Travel will disrupt your routine. That’s guaranteed.
What’s not guaranteed is whether that disruption derails you for days or weeks afterwards.
As a personal trainer of 15 years, I can tell you with certainty: it’s not what happens during travel that derails fitness programs, it’s how people interpret it. In a very real way, it’s repeatedly been my observation that getting results in fitness is more mental than physical.
Many people have two versions of themselves: The ‘home’ version, who trains regularly and eats well most of the time, and then a ‘travelling’ version who does neither.
The problem isn’t that healthy living is impossible while travelling, it’s that we treat travel as an exception rather than as part of normal life, just with different logistics and constraints.
Don’t get me wrong, the odd bit of inactive travel isn’t going to hurt you. But if you travel frequently, especially for work, i.e you’re doing it because it’s a part of your role or business, and that isn’t going to change, then it makes sense to try to close the gap on the two scenarios above without it causing undue pressure and stress.
This guide exists to help you become one person: Someone who trains and eats well regardless of location.
The two common faulty models are:
- Total abandonment (“I’m travelling, so all bets are off”). In other words, an unproductive focus on external constraints
- Rigid overcorrection (“I ruined everything, now I need to fix it”) is A common guilt experienced when perfection can’t be maintained.
Both are exhausting. Both fail.
Below outlines a third option: a flexible system for maintaining your fitness and nutrition on the road, it’s a part of a series of playbooks I offer those on my online personal training program.
We’ll cover three levels:
- Philosophy: The mindset that removes unnecessary stress around frequent travel
- Strategy: The principles that guide your decisions while you’re away
- Tactics: What to do in specific situations (airports, hotels, restaurants, family visits, etc.)
Here’s the core concept:
“Resilience is recovery speed, not reaction size.”
Travel will knock you off baseline. That’s not the problem. The problem is staying knocked off. Your task isn’t perfection on the road, it’s getting back to your routine quickly and without drama.
The extent to which you seek to practice damage limitation is up to you, and ultimately will be informed by how often you travel, for how long and what for. I’ll give you plenty of options, and you can decide how much you implement.
Part 1: Philosophical foundation (how to think about fitness + travel)
The perfection paradox
- The all-or-nothing mindset that is common in health & fitness. Unfortunately, it leads to rigidity, decision fatigue and spirals of guilt when perfection inevitably cannot be sustained. It’s a completely unproductive approach and never leads to any lasting success. On a long enough timeline, circumstances will always force a deviation from optimal; if you can’t anticipate that and take it into your stride, it’s going to cause major problems with motivation and overcorrection, and that will lead to burnout.
- Working on an 80/20 principle offers a superior, more flexible approach. This provides a lot of freedom and removes significant stress. Within these parameters, if travel represents less than 20% of your year, effectively, you can chalk it all up to the acceptable ratio, and you will still achieve your goals. (Of course, this means you’ll need to have things dialled in at home)
- Beware of the internal battle in which outcome rigidity can outshine identity preservation. Aim to act in ways that preserve your identity as someone invested in the value of their health & fitness, rather than someone temporarily ‘on a program’ or ‘following a diet’ who is striving for specific metrics.
Exercise context, maintenance vs growth
- You’re unlikely to hit PBs on the road; the circumstances tend to weigh against it. Your only real goal is to preserve routine to the best of your ability; it’s more about maintaining your habit loop and ensuring you endure no serious physical regression. The more recently you’ve established healthy habits, the more crucial it is to sustain them.
- We’re human and not always driven by purely logical thinking. It’s a very common outcome in the world of fitness training to allow a few days of interruption, which would have had a negligible negative effect on overall progress, to lead to weeks and months of inactivity due to the perceived failure of breaking from the planned routine. Please don’t succumb to this.
Travel as a different context, not an exception
- The best way to deal with the above is through a simple mental reframe. Travel isn’t a break in your progress; it’s an adaptation to temporary new constraints. Health isn’t one behaviour; it’s a decision-making framework that needs to flex. If you can’t sit with that, you are destined for a start/stop relationship with fitness, always dictated to you by one external circumstance or another. This is where people get into cycles of rotating fitness plans, new fitness coaches and diets.
There are trade-offs to be made while you travel. Retreating to 60-80% of what you would usually do while you are away will cost you very little in lost progress, but starting again from zero every time you have to travel or break with schedule will be far more expensive.
