Best fitness holidays for active travellers
Forget daiquiris by the pool. These vacations will push your body – and mind – to the limit.
Danielle Stynes’ clients like to sweat. For 16 years, the Victorian has assembled adrenaline-pumping, intrepid journeys through some of the most isolated regions of the Swiss, French and Italian alps. Guests who commit to one of her ski safaris or hiking tours expect to work hard from sunrise to sundown,
“I don’t like to backtrack. One of the things I love to do is take you from the Matterhorn, the most iconic mountain in the Alps, and finish at Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in the Alps,” the SwisSkiSafari founder explains. “In between that I’ll work out an itinerary adapted to your level, whether it involves biking, hiking or skiing.”
Her clientele, who are mainly top-level executives with an aversion to poolside resorts and group tours, desire unique, extreme and unexpected encounters. For them, a luxury vacation is not defined by high thread-count bed linen and butlers on call; it’s about access.
Demand for active holidays, ranging from cross-country cycling adventures and mountain treks to resort bootcamps and surfing tours, has surged in the wake of the pandemic. Research by Booking.com shows 73 per cent of travellers are eschewing traditional spa and wellness stays, preferring an itinerary that “pushes them to the limits”.
“Travellers are … sick and tired of feeling like they need a vacation after their vacation and are starting to choose experiences that leave them more fulfilled mentally, emotionally and physically,” explains Alex Timmons, owner of Mountain Trek, a Canadian fitness operator specialising in Nordic hikes through the mountains of British Columbia.
Debunking the myth that fitness holidays are for gym junkies and athletes, Timmons says typical guests are more often women experiencing life changes, such as menopause.
“We also get a lot of guests in career or life transitions who want to start the next chapter on the right foot, as well as mothers who have been giving everything to their family for decades and now want to give to themselves.”
For Australian entrepreneur and former elite rower Greg Taylor, who spends most of his working life slumped over a computer, the idea of spending more time in a chair – even one that fully reclines by a plunge pool – holds little appeal. He also believes it’s not conducive to creative thinking. Taylor was midway through a series of intensive hikes from Queenstown, New Zealand, when he came up with the idea for his now ASX-listed underwear brand, Step One. Since then, he and his partner, Sophie, have had heart-pumping excursions on every holiday. They recently completed a five-day hike along the Salkantay Pass to Machu Picchu and a swimming holiday off the Croatian coast.
Whether you’re looking to break a gentle sweat or push your body to its absolute limit, here are some of the best global adventures to get the endorphins flowing.
PEDAL PUSHING
Cycling offers an intimate perspective of foreign lands. The narrow laneways of historic cities are readily accessible on a leisurely pedal, or you can tackle challenging mountain passes, taking in the surrounds at whatever pace you and your fellow riders choose. A full day’s pedalling makes an evening meal more flavoursome and a hotel bed feel exquisitely soft. You don’t have to be a Tour de France competitor to ride sections of the race tackled by professional athletes each year. Companies such as cycling specialist Trek Travel take guests to some of the most challenging climbs of the gruelling French competition.
If extra torque is required to complement stamina, Escape by Cycle offers a range of e-bike tours across New Zealand’s South Island, exploring the imposing terrain of the Southern Alps and tackling the 139km West Coast Wilderness trail between Greymouth and Ross.
For travellers looking to test their quads even further, few tours are as epic as Sydney-based Ride and Seek’s Napoleon itinerary from Paris to Tallinn in Estonia. Divided into three stages, the 3693km route (inspired by its historical namesake) begins in Paris before traversing through Luxembourg, Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. It’s not for the faint-hearted, with riders tackling the dizzying hairpin turns and steep inclines of Europe’s most formidable landscapes.
Trek Travel’s six-day Etape du Tour trip takes riders along the full stage 14 of this year’s Tour de France; departs July 5; $US6699 ($10,250) a person, twin-share.
Escape By Cycle’s five-night West Coast
Wilderness tour is $3738 a person, twin-share.
Ride & Seek’s Napoleon tour takes place June
29-August 3, 2024; from $28,577 a person.
HIIT HOLIDAYS
The words “holiday” and “bootcamp” rarely appear in the same sentence, but it can be a winning formula for travellers wanting to return from their break looking and feeling better than when they left.
Unlike traditional health or weight-loss retreats, these trips don’t involve guests going on a strict vegan or low-carb diet, a fact Active Escapes founder Zanna Conlan believes appeals to young professionals.
“We don’t calorie count,” he says. “There’s food – it’s healthy food – but we’re not there to starve people, and we don’t have rules around alcohol or caffeine.”
