Staying fit while traveling can be a challenge. It can be tough to get into a routine when your location changes often. While in Costa Rica I’m happy to say that I’ve been getting a workout in almost everyday. My favorite has been the beach workouts. I started doing them every morning while in Tamarindo, either with a local personal trainer or self-led HIIT workouts at the water’s edge.

For the personal training sessions, we used Nick Holt Fitness. We did several amazing TRX suspension training workouts with Nick. He tied the TRX to a tree, and with the jungle on one side and the ocean on the other the view was gorgeous, no matter which way we turned.

We worked out barefoot in the sand with the TRX and used a log for ground work and kettle bells for an added challenge. Nick pushed us HARD and our post-workout dip in the ocean was well deserved. I would recommend him to anyone who wants to maintain regular training while in Tamarindo and surrounding area.

While traveling around Costa Rica, I continued my beach workouts wherever possible. I would do a 35 minute HIIT workout with a different combination of exercises each time. With the heat and humidity I would do half my workout in the water. It was perfect!

What I love about the HIIT workouts is that you don’t need any equipment, and if you’re doing them on the beach, you don’t even need shoes! All you need is a timer of some kind and music to keep you moving. (I use my iPhone for both.)

All exercises are are completed using your body weight. Some examples of some would be:

I always include squats and planks in my workouts (cuz who doesn’t want a nice beach bum and killer abs?), and then I mix in a bunch of other exercises, depending on which are I want to focus on. I could add many more to the above list, but these are great if you’re just getting started with HIIT.

I drink a protein shake about an hour before I workout and I always ensure that I’m well hydrated. You should always make sure you drink plenty of water but if you’re traveling in the tropics this is especially important. In warmer climates your body loses a lot more water through sweating, so make sure you are drinking LOTS of water throughout the day. This will ensure that you are well hydrated for your workout as well as for general your health.

While in Costa Rica, I have had several days where I’ve missed my beach workouts, but those days are usually spent exploring which involves a lot of walking and/or hiking, so I get my exercise in other ways. When I returned from Central America I was so hooked on the TRX that I bought one to use at home and I love it!

Travel is no excuse to get lazy!

How do you stay fit while traveling? Please share in the comments below.

To give you a little taste of my workouts, this is my gym in Montezuma:

 

I’m in Costa Rica!

I spent my first 10 days in Tamarindo with a friend. I used the time to unwind and release any remaining stresses of city and office life and create a routine to take and appreciate each new day as it comes.

My days have looked like this:

Wake up between 6-6:30am. Get up, drink a cup of coffee and a fruit shake before heading to the gym for a workout.
My gym looks like this:

After an amazing HIIT workout (either on our own, or with Nick Holt Fitness) in the sun and sand, take a dip in the ocean to cool off and head home for a shower and tasty breakfast of eggs and bacon, with fresh local fruit and veggies. Then spend the day doing some work, maybe a photowalk, an afternoon snack of tacos and a cerveza (or two?) at Kahiki (total cost $6), or a stop at El Pescador for one (or four?) of their ridiculously delicious piña coladas, or one of the other beach bars for a refreshing glass of sangria.

     

Sometimes our friend “Steve” makes an appearance in the estuary next door, we’ve seen him quite a few times. Apparently he has a couple of friends that live there with him as well. Steve looks like this:

If we haven’t (accidentally?) been sucked in to the awesomeness of sangria happy hour, we may head home for a dip in the pool and a nap before going to a 5pm Spanish class. After class, its home to cook a deliciously healthy dinner with all fresh ingredients and, of course, a cocktail or two (cuz really, whynot?)

By the time 10pm rolls around there’s not much fuel left in the tank and it’s time for bed.

Sleep. Repeat.

Yup, they were rough days in Tamarindo… I’m dreading my return there toward the end of my trip… ; )

Costa Rica has all kinds of wildlife. So far I’ve seen some beautiful birds, howler monkeys, an iguana, squirrels, geckos, all sorts of bugs, and the most amazing thing I’ve seen is a CROCODILE!!!

Before coming here, I had heard that there are crocodiles in the estuary in Tamarindo. There was even an attack in the bay off the beach here last week. But I never thought that it would be so easy to see a crocodile and there we were, taking a stroll on the beach, and as we walked through the small stream from the estuary into the ocean, we looked over and saw this guy:

He was probably about five feet long, nose to tail. I was about 20 feet away when I took this photo, and I was not about to get any closer. Crocodiles can run up to 17km/hour, and you can see here that he’s got some pretty big teeth. I was thinking it might be nice to keep my arms and legs, so I kept my distance. Next time I go for a stroll I’ll be sure to bring along my zoom lens!