Part 2: Travel fitness strategy (why you need one ahead of time)
Anticipate cognitive load constraints
- Travel can be physically and mentally taxing even when it’s planned purely for fun. Your bandwidth is likely to be constrained. (Navigation, lack of sleep, schedule, decisions)
- Willpower is finite; when travelling, simple systems beat complex ones. Decisions create fatigue, and pre-planning lowers ambiguity and inertia.
- Pre-decisions compensate for poor choices in the moment under stress (particularly around nutrition)
Identify your constraints
Time analysis
- Morning routines: How much control do you have? Does early morning exercise make compliance more likely, or is time alone in the hotel a good opportunity to exercise and avoid eating out?
- Meal timing: Fixed (business dinners) vs. flexible, in your control or determined by others? The less you can control, the more you lean into the presence of exercise to offset caloric intake.
- Preparation access: Kitchen? Microwave? Nothing?… If nothing, what do you have available in the hotel, local shops, restaurants or delivery services? Know beforehand, use a VPN if you need to.
Environmental analysis
- Food availability: Urban vs. remote, international vs. domestic. Are you shooting for optimal nutrition or the lowest risk of problems? For context, it’s a popular anecdote that many Olympic athletes choose turn-key fast food outlets during the games, taking a theoretical sacrifice in nutritional value for the lower risk of contamination. Some locations might invite this decision-making process.
- Social obligations: Solo vs. group travel, client dinners, family expectations. Will there be certain things you have to do on your trip? Will that mean tightening up on the meals you can control?
- Duration: Weekend vs. week vs. month (different strategies needed) and different ability to plan.
Hierarchy of nutritional priorities for travel
Work backwards from what matters most:
Tier 1: Non-negotiables (protect these)
- Hit your protein targets (muscle preservation, satiety)
- Get adequte hydration (often ignored, massively impacts energy and decisions)
- Protect sleep quality (often affected by meal timing/composition will inform food decisions and the likelihood of exercise) Control rest and wake times, get the room as close to 18 degress celcius as possible and black out the room, including LEDS.
Tier 2: High-value, reasonable effort
- Vegetable intake (fibre, micronutrients, volume)
- Avoiding extreme caloric excess (one bad meal won’t hurt; consecutive days of surplus will add up)
- Avoid excessive alcohol intake (not because of the calories, but rather the poor sleep and recovery impairment)
- Aim to ‘dress your carbs’ by combining protein/healthy fats with your carb of choice in main meals to lower glycemic index (olive oil is the most likely win)
Tier 3: Nice-to-Have
- Meal timing optimisation (take opportunities to intake protein-rich meals if later meals are difficult to predict)
- Specific macro ratios
- Organic/quality sourcing
- Supplement consistency
Our observation: Most people get lost in the minutia and wind up inverting this pyramid. Protecting tier 1 keeps you 80% on track.
Nutrition: substitution, not restriction
Every food choice serves a purpose (hunger, energy, pleasure, social bonding). Don’t remove, it’s better to replace and optimise with something that serves the same purpose better, without breaking cultural norms and context.
Substitution beats willpower:
- “I can’t have X” creates psychological resistance. “I’m choosing Y instead because it gets me what I actually want” creates agency.
- Map your common failure points → identify the underlying need → find better solutions
- Understand like-for-like choices e.g high percentage dark chocolate over high sugar alternatives. Steak over burger and fries, grilled over fried etc…
Hierarchy of exercise priorities while travelling
Tier 1: Non-negotiables
- Maintain the habit loop – 10-20 minute blocks of deliberate movement whether mobility, strength or cardio helps prevent the ‘restart’ challenge upon your return.
- Preserve strength stimulus – Even a single brief, but challenging strength session is enough to send the body the signals it needs that you intend to maintain muscle mass and strength.
- Movement practice – Even a few minutes of mobility per day in which you fully articulate your joints and spine helps avoid the kind of muscle tension that sets you up for setbacks down the line. Take this seriously because the posture one endures during long travel + working and sleeping in an unfamiliar setup often leads to a lot of lower back and hip spasms 1-2 weeks later.
Tier 2: High value, reasonable effort
- Daily step count – Try to clock up steps through exploration, walking meetings and deliberately adding elements like stairs to your routes.
