#047 – Staying fit while traveling doesn’t mean hours in a gym or denying yourself delicious local cuisine. Mike and Maryssa, the Two Fit Travelers and hosts of The Fit Travel Show, share tips and simple things you can do to enjoy your travel while staying fit.
Topics Covered:
- Setting the right expectations about fitness and travel
- Things to consider when planning and preparing for travel
- Healthy tips to maximize your time while on your trip
- Bonus: Some cool places that you should visit!
Today’s Guest
Two Fit Travelers
Mike
Mike has worked in the fitness industry for 12 years either owning, managing or consulting companies until he earned his first Master’s degree in Exercise Science: Injury Prevention and Rehabilitation Science. He holds several fitness industry-recognized certifications from organizations like the National Academy of Sports Medicine, National Strength and Conditioning Association, and Precision Nutrition. Mike has trained 1000s of clients, including collegiate athletes, during his career. Now, he consults small businesses and elevates other entrepreneurs to practice business in the modern world.
Maryssa
Maryssa is a companion animal Veterinarian. She has a wealth of fitness experience, a former Division 1 scholarship competitive swimmer, 8-time triathlete (Sprint and Olympic distance), and former AFAA certified fitness instructor. She also participates in obstacle course racing with Spartan and Tough Mudder for fun.
Follow Two Fit Travelers:
- Website – Two Fit Travelers
- Instagram – @twofittravelers
- Facebook – @twofittravelers
- Pinterest – @twofittravelers
- YouTube – Two Fit Travelers
Additional Resources:
- The Fit Travel Show: Episode 2.9 – Pandemic Success Story: Richard Conner @InspireVirtualRuns
Listen to Inspire Virtual Runs Podcast:
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Richard Conner 0:00
Welcome to Episode 47. About this time last year, I had a great conversation with Mike and Maryssa from Two Fit Travelers about how to travel and stay active and stay fit. And I thought it was such a relevant topic. For right now as once again, things are opening back up, and summer is right around the corner. So I want to bring back this interview for all of you and I hope you enjoy. Here’s what you can look forward to on this episode of Inspire Virtual Runs Podcast
Mike 0:33
Create habits long before that event occurs and invests you reduce the cognitive load when you get there. So it’s much easier to go for a run when you’re on vacation and you’re with family and you don’t really feel like being healthy and fit. If you already have a habit of that going into it. It’s not a negotiable at that point. It’s just part of what you do. So the reason Maryssa and I always work out and we’re on vacation is because we do it every day at home.
Intro/Outro 1:02
Welcome to Inspire Virtual Runs Podcast, whether you are new to running or seasoned. Get tips in the inspiration that you need to achieve your health and fitness goals. Now, here’s your host Richard Conner.
Richard Conner 1:19
Hi, everyone. Welcome to Inspire Virtual Runs Podcast. I am here today with the Two Fit Travelers Mike and Maryssa. Mike has worked in the fitness industry for 12 years, either owning managing or consulting companies until he earned his first master’s degree in Exercise Science, Injury Prevention and Rehabilitation Science. He holds several fitness industry recognized certifications from organizations like the National Academy of Sports Medicine, national Strength and Conditioning Association, and precision nutrition. Mike has trained 1000s of clients, including collegiate athletes during his career. Now he consults small businesses and elevates other entrepreneurs to practice business in the modern world. Maryssa is a companion animal veterinarian. She has a wealth of fitness experience, a former division one scholarship competitive swimmer, eight tying triathlete sprint and Olympic distance and former AFA certified fitness instructor. She also participates in obstacle course racing with Spartan and Tough Mudder for fun. Mike and Maryssa hosts the Fit Travel Show, and we’re excited to have them here on Inspire Virtual Runs Podcast. So welcome to the show.
Mike 2:38
Hey, Richard, I don’t think we’ve ever heard our background told that eloquently. And I sure hope that we can give your audience what they’re expecting after that introduction.
Maryssa 2:48
live up to those standards. Thank you.
Mike 2:50
We sure appreciate that, man. Thanks for having us on the show.
