes. Hey, it’s not your
job to do the dirty work—you’re on vacation!
Consider your options
Besides a bicycle tour, you can join a walking or hiking tour.
Visit a fitness resort. You will choose from a smorgasbord of exercise classes,
enjoy a daily massage, attend lectures on stress management and nutrition, and
savor three delicious and healthy high-energy meals each day.
Whet your appetite with a water adventure. Sign up for a rafting, kayaking or
canoeing trip, or pick a package tour that features snorkeling, board sailing
and other water activities all at one location.
Visit a dude ranch and drive cattle by horseback across miles of sagebrush, camp
under the stars with real wranglers, enjoy home-cooked meals, old-fashioned
hospitality and a simpler and slower pace.
Take an environmental vacation. Work aintside a scientist and study Rocky
Mountain wildflowers in Colorado, analyze volcanoes in Costa Rica, teach
dolphins a language in Hawaii or dig up dinosaur bones in Montana. Excavating
an archaeological site may not seem like much of a vacation, but it could be
the best vacation of all—a total departure from your regular routine.
Check your sources
Visit the back pages of bicycling, walking, nature, water sport, travel or spa
magazines; scan the appendix in my book I Know I Should Exercise, But…;
or log onto the internet, type in the keywords "active vacations" and go from
there.
Pick the right trip for you
When you read a specific trip description, notice the required fitness level,
the size of the group, the type of food served, expected weather conditions,
how much free time is scheduled, what a typical day is like, and the type of
accommodations.
An active vacation can change your life. Although you cannot get fit in one
week, in just a few days you can dramatically and permanently improve your
attitude about exercise. While you are immersed in a program of physical
activity and surrounded by supportive people with similar goals, you may decide
to make health and fitness a priority in your life. At the very least you will
be moving in the right direction.
Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed
by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.
So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor.
Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
—Mark Twain
©2002-2003 Joe Sweeney
Joe Sweeney speaks on fitness and motivation. This article is adapted from his
award-winning book: I KNOW I SHOULD EXERCISE, BUT… 7 Steps to Removing Your
"But" From Exercise (Pacific Valley Press). Order Joe's book at bookstores,
online bookstores or joesweeney.com.
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