Vancouver Island > Vancouver

I had a long day ahead of me for my journey to Costa Rica. Although my flight out of YVR wasn’t until 5:45pm, I still had to get over to the mainland from the Island. So after hugging Roxie goodbye, I got in the car and headed to the Nanaimo ferry terminal to catch the 10:30am ferry to Vancouver.

When I arrived at the terminal, I bought my ticket and went through, and grabbed a coffee just in time to hear the announcement that due to high winds the ferry would be delayed and possibly cancelled. If the boat didn’t go within the hour, the next sailing wouldn’t be until 3pm! Whaaaaaat??!!!

I was happy that I had given myself lots of extra time, but if 3pm was the next available sailing, I would not make it to the airport in time. So I started stressing. I got my ferry ticket refunded, sat on a bench outside the terminal, and proceeded to call the seaplane company around the corner (weather was preventing them from flying too) and then Air Canada from the Nanaimo airport (the one flight that would get me to YVR on time was already full and the next would be too late). Arg!!

Next, I called the Delta Airlines to see about rerouting my flight. As long as I got to Atlanta to catch the flight to Liberia, I would be fine. The woman presented me with a couple of options for rebooking the flight, but it was going to cost me at least an additional $500! Whaaaaat??!!!

So just as I needed to make a decision about changing the flights, the ferry announcement said they were ready to board! Yay!! (Relief!) So finally an hour and a half late, the ferry was on its way! Crisis averted! I had planned to meet my girls for lunch in Vancouver before heading to the airport, but considering the start to my day, I decided to head straight for the airport.

A friend picked me up in Horseshoe Bay and as we left the terminal, listening to the traffic report they announced that there was an accident blocking access to the Lions’ Gate Bridge, plus delays on the Granville Street Bridge, and construction on the Burrard Bridge. Awesome. So we went around to the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge, which was (thank goodness) clear of issues.

As we walked from the airport parking lot to the departures terminal, I got a phone call and an email saying that my flight would leave an hour earlier. Whaaaaat??! So I went straight to the check-in desk and asked about it and the attendant said the flight would leave at the original scheduled time and that the call and email were some sort of glitch. O…k… Stress diffused.

Relieved, we went for a quick bite, I said goodbye, checked in and went thought customs. My flight was routed from YVR > LAX > ATL > LIR, a 17 hour journey. Considering the way the trip began, I was relieved that I didn’t have any issues with US customs. (Not being Canadian, it can sometimes be a pain in the arse.)

So I ended up at the Canucks Bar & Grill with a Caesar just in time to catch the retiring of Pavel Bure’s jersey and the Canucks vs. Leafs game. Back to happy!

YVR > LAX

The next leg of my trip took me to Los Angeles. Not much to report there, but did see fun facts about my two home cities, Vancouver and Amsterdam. (Seems I am the average Dutch girl with a height of 5’8.) The layover here was 2 hours, and my hike from one gate to the next took me only 8 minutes. Perfect. So I had some food and boarded my red eye flight to Atlanta.

LAX > ATL

The flight was quiet and uneventful, and upon arrival in Atlanta (about 4:30am local time), I checked the boards for my next departure gate. It said E35, so I grabbed a tea and a muffin, and headed to the gate. I had 5 hours to kill, so found a corner by the window, watched the sunrise, and then tried to get some sleep.

My flight to Liberia was to leave at 9:45am. When I looked out the window at 9am, there was no plane. Whaaaaat?? So I checked with the woman at the desk and she informed me that they had changed the gate for the flight to E5. Seriously??? So now I’m running across the airport to get to E5, because it was already boarding. So I get there and pretty much walk right onto the plane.

ATL > LIR

As I sit down, I’m thinking to myself, “Thank God this is the last leg of the trip! There can’t be much more that can go wrong…” And sure enough, as I go to fill out the customs and immigration paperwork  during the flight, my pen exploded. Ink everywhere. OMG! Seriously, who does that happen to??? Hahaha!

Upon landing in Liberia, customs was quick and easy, and my shuttle driver was there waiting for me. Perfect! I was so happy to be leaving the airport! Only another hour by car, and I was in Tamarindo!

And 29 hours later…

THIS is what made it all worth it!

I made a major life choice this past weekend. I have watched so many of my friends over the past few years, make the leap from a life being enslaved to an office job to that of a digital nomad. I have followed their blogs and adventures with stars in my eyes, as it has always been my dream to do the same.

I’m not sure what I’ve been waiting for…? Some kind of sign? Some kind of magic opportunity to be handed to me on a silver platter? I’m not really sure. But this past weekend, when yet another friend made the courageous leap, and moved his life to his dream location in the tropics, something in me flipped. Although I’ve always known it, it became very real to me that the life I want isn’t going to just happen TO me, I have to MAKE it happen!!

So on Saturday afternoon I made the decision that I would make a major life change. I would give my notice at my Vancouver apartment, sell and get rid of most of my possessions, and begin the process of becoming a digital nomad, living a life that I love!