In September, the global company, which has seen bookings increase 200 per cent since 2019, will hold its second annual festival at the Radisson Blu Bali Uluwatu. The six-night fitness get-together includes live music, DJs and plenty of high-intensity workouts. A more luxurious stay can be had in The Maldives in July, when the company is holding week-long fitness retreats at Soneva Fushi and on a superyacht.
British company Workout Away is another bootcamp-style operation offering stays at exotic locales throughout Europe. A typical day involves HIIT workouts, and weights and yoga sessions, punctuated by leisurely walks and bike rides along the coast.
Having vowed to spend less time on a beach lounger, Melburnian Amy Drennan kicked off a four-week European holiday with five days of intense fitness at one of Workout Away’s retreats held at Cascade Wellness Resort on Portugal’s Algarve Coast. Drennan says the bootcamp helped to counteract the more hedonistic days that followed.
“I was looking for a getaway in the sun where I could be active and around like-minded people,” she says. “It was relaxing but I also felt like I wasn’t being too lazy and lounging around all day.”
Active Escapes’ six-night Soneva Fushi fitness retreat runs from July 14-20, 2023; $US7150 a person, twin-share.
Workout Away’s Algarve program runs from October 18; from £1399 ($2645) a person, twin-share, for four nights.
MIND OVER MUSCLE
Sometimes the most arduous challenges can be those that take place inside your head. A growing desire among holidaymakers for more transformative experiences has inspired a new frontier of adventure travel offering “trips” like no other, involving sensory deprivation, isolation and even psychedelics.
In Portugal, guests taking part in Root Healing’s eight-day Iboga retreat undergo two Missoko Bwiti Iboga ceremonies involving the ingestion of the hallucinogenic iboga plant. Its active compounds are purported to help with processing trauma and curbing addiction. Mexico’s Buena Vida retreat enables guests to undergo the psychedelic effects of psilocybin, derived from “magic” mushrooms, under the guidance of an experienced shaman.
For those wanting a spiritual challenge without the use of mind-altering substances, a darkness or silent retreat may be more suitable. There are seven Vipassana meditation retreats operating in Australia. They require attendees to observe 10 days of “noble silence” – complete silence of the body, speech and mind according to the traditions of the ancient Indian practice – as well as about 10 hours of meditation a day. The retreats are free, but they involve a selection process.
If silence and solitude appeal, the idea of being stranded on a desert island may not sound like such a terrible option. Numerous operators offer survival outings on remote islands in Polynesia, Indonesia and The Caribbean. Docastaway, one of the first companies to devise Survivor-style solo programs, will drop an intrepid traveller on an uninhabited isle armed with a handful of tools and a satellite phone and leave them to fend for themselves.
For $295, you can be delivered to the remote, uninhabited Indonesian island of Siroktabe for the night. For dinner, you have the choice of fish or hermit crabs, but only if you can catch them.
Root Healing runs Iboga retreats between March and August. Prices available upon inquiry.
Buena Vida operates five-day psilocybin retreats from $US4200 a person, twin-share.
Vipassana centres offer 10-day silent retreats upon application, including accommodation and meals.
Docastaway Survival Mode holidays start at €180 ($295) a night.
HIKE-ATIONS
Some of the most spectacular sites on Earth can be reached only on foot; Everest base camp, Bhutan’s mystical Taktsang Palphug Monastery and The Narrows of Utah’s Zion National Park among them. Some trails and tracks can be tackled independently, but an guide who knows the terrain and history of an area can turn a hike into an epic, life-changing achievement.
Tasmanian Walking Company offers guided multi-day walks through some of the state’s best wilderness areas. Its eight-day Cradle Mountain Expedition Walk is a 77km winter outing from Waldheim in Cradle Valley to Lake St Clair. Snow and freezing temperatures are virtually a given on this trek, which takes in millennia-old rainforests, windswept heathlands and the summits of Mt Oakleigh and Mt Ossa, Tassie’s highest peak.
Explore Worldwide grades its 10-day Kilimanjaro-Lemosho Trek as “tough”, with the seven-day ascent to the 5895m peak designed to allow participants to acclimatise to the altitude. Summit day covers 19.5km over about 14 hours, with walkers setting off at midnight often in icy conditions.
For hikers seeking an even more extreme challenge, online eco-friendly travel agency Responsible Travel’s K2 Basecamp Trek in Pakistan involves four days of hard trekking and camping. Climbers reach altitudes of almost 5600m as they ascend to the camp and navigate the Gondogoro La Pass.
Tasmanian Walking Co’s Cradle Mountain Expedition Walk departs June-August; from $4995 a person, twin-share.
Explore Worldwide’s Kilimanjaro-Lemosho Trek takes place on selected dates until December; from $6160 a person, twin-share.
Responsible Travel’s 22-day K2 Basecamp Trek on August 3, 2023, starts at £4043 a person, excluding flights.