Richard Conner 2:52
Yeah, no, thank you guys. And I’m impressed with your bio as well. And the moment that you guys had asked me to come on the show, I’ve been wanting to bring you guys on this show. So this is exciting for me as well.
Mike 3:04
Awesome. we sure appreciate that.
Maryssa 3:06
Yeah.
Richard Conner 3:07
So there’s a ton here, you guys got a lot going on with the Fit Travel Show and Two Fit Travelers. Let’s like just kick things off and just talk about like, How’d you get started with Two Fit Travelers and tell us you know, a little bit more about yourselves.
Mike 3:21
Yeah, so Marissa always gives me like an under the table poke to, for me to tell the story because I, I like to describe it as kind of like a fairy tale beginning and then like a business ending. So I’ll go ahead and kick us off. Way back in the day. I don’t know for about four years ago, we when we right after we started dating, we realized that we had a passion for travel. So Maryssa always wanted to do a travel blog. She followed a lot of folks on Instagram and social media that had travel blogs. And if she wasn’t going to become a veterinarian, her dream job was to become a travel blogger. And so with some experience in business at that time, I said, Well, sure let’s let’s do this. Let’s let’s make a business of it. And we had shared aspirations of turning it into a like a full time income someday. And we started out our I think our original name was called m&ms meanders, and we just did what everyone else was doing. We just started a platform. But we quickly realized that that wasn’t really going to turn into a full business and we had to do some intentional things to turn it into a business. So thankfully, Marissa came to me about three weeks after we started that platform and said, Hey, I think two foot traveler sounds a little bit better, which it did because it would have been I think we even purchased the URL. It was like mmm, Anders, and it was just a mouthful, and it was cute but confusing. So we started to fit travelers for about a year we just practiced everything that we would potentially enjoy doing as a business and within our niche which was things that we love to do travel and stay fit. And so we figured man, maybe we can add value to people who also want to live a, an adventure, lifestyle and stay healthy while they’re traveling. And so that that manifested into the Fit travel show, which is where we talk to other inspiring folks like yourselves who are like yourself who are keeping people active and healthy while living an adventurous lifestyle. And then other things that we’re doing as well with the platform, things like our healthy travel guides, a wellness course that we just started. And a whole host of other things. I’m not sure if you want to get into detail about that now, but it turned into what two foot travelers is today, which is Maryssa and I, and a team of six other folks all over the US, I think we’re in five different time zones, or sorry, not us all over the world in five different time zones, and we’re just cranking things out. Yeah.
Richard Conner 5:57
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. And, you know, again, I love what you guys are doing travel fitness, two of my favorite topics. So the fact that you put them together, it’s just really awesome. And I think the timing of this conversation is great. Because you know, as you know, things are starting to open back up. And there’s light at the end of the tunnel. And I’m sure folks are thinking about, hmm, can we make some travel plans this summer, or if they’re in the northern hemisphere. So, you know, I love the fact that we’re having this conversation now. So, you know, on as far as virtual runs, we talk about a lot about inspiring folks to incorporate running as part of their fitness. And that’s hard enough just to do it when you’re at home. Right? Just to fit it in with your within your schedule. So now I’m thinking about, Okay, well, if I’m making travel plans for the summer, and I just got into this routine, I don’t want to keep it going. Like Like, how do I do that? So I love the fact that we’re having this conversation now.
Maryssa 6:52
Yeah.
Mike 6:52
Oh, same.