I started making calls to friends and family and have been showered with nothing but enthusiasm and encouragement.

Within a couple of days, I have found new homes for most of my furniture, I’ve posted a bunch of stuff on Craigslist, packed a few boxes, and have decided on my next location to begin my transition.

Then yesterday it all became very real, when I paid my last month’s rent and delivered notice to end tenancy to my landlord! Ahhhh!! It’s finally really happening! There is no chickening out or turning back. My new life begins NOW!

It’s truly amazing how quickly things begin to happen and flow with ease when you make a choice with full determination.

So I leave you with this quote from Mark Twain, which is really resonating with me at the moment:

“The secret to getting ahead is getting started.”

And I ask you: What have YOU been waiting for to start living a life you love?

Let the adventure begin! A year from now you will wish you had started today!

Earlier this summer I took a last minute, unexpected trip to the Netherlands for family reasons. It just so happened that it was timed perfectly with the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. So I thought to myself, “should I go to London?” The answer, of course, was, “hells yes, you should go to London!!” I was already most of the way there, and all that stood between me and experiencing that amazing Olympic energy again was a small puddle jump across the English Channel! I know I would have regretted it, had I not gone.

So upon a trusted recommendation, I navigated to the EasyJet website, one of Europe’s low cost airlines, and for about $200 CAD I booked my return ticket from Amsterdam to London Gatwick. From there I needed a train ticket to get into London proper. After a quick Google search I came upon the Gatwick Express site, and booked a ticket for about $45 CAD return, which went right to London’s Victoria station. Easy!

Finally, accommodations… I was very fortunate and thankful to the generosity of friends who were in London for the Games, and I was able to stay with them in the flat they had rented in Kensington. Awesome! I was set! On to London!!

As it was my first time in London, I spent a day exploring some of the well known landmarks and historical areas. I started in Hyde Park at Kensington Palace and slowly made my way, mostly on foot, to Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. The best part though (and thanks to James and Greg for giving me the ticket!), was the athletics event at the Olympic stadium! This was my first summer Olympics, so I was very excited about attending an official Olympic event! It was truly amazing to watch the athletic ability of the competitors! Their speed and talent was incredible to watch! I’m so grateful for having these two amazing friends who helped make it all happen for me!

I’d also like to send out a HUGE thank you to the Olympic Party Boys, James Mazur and Greg Mazur, for their generosity and hospitality that made my London adventure such an unforgettable experience! You guys are incredible and I’m so very grateful for your friendship and epic awesomeness! Big love to you both! 

For more travel images, please visit my Flickr page.

 

I arrived in Thailand at the end of March 2011 armed with my PADI Open Water certification and a mere 7 dives under my belt. After a Scuba Review dive with terrible visibility off Koh Tao, I did the Enriched Air Nitrox specialty course and then the Advanced Open Water course at Buddha View Dive Resort, with PADI instructor, and friend, Robert Scales.

For my PADI Advanced Open Water Course, I chose to do deep, navigation, peak buoyancy, night and, of course, photography as my adventure dives to complete the course.

Everything went smoothly, and I did not feel the effects of nitrogen narcosis during the deep dive segment. I was fairly nervous about doing the night dive. Diving in the dark, where you can see only where your light shines was hugely intimidating for me. But surprisingly, I found it to be very peaceful and even relaxing. It was probably my best dive experience off Koh Tao.

So, just like that, 3 days later, I was an Advanced Open Water Diver! Yes!!

So… The whole purpose of doing the Advanced Open Water course was to do a three day liveaboard trip to the Similan Islands and Richelieu Rock with Eden Divers in Khao Lak. Our experience with Eden Divers was better than I could have imagined. Never having done a liveaboard before, I was unsure what I should expect, but this far exceeded my expectations!

 

We chose Eden Divers because of the small number of people on the boat. The Sea of Fantasy can take up to 13 liveaboard guests plus crew. We were not interested in going out on a massive boat with 30+ people, where you would constantly be running into people while diving. 13 seemed like it would be a much better and intimate experience. So, we splurged (just a tiny splurge) and booked ourselves one of the two air conditioned master cabins on the ship. Awesome!

The trip included 5 amazing meals a day, coffee, tea, drinking water, fruit and snacks, and you could also purchase soft drinks and beer on the ship, or bring your own. You could do up to four dives each day and if you were nitrox certified (which I now was), the nitrox was included at no extra cost. And to top it all off our guide, Fariborze, was amazing!

Diving courses were also available on the boat, as each guide is a certified instructor. So, for example, if you didn’t have your nitrox certification when you boarded the ship, you could upgrade your knowledge and skills while on the trip and do your dives on nitrox. We had one fellow guest who had started her Open Water course a couple of days before the trip, and she completed it on the boat and decided to also do her Advanced Open Water and Nitrox courses on the boat as well.

