Seven ways to keep trim when you’re away from home.

If you care just as much about how you look under your clothes as the way you look in them, you will want to maintain your fitness regimen while you are abroad. But it is not always easy, time being short, business dinners long and alcohol plentiful. Most good hotels have decent gyms these days, but running on a treadmill can feel like a waste when there is a whole city to explore in those fleeting moments of free time. So, to stay in tip-top condition and engage with the city and its people, try these seven activities.

Taking part in a running tour is a great way to insert some sightseeing into an otherwise jam-packed itinerary, plus you work up an appetite for that buffet breakfast. There are numerous outfits that organise guided routes around the local area. City Running Tours, for instance, will put you through your paces in cities such as Atlanta, Seattle and hilly San Francisco. Go Running Tours, meanwhile, will lead you around destinations as varied as Kathmandu and Tel Aviv.

If you are a confident swimmer, then taking to the water can be a refreshing way to limber up. In Munich, many local residents bathe in the Eisbach River, while in Basel, it’s not uncommon to see people floating down the Rhine with their clothes in a waterproof bag. In Zurich, there’s the lake, and in Stockholm, plenty of waterways in which to take a plunge. In London, Hampstead Ponds and the Serpentine are popular with those willing to brave the cold, while Ohio Street Beach in Chicago provides access to the calm waters of Lake Michigan, which is so vast it looks like the sea.

Airbnb launched its experiential travel portal in 2016, giving visitors the opportunity to book not just insider workshops and tours with local hosts, but activities with a fitness slant, too. You can take surf lessons in San Diego, go hiking outside Kuala Lumpur, cycle through Bangkok, go rock climbing in Boulder, or even learn how to sword fight like a samurai in Tokyo. One of the many benefits of swapping the hotel gym for an excursion such as this is that you get to engage more with the place that you are in, and turn up at your next meeting with more to talk about than the food you ate on the plane.

The on-demand economy has prompted the “Uberfication” of everything from food (Deliveroo) to at-home rub downs for aching muscles (Urban Massage), so being able to book a personal trainer to come to you is a logical innovation. For people used to working with a coach at home, apps such as TruBe (London), Pummel (Australia and New Zealand) and Handstand (US) will pair you with a professional while you’re in town to help you stay motivated. Choose your instructor, let them know your needs and abilities, and they will put together a suitably vigorous routine for you with form analysis given at your side.

Many of the world’s business cities have beautiful parks within easy reach of your hotel, so make use of green space to clear your mind and stretch your jet-lagged body. Whether you are in Amsterdam or Berlin, Melbourne or Vancouver, locating a lawn where you can practise your warrior poses shouldn’t be difficult. Just borrow a towel or mat from your room and head out into the fresh air. If you need inspiration, there are plenty of yoga tutorial apps and videos online, but joining a group is also easy. Fit Tours NYC offers sunrise yoga walks in Central Park, for example.

Sign up for a monthly subscription to ClassPass and you can gain access to a huge variety of workout classes in more than 10,000 studios and gyms all over the world. Perfect for out-of-towners, users simply spend credits on whatever takes their fancy, be it spinning or Hiit, Pilates or boxing, so you can mix up your exercise to avoid plateauing. Reservations can be made last minute and classes are scheduled all day every day in 50-plus cities, including London, Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, Hong Kong and Sydney.

While most business travellers are only too happy to kill time waiting for a flight in the lounge with a G&T, the more health conscious will forgo the unlimited supply of fine wine and savoury snacks in favour of some hardcore cardio. Until recently, this has only been possible when sprinting to the gate upon discovering your flight is on its final call, but now Roam Fitness is opening airside gyms equipped with Technogym machines and free weights, plus Lululemon gear to hire if you’ve forgotten your own. At the moment, it is available at Baltimore/Washington International airport, but more venues are in the pipeline.

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