Five Easy Ways To Stay Fit While Traveling In Your RV

Since Bob and I travel so much, we needed to find good ways to stay in shape. We have a gym membership that we use while we are home, but while we are traveling keeping in shape becomes more of a challenge. Here are five simple ways to maintain your fitness while Rving.

1. Yoga - Yoga is one of the most beneficial things that you can do for your body and mind and is a tremendous way to start the day. I have been doing yoga for about 30 years now, and it is an essential part of my daily routine. I highly recommend the Rodney Yi morning yoga routine on the "AM and PM Yoga" DVD because it is very gentle on your body and easy for beginners. The best thing about doing yoga while camping is that you can do it outdoors, and enjoy some of the most spectacular scenery imaginable.
2.   Floor exercises - I do about 100 stomach crunches followed by some core stability and abdominal exercises such as the plank and side plank. Click here to see some good abdominal exercises.   
3. Weight Work - Weight work is essential to maintain bone strength and prevent osteoporosis as you age. We carry 2, 5, and 10 pound weights and a stretch band. Included in my workout are curls, hammer curls, front and side deltoid raises, upright rows and triceps extensions. Free weights are great because of the variety of exercises they allow you to do. I use a stretch band around a chair to do seated rows. I try to do my weight work routine about three to four times a week. About.com has great exercise pages that can help you with your weight workouts.   
4. Walking - Since we are in such beautiful locations, I try to take full advantage of the wonderful hiking trails that are available to us while we are camping. I try to get at least two miles a day in, sometimes much more. I walk my dog every morning for about a mile, and repeat this at night. Any additional walking is a bonus.
5. Biking - We try to get in a good bike ride around three times a week. I especially like to burn off part of my dinner by taking a bike ride about an hour after we eat.

The most important thing that you can do is to maintain consistency. It can be difficult to stick to a routine, since while you are traveling you always feel as if you are on vacation and it is easy to take a day off. However, you have to push yourself if you want to stay healthy and continue to enjoy the traveling life style.

Excitement at Goose Point Park

 

We were so impressed with Goose Point Park during our trip last year that we decided to return this August. Goose Point campground has three different sections.   Section A is up on a hill away from the lake and has water and electric. Section B is on another hill above the lake, and has no electric or water. Section C is the most desirable loop with water and electric, and beautiful campsites right on the lake. I had reserved two campsites in the Section C loop - campsites 14 for five nights and 29 for the remaining 9 nights of our trip. When we arrived we were disappointed to find out that campsite 14  was too difficult to get into with a 30 foot trailer, so we had to go up into section A for five days. There was also a problem with campsite 29 - it was long enough, but our 30 foot trailer would just about fit into the site leaving little room for the truck, and we would have to really jack the trailer up because of the severe incline. Most of the campsites are reasonably easy to get into, and it seemed as if we had picked the two most difficult. After a bit of grumbling, we settled into a decent campsite up on the hill in section A.

About three days into our trip a tow truck with a flat bed appeared with an old class C camper on it. The rig didn't have any license plates on it and didn't appear to be road ready. However, the owner left it on the site overnight, and the next day a group showed up and moved into the camper.

We left after our five nights, and moved into campsite 29. We noticed that the old class C had driven down the hill and moved to a different site below us. The next day I was sitting outside, and my husband said "Oh my God - come look at this". The camper had rolled backwards and fell down the steep hill that the site was on. The only thing that kept it from plunging into the water below was a tree which had fortunately stopped it. The owner said that he was trying to move the rig and the breaks failed. The rangers came by and fined him $800 for damage to the tree and tacked on some other fines as well.  Guess the moral of the story is to make sure that your rig is really driveable and registered.

We took our canoe with us so that we could go fishing and explore pristine Philpott Lake a little more. Bob was told by a fishing store in Chincoteaugue that if you were a senior citizen you didn't need a license in Virginia. Unfortunately we found that to be false, and we were stopped by the police and ticketed for fishing without a license ($120 each).   Moral of that story is don't ever believe what you are told - check the rules for yourself.

In spite of some of the mishaps, we loved our stay here and will definately return. Now we know what campsites we prefer and which ones not to stay on. I'm sure our next visit will go a bit more smoothly.

Bargain Camping in the Florida Keys

sunset at Bahia Honda State Park

The Florida Keys are notoriously expensive for campers, with many campgrounds charging over $100.00 a night. However, there is a bargain to be found – the state parks. There are four state parks in the keys – John Pennekamp Coral Reef, Curry Hammock, Long Key and Bahia Honda. Each of these are wonderful parks that charge $38.50 nightly for sites with electric hookups and water. John Pennekamp offers sewer hookups as well. Bob and I have stayed in all but Curry Hammock, and we are looking forward to staying there for two weeks in April 2012. Out of the other three we think that Bahia Honda is the best for swimming, but Long Key has all waterfront sites that have spectacular views. Bahia Honda has waterfront sites, but we have never managed to book them since they are in such high demand. In order to get reservations at these parks you have to log into Reserve America exactly 11 months before the day that you want to start your reservation. My advice is to log in about 15 minutes before 8:00 AM, pick out your campsite and get everything set up so that you are able to click on the button to reserve the campsite at exactly 8:00. It is very difficult to get these sites, and so you may have to try over a period of a few days. We have managed to get reservations for three years now, so it just requires a little patience and determination. Believe me it's worth it to get these great sites

view from our campsite at Long Key State Park