Richard Conner 6:53
So let’s, let’s talk a little bit about some of the things that you guys are doing and some of the services that you offer. So, you know, you talked high level fitness and travel, those are the topics you cover, but like, what specifically do you get into? And what kind of, you know, guidance, advice or services you provide for folks? Yeah,
Maryssa 7:11
yeah. So a lot of it stems back to our own personal experiences. When we travel, which Mike and I, we traveled to New Zealand, it was kind of our first big trip. And one of the things that we really wanted to experience is how people stay fit and work out in other countries. Is it something that is, you know, as high of a of a desire as the people who work out in the US? Or is it something that it you know, our culture is very appearance focused a lot of the times and so is it something that they do as well. And so, once we were in New Zealand, we started to kind of look around for opportunities to workout and we were lucky enough to work out at a couple of really, really nice gyms. And we had a really great time, we met a lot of really awesome people. And they were able to recommend some healthier places to eat. And we’re able to kind of recommend some things to do. And we found that the gym community in general, in New Zealand, at least, and you know, since in other places has been really welcoming and really great kind of asset to our travel. And so once we realized how, you know, kind of synergistic travel and fitness were and how much we really enjoyed doing them together, we decided to kind of help other people along. And so that kind of led to our first service, which is our healthy travel guides. What these are is basically this is a kind of a packet that tells you how to stay fit while you’re traveling in different places. So we have a couple of ones we have staying fit and healthy. In Oman, we have a Bali guide, we have the Grand Canyon, and we have the power lifters guide to travel which is another great resource. And so all of these guides share kind of what we just talked about. So places to work out healthy options for places to eat, and then things to do outside or how to stay active while you’re traveling. We love the services because it gives a person who is traveling access to being able to stay healthy. So many times we hear and we hear it from you know people we work with that it’s so difficult to keep your routine and to keep healthy while you’re traveling. And so we just wanted to, you know, kind of help other people stay fit like we do.
Mike 9:16
Yeah, so we were just doing some marketing efforts. This week when a, I think was the Los Angeles Times article came out that they were opening up Napa Valley, and one of the healthy travel guys that we created was for Napa Valley. One of the girls on our team lives in Denver. She’s been in Napa countless times she has a brother or cousin. That’s a Somali in Napa Valley. So she was able to kind of work within her experience in her family to build out this really wonderful guide. Everything from you know how to stay healthy while you’re out at wine tastings to healthy restaurants that are nearby the fitness facilities that are around and so so basically what our guides do is they gather all this information up to save people a lot of time and headache from trying to plan this all out. So a lot of our products and services have to do with really taking the weight and the work off of creating a wonderful experience. So we do all that work for you, all you have to do is purchase one of our guides, and you have access to all that information. The only exception to that rule is our wellness course that we recently created. And that was certainly inspired by adding some convenience, but it was more inspired by my experience training. So one thing I found when I worked with clients is that the first three to six weeks of working with any client was nearly identical. And it basically went like this, we would start working together, but I would start to build a relationship with this client. And they would start sharing with me everything that they thought they knew about health and wellness, a lot of questions about nutrition, like, hey, so I heard that eggs are bad for you. Or, Hey, I heard you can’t eat after 7pm At night, or all these different kind of buzzwords that they had read in blog articles or heard from other people and those types of things. And then a lot of a lot of missed assumptions about exercise too. And so I really believe that the first three to six weeks of working with any client was an improbably is for other fitness professionals as well, just helping them unlearn things, and adapt a little bit more of an unbiased approach to health and wellness. So, with with the whole onset of the pandemic, and people being stuck at home, we were really inspired to create a course. And we call it the wellness reset course. But it’s basically a roadmap to getting back on track to your wellness goals, or back on track to a running program or whatever it really is that you want to do, we try to use a very unbiased practical approach to any goal. And it delivers only the essential information that you need in order to accomplish your goals. So one thing that we are polarized by being in this influencer sphere is that a lot of influencers try to be a guru, or they adapt one philosophy, like they’re only vegan, or they’re only keto or paleo and, and the truth is like that might be appealing. But the truth is that there are plenty of options out there. And for me as a fitness professional without me sitting down across the table from somebody and doing an appropriate assessment, I really don’t know where they’re coming from. So we just, we want people to be healthy, we want people to live more adventurously. And so that’s kind of where all of our products and services come from.
Maryssa 12:43
Yeah, and I think the other thing to kind of tie those two things together is the wellness reset really gives you the tools you need to get started at home and create your own fitness lifestyle. And then once you have those tools and those basics, it’s super easy to transition those two on the road and to really, you know, continue to travel with that.
Richard Conner 13:01
Yeah, that’s that’s a great point. So first off, thank you for sharing that about the the services and wellness reset course. And congratulations on that. That sounds like it’s going to be a great course. And you know, as you’re talking about it, I’m thinking you’re helping kind of remove some of the barriers that are in place for someone to like, get started and do some of these things and get fit. And I’m just wondering, like, mentally? How do you get rid of some of the barriers or some of someone saying like, this is something maybe I don’t have time to do or I can’t do especially if I’m traveling, I’m on vacation, I want to eat whatever I want to eat, I don’t really want to spend time working on I just want to hang out at the pool like these are probably things that are going through someone’s mind. So like, how do you kind of get past those mental barriers?