The crew on the boat was nothing short of awesome! Our rooms were cleaned and made up each day. The meals we ate were super tasty. The deck crew below, helping with our gear thought of everything before we even had a spark of an idea in our minds. We barely had to do anything except climb into our wetsuits, strap on our BCDs and jump in the 29 celsius water! Awesome!

So, on to the fun stuff! What did we see….??? We woke up on the first day to a tornado/water spout! Very cool! We did 11 dives over 3 days and saw all kinds of crazy creatures: lion fish, dancing shrimp, many giant moray eels and barracudas, many different nudibranchs, trigger fish, box fish (one of my favourites), black spotted puffer fish, porcupine fish, groupers, travellys, the biggest lobster I’ve EVER seen (I’m probably evil for wanting to see it on my plate…), sea horses, harlequin shrimp, ghost pipefish, trumpet fish, jans pipefish, spider crabs, leopard sharks, napoleon wrasse, bandit sea snakes (very poisonous), stone fish, scorpion fish, honeycomb moray eels, and that just scratches the surface! Of course we saw all of the more common creatures like clown fish, anemones, urchins, corals, etc. The two things I was really hoping to encounter were the manta rays and a whale shark, but they did not reveal themselves to us on this adventure. It just means I will have to keep looking and finding many other critters in the process!

So as I stepped off the ship, I now had logged 24 dives in my log book, and I feel much more confident underwater.

It’s funny… when most people look out at the ocean, they have no idea of what lies beneath. There truly is a whole other world on this planet that we share, and I have not even scratched the surface with what I have seen. I could get used to being on the water more. A different view each time you look out, and a new world to explore each time you jump overboard. Doesn’t sound half bad. I could get used to that life.

A HUGE thank you Eden Divers for an amazing experience in the Similan Islands! Thank you Fariborze for being a brilliant guide! And thank you Robert, for being my instructor and dive buddy throughout our Thailand diving adventures! The trip was truly amazing.

[miniflickr photoset_id=72157626990617591&sortby=date-posted-asc&per_page=48]

 

My visit to the Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai, Thailand was one of the most amazing experiences ever! This is a photo of my favourite pachyderm at the park, Medo.

Our first day in Bangkok was somewhat adventurous. After breakfast we grabbed our cameras and set off to first, sort out our travel plans to Koh Tao, and then to explore the city.

Sorting out our travel plans wasn’t as simple as we expected. A friend had arranged our train and ferry tickets to the island of Koh Tao and had sent the tickets from Koh Tao to a Bangkok travel office. However, due to the storms in the gulf of Thailand at the time, the tickets never actually made it to Bangkok. So, day one in Bangkok, we were told to come back the next day to see if the ferries were running again for our tickets to make it to the mainland… So, off we went to explore Bangkok!

Within minutes of leaving the travel office we were approached by one tuktuk driver after another offering to take us to various tourist attractions. We were standing on a corner looking at the city map, when a woman walked up offering to help give us direction to the Grand Palace. She told us the easiest way to get there was by tuktuk and so we climbed in. The ride was exceptionally cheap that day, as it was a Buddhist holiday and the government was sponsoring the tuktuks for the day, so we ended up paying 20 baht (about 64 Canadian cents) for a two and a half hour tour of Bangkok with several stops along the way. Not bad!

First stop, the Standing Buddha. This was the the first big Buddha I had ever seen and I was blown away by its sheer size! This was also my first experience watching Buddhists leaving offerings and pausing for prayer. They would pay a donation to the temple and in exchange they were given three incense sticks, a candle, and gold leaf. The incense and candle were lit and left in designated areas, while the gold leaf was pressed onto a Buddha statue for luck. Next they would kneel in front of the Buddha in prayer.

We made a couple of other stops before the driver took us to Top Ten Tailors, the first sponsor of the adventure. I had read about this so was not surprised. Basically the tuktuk drivers are paid in gasoline coupons for bringing tourists to their sponsors (usually tailors and jem shops). So, we played along… Although the clothes were truly beautiful, and much more affordable than back home (a 3-piece men’s suit was $75 CAD), we weren’t about to lug something like that all over Thailand with us for seven weeks… So after listening to the half hour spiel, we politely declined and were on our way again.

We stopped at one more temple before we told our driver that we were not interested in any more sponsor stops, our tuktuk tour abruptly ended right back where we started, and the friendly woman who had been so helpful earlier pretended not to even know us. Haha! Quite hilarious, really…

From there, we carried on on foot. We explored the famous Khaosan Road, where you can buy anything and everything you can imagine!

We eventually made our way to the Grand Palace. However, by this time it was later in the afternoon, and there was not enough time before the palace closed to do it justice for exploring. So we decided to go back the following day. But we’ll save that for another post…

For more photos of my Bangkok adventure, please visit the set on Flickr!