- Full body training bias – If you know you’re likely to have limited workout sessions, opt for total body workouts, it guarantees all muscle groups get worked, prioritise compound exercises.
- Morning training Window – One of the best ways to increase your exercise adherence is to get your workout in early, especially during travel when circumstances can get more and more out of your control with evening meals, client meetings etc
- Recovery maintenance – Remember that circumstances around sleep, nutrition, alcohol intake and stress may not be optimal when you’re travelling so taking training beyond what you’re conditioned to may not be prudent. You can gauge this according to how disruptive a particular trip has been to your routine and baseline metrics like resting heart rate and HRV if you have them.
Tier 3: Nice to have
- Progressive overload – While you’re away maintenance is crucial, progressive overload can be difficult depending on the logistical setup, take it if it’s there, but don’t make it the be all and end all of your workout.
- Specific rep ranges + tempos – Varience in equipment and available resistance may force a change in rep range. It’s normal adapt on the fly to keep the workout productive, more on this in the tactical section.
- Workout duration and exercise selection – Depending on the time and equipment you have available your workouts may wind up unrecognisable from your normal routine, that’s ok, the most important thing is that you make them happen.
Trainer’s note: As we saw with nutrition, most people stress too much over tier 3 variables on the assumption that missing all of the specifics of their usual program means they can’t get a good session and can end up doing nothing. Protecting tier 1 as a priority sets you up to return home with habits, momentum and positive mindset intact.
Arguably, the person who does 3 sets of 10 minute bodyweight sessions is in a better person than the one who turns their nose up at less than ideal circumstances and minds up inactive because they “can’t do it properly”
Pro Tip: Unless you’ve had your habits in place for so long that they have become a part of who you are, please don’t underestimate the impact of breaking them in the name of the perfect setup. As an online personal trainer I’ve witnessed dozens of people unravel after doing so and it’s taken a lot of focus to get them back on track.
Pre-commitment strategies
Decision architecture
Nutrition
- Try to make food decisions when you’re not hungry
- Book accommodations with kitchens/fridges when possible.
- Research restaurant options before you’re starving.
- Pack strategic items (more on this in tactical)
Exercise
- Decide your workout time the night before. A specific time and planned workout removes decision fatigue, decide in advance from what part of the day you will carve out this time.
- Pack essentials like activewear, resistance bands and a mat (try a hiking style sit mat if an exercise mat is too big) skipping ropes work well too.
- Scout exercise locations ahead of time
- If you have a busy schedule and have the opportunity, consider scheduling workouts as meetings (with yourself) on your calendar, it sets the intentions that well-being is of equal importance to work.
Implementation Intentions (your if this, then that decisions)
“When X situation occurs, I will do Y” e.g…
Nutrition:
- “When the hotel breakfast has no protein, I will order eggs à la carte”
- “When everyone has drinks at night, I’ll order a cordial”
- “When I land, I’ll buy nuts and dried fruit in case I get hungry in the evenings”
Exercise:
- “When I arrive at the hotel, I’ll immediately scout the gym space to plan my workout”
- “When I arrive in a new town, I’ll rule out or purchase a pass at a local gym for uninterrupted training”
- “I’ll always have bodyweight hotel room workouts in place as a substitute for my planned session”
This removes in-the-moment decision-making when you could be tired, hungry and out of logistical options
Holidays vs Business Travel
It’s important to note that there is a key distinction between travelling for work and going on vacation. You may simply not want to spend time on your holidays exercising, or you may build other forms of activity naturally into your trips so deliberately seeking out a gym space for a structured workout could feel restrictive and out of context.
One strategy you could use here is to pace your training so that your holiday effectively doubles up as a planned rest week, that way, the pressure is off, and the absence of intensive exercise is actually framed as a deliberate and productive decision.
The other scenario, which may be more likely, is travel for work. For many, this will be a constant feature of their career, which means it makes a lot more sense to have strategies in place to keep things in place so that resentment doesn’t grow around travel, effectively allowing you to perform close enough to what you can do at home regardless of where in the world your business travel takes you.
Part 3. Tactical Playbook for eating well and exercising during travel
Some basic guidelines:
Nutrition:
- Prioritise protein first – This is the nutrient you’ll struggle to get on the road. Aim for 25 – 40g per meal.
- Anchor every plate with whole foods – protein + veggies+ + quality carbs + healthy fats.