Mike 13:48
Yeah, Richard, I think that’s an awesome question. And I think the answer is twofold. I’m sure there are other answers, but from our opinion, because we have this conversation a lot, I think the answer is twofold. Number one, like Marissa said, you create habits long before that event occurs, and, and thus you reduce the cognitive load when you get there. So it’s much easier to go for a run when you’re on vacation, and you’re with family, and you don’t really feel like being healthy and fit. If you already have a habit of that going into it. It’s not negotiable at that point. It’s just part of what you do. So the reason that Marissa and I always work out and we’re on vacation is because we do it every day at home. The other thing is finding ways to trick yourself into the routine. And then I’m not talking about like voodoo magic. I’m just saying find ways to put it into your routine without having to really deal with the emotional side of things. So for example, a lot of runners are our morning runners. And I think that’s less to do with the the the personality that’s doing the running. I think it’s more to do with the fact that they inherently know if they don’t get up early and do the run. Something’s going to happen or they’re not going to be able to time it in between meals properly, or they’re just going to get tired. They’re not going to want to do it later on. So, you know, planning, you can do that by planning it ahead, making it a staple to do first thing in the morning, you know, putting out your clothes, so that you’re, you’re ready to go. As soon as you wake up, you just roll out of bed, you know, throw your shoes on and go. Any of those things that you can kind of trick yourself into adding in your schedule would help.
Maryssa 15:24
Yeah, absolutely. And I think another thing is, you have to be working with a person who also has a desire to do that. Because, you know, if you go into the the mindset of I’m on vacation, I’m not going to work out, then you probably aren’t going to work out. But if you are at home, and you think I’m going to work out three times on vacation, that is, you know, a week long vacation, you’ll probably do those those three times, because you’ve already set a standard for yourself before you go. And just like Mike said, I think a lot of it has to do with prep them ahead of time.
Mike 15:53
Yeah. And I want to add one more thing, Richard. And this is not just because we’re on our show on your show. But I think having someone that you’re accountable to whether they’re with you or not, is also extremely powerful. We talked about that a little bit in our course. And so when we’ve been creating this course, for weeks, so we’re I’m primed to think about this, but I was thinking about your your community and your group, as we were getting prepared for the show today. And I was thinking, you know, I could be I could have an accountability partner, if I’m anywhere in the world. If I am part of the Inspire virtual run group community, then you know, I might be over here on my, on my own with my family, none of them are necessarily part of the community. But I know somebody in that groups holding me accountable, or I know somebody in that group is going to get up and run Saturday morning, regardless. And so I have to do it too, so that I can contribute positively to that community. It’s good. So I think any three of those things.
Richard Conner 16:49
Absolutely. I love it. Thank you so much for sharing that. And you know, just to, to go off with something that you said there about the accountability. I remember when I was training for my half marathon last fall, in between the the training, I think was about 10 week training program that I was on, I went on vacation, and we went away, I think we went to Vermont. And that’s when I started to get into my long run. So if you can imagine, we’re on vacation, we’re in the woods, I have these hour, hour and a half long runs in a place I don’t know, away from my family. And what kept me going was not only you know, my why and my goals, but knowing Hey, you know, I’m gonna post this and share this with the community and let them know that I’m still here and plugging away. And I’m still working towards my goal. So I definitely love that you said that, because that is something that we promote here all the time about that accountability.
Maryssa 17:40
Yeah, absolutely. I think that we do that too. There’s some days we’re on vacation, where we’re like, oh, we’re totally going to work out today. And then you know, some mornings, you just don’t want to, but we know, you know, we have the whole community of people that were inspiring behind us. And so it helps us to,
Mike 17:54
you know, Richard, something else came up, while you’re sharing that kind of a fourth piece, if you will, or fourth pillar, is, I’ve never been more motivated to train than when I was training for or like planning to compete. Or in your case, you know, training for a specific event, like a half marathon. So, you know, again, it becomes now non negotiable. If you know I have this event coming up, I have to prepare for it, I have to show up and perform, I don’t want to do poorly I want to do well. If you have all these things going on in your mind, then you’re more likely to you know, do something uncomfortable, like get up at 6am and run. So I think that’s also powerful.