- Bring your “protein mix” – Pack your own combination of protein powder, oats, nuts & seeds, and extras like dried fruit, dark chocolate, or cacao nibs. You can pre-mix portions in separate sachets or bags, then prepare a quick breakfast or snack in your hotel by simply emptying a sachet into a cup or bowl and adding boiling water.
- Plan your snacks – Make sure to have high-quality snacks with you like Paleo Valley beef sticks, Paleo Valley protein bars, RXBar protein bars, ROAm grass-fed bars, Simple Mills Soft Baked Almond Flour Bars, single-serve nut butter sachets.
- Hydration is key – Dehydration is the #1 cause of fatigue when travelling. Aim for 1.5 – 3L of water (including plain teas and black coffee).
- Plan for the “worst meal of the day.” – Assume one meal will be out of your control, so make the others clean and structured.
- Eat For Satiation – When you have a chance to eat a balanced meal, eat enough to feel satiated and reduce reliance on snacks between meal.
Exercise:
- Train in the morning wherever possible – it has a universally higher adherence rate. You don’t need to eat beforehand if you aren’t eating restrictively, there are few better feelings than a wholesome breakfast with an early workout already in the bag.
- Use the never miss twice rule – Missing one session is part of a busy life. Missing two is the start of a trend you don’t want to see. If you miss one planned session that’s ok, but you should consider the next one non-negotiable.
- Keep workouts simple and full body – When time is limited and decision fatigue is a threat, no need to get fancy. Focus on simple, push, pull, squat and lunge movements and position plank and push up variations you go to for core work.
- Always have your kit on you – Have a system for packing workout clothes, training shoes and equipment of negligible weight whenever you travel.
- Make workouts 20 minutes by default – This is plenty of time for any type of session when you travel. If there is more time great, but keep 20 minutes as your baseline. It’ll make it far more likely to happen and won’t leave you exhausted for the rest of day.
- Plan for your ‘worst training day’ – Don’t judge sessions by performance, the point is that they happened, circumstances won’t be ideal, so performances likely won’t be either, that’s normal.
If you have intermittent access to a full gym, make it count. When you do have a full setup with heavy weight, this is your chance to do movements you can’t replicate in a hotel, don’t squander the opportunity to make these sessions count.
Decsions based on equipment and location
When you have full gym access:
- Unrestricted time → Continue your normal program at 80% intensity if travel stress is high
- Intermittent access → Total body sessions (5×5 style), prioritise strength maintenance over volume
When you hve hotel gym only:
- Unrestricted time → Higher reps, shorter rest periods. Split: Total body/Cardio+Core alternating days, or Upper/Lower/Cardio
- Intermittent access → Combine both strategies: high reps, short rest, total body, low-moderate volume
When you have no gym:
- 20-minute bodyweight/band sessions (see below)
- Or try escalating density training (EDT): Set timer, pick 3-4 exercises at 12 reps, complete as many rounds as possible
- Novelty challenges: 100-250 push-ups, multiple sets don’t stop until you hit your target (adjust to fitness level)
Example 20-minute hotel room workout:
- Push-ups: 4 sets to loss of technique
- Bodyweight squats: 4×20
- Plank: 3×45 seconds
- Lunges: 3×10 per leg
- Mountain climbers: 3×30 seconds
- Rest 30-60 seconds between sets on all exercises.
This simple workout taxes all major muscle groups and offers a blend of strength work, cardiovascular training and muscular endurance.
Nutrition tactics for specific travel scenarios
Airport & flight strategy
- Have a high-protein, balanced meal before travelling
- Make sure to have healthy snacks on hand and pack protein options in your suitcase if you know you won’t have access to high-quality food at your destination ( canned tuna, salmon, crispbread, carrots are great options)
- Hydration is key, dehydration will lead to poor decisions and low energy
- Choose healthy options available at the airport cafes, shops like boiled eggs, salads, dried fruit & nuts, Greek yoghurt
Airlines rarely serve enough protein to hit targets in a fitness goal context, and options can be heavy on carbs/alcohol/salt. If you cover protein + hydration, you’ll arrive with energy and less chance of bloating.
Train/Car strategy
- Get a thermal lunch bag where you can store fresh meals, whether prepared at home or bought on the go. If buying food, choose the most balanced option possible — for example, salads with a protein source (chicken, salmon, tuna, eggs, beef, or tofu), plenty of vegetables, and complex carbs (such as grains or potatoes), or a high-quality sandwich.
- You can also use a thermal pot to make protein porridge to take with you. Another option is preparing a version of Bircher muesli the night before travelling: mix Greek yogurt with oats, nuts, fruit, and other toppings of your choice, then store it in a stainless-steel or bamboo container to take with you.
- Make sure to have healthy snacks on hand.
- Hydration is key
Hotel room & breakfast buffet
1. Follow the balanced plate principle – dedicate ¼ of your plate to protein.¼ to complex carbs, and ½ of the plate to vegetables, add 1tbsp of healthy fats, and have fruit as a dessert.
2. In your room, ask for a mini fridge → stock boiled eggs, cottage cheese, pre-cut veggies, sparkling water.
If no fridge → shelf-stable options: protein bars, nuts, dried fruit, rice cakes, tinned tuna or salmon.
Why: Breakfast sets the tone for the day. A high-protein start keeps blood sugar stable and prevents the buffet binge.
Eating out at restaurants
Pro Tip: Always scan for protein first: grilled fish, chicken, beef, tofu.
Smart swaps:
Balance your plate: ½ plate vegetables/salad, ¼ protein, ¼ carbs (rice, potato, quinoa).
Ask for sauces/dressings on the side.
Swap fries for roasted, boiled or mashed potatoes, salad or vegetables.
Choose sparkling water instead of alcohol during the week
If you can take food with you, pack these:
- Protein powder
- Oats
- Nuts & dried fruit (sugar-free) or fresh fruit like apples/pears that travel well.
- Single-serve nut butter sachets or small nut butter jars ( 100% and preferably organic)
- Canned tuna, salmon or sardines
- Crispbread (gluten-free, like buckwheat, corn, quinoa, rice or Finnish-style rye crispbread)
- Dark chocolate and high-quality energy balls ( mix of dried fruit & nuts/seeds/cacao, no added sugar)
- High-quality protein bars like Paleo Valley, RXBar, Epic.
- Beef sticks like Paleo Valley ( 100% grass-fed), Chomps
- Individual packs of olives.
Summary: How busy people stay fit while they travel
Philosophical: Perfect is the enemy of good. Protect your identity as someone who exercises even when it’s inconvenient and eats well because it makes you feel bette, not someone chasing arbitrary metrics. Travel is maintenance mode, not growth mode. That’s perfectly okay.
Strategic: Prioritise morning training + protein + hydration + daily movement. Pre-decide everything. Substitute and optimise, don’t restrict or skip.
Tactical: Apply scenario-specific decisions. When in doubt:
- Training: Strength work first. Next best: 20 minutes bodyweight. Never let movement go to zero. The habit loop matters more than workout performance.
- Nutrition: Protein first, add vegetables, drink water.
The Reality Check
The person who trains 3x/week and eats healthy 70% of the time while traveling does exponentially better than the person who aims for 100% and achieves 30% before giving up entirely.
Be flexible. Do what you can. Get right back on plan when you return. No makeup sessions. No overcorrection.
Here’s what most people get wrong: They massively overestimate regression from 1-10 days of disruption. You’re maintaining, not losing. Neural pathways stay active. Muscle memory remains intact. You’ll be back to baseline within a week of returning home.
The Real Goal: Identity, Not Perfection
This playbook focuses heavily on mindset because once exercise becomes a genuine habit, in other words part of your identity, you’ll actively look for ways to make it happen on any trip. simpy becuase It would feel more uncomfortable not to. At this point you’ve trancended willpower and motivation.
These strategies are for people working toward that point. Here is what many people don’t realise: The real risk isn’t how far off course a few missed workouts or indulgent meals take you physically. It’s how far things can spiral mentally and emotionally in response. That’s the hidden cost of travel.
Whether you solve this by simply accepting deviations as part of your 80/20 ratio, or whether you need tactical plans for every scenario depends on how close you are to becoming the kind of person who sees exercise as a natural part of life, travel included.
When you reach that point, you’ll find a way even if you’re choices are restricted to doing pushups to failure in a hotel room. Not because you’re on a program or protecting a streak in a fitness tracker, but because it’s who you are.
If travel has been a frequent challenge in the pursuit of your fitness goals, consider scheduling a consultation with me directly and we can build a stretgy to help you overcome any scenario that may come your way.