Richard Conner 18:34
Absolutely, absolutely. And you know, something else that that you said about, you know, having your partner or someone having the same mindset as you, I have to admit to you guys, that’s something I absolutely love about the two of you, seeing your Instagram posts and listening to your podcast how you have that same mindset, you traveled together, you’re interested in the same things. And you guys really work really, really well together. So just want to share that there’s something I really admire about you, too. Thank you. Well, thank
Maryssa 19:05
you a lot. It’s it’s definitely from speaking from my point of view, I have not really ever had a support system before I was with Mike of somebody who is also on my level. And so I can attest to having somebody who’s on the same level as you makes it so much easier. Because again, if you’re like I’m going to eat healthy, and I’m going to train and your partner’s, like I’m not going to do either of those things. It’s a lot easier to be like well, I guess I’m not going to do those things today either. So just like you said, I think finding somebody who supports you is is great. And I’m lucky to get to be with that person. So
Richard Conner 19:39
okay, all right. So let them so with that, let’s let’s kind of switch gears a little bit and let’s kind of bring it back to travel. So again, summers coming. I know folks are thinking about making some travel plans. We talked about a lot of great stuff here like building those habits now. So So by the time you go away on travel, whether business or vacation It’s not as big of a barrier for you to maintain your routine. Sounds like you have some great tools to help you with this upcoming wellness course, as well as with your travel guides. So let’s talk a little bit about, like, what are some of the things that you recommend that that people could do when they’re traveling to to maintain their fitness? Like, what are? What are some of the tips that you give them? Are there specific exercises that they can do? Like what high level? What would you say?
Mike 20:31
So, yeah, so great question. You know, as far as what we say specifically, you know, it certainly depends on the person the background. But one of our one of our first recommendations is to have some packable travel mobile equipment to take with you. So not not everybody plans, the way that we do for trips, where they’re looking for lodging that likely has a fitness center, or they plan, you know, outdoor excursions or things like that. So even if you don’t like to exercise while you’re on the go, it’s important to stay active and mobiles. So having some resistance bands or some resistance loop bands, so the little like the giant rubber band, ones that kind of go around your legs, for example, or the bands with the handles. Those are those are two items that we bring on almost every trip, especially every road trip, if we’re flying, it depends, it depends on if it’s a short trip or a longer trip. And like I mentioned, we’re pretty adamant about planning our lodging around being near a fitness center. So that’s really the first thing. In general, we don’t necessarily encourage exercise on vacations, we just try to make it more accessible for those people that are already in a routine a lot of our community is like CrossFit athletes or physique competitors, or, or athletes in general. So so for those folks, you know, we have slightly different recommendations. But when people do travel, we we encourage them to do outdoor active things, like, you know, hiking or kayaking. As much as I love the idea of stand up paddleboarding. Actually, that would be a good exercise, good for exercise. But things like that, you know, getting outdoors and experiencing adventure, but also staying active.
Maryssa 22:20
Yeah, I think something cool that Mike and I like to do and that is I think is a great starter activity is when you’re going to a city, almost all of them now have those rentable bikes, I think some of the ones in Chicago are called like Divi bikes, or you know, a lot of places have city running tours or things like that. And so if you’re already traveling to a place that’s new, instead of like, I’m going to go buy a ticket. So I can sit on a bus and be carted around in shown all these places. Why don’t you grab a bike or grab a running group or something like that, so that you can go around and get your exercise in while you’re seeing all those places. I mean, you’re still moving, you’re still seeing all the places as you intended, but you’re adding in that exercise. So it’s not like you actually had to carve out time to go to the gym, you just added it into your day, we do that a lot with with trips where we don’t have access to the gym, where we are on a road trip or something like that, we’ll make a point to stop at a park where we can hike a little bit. And while we’re on our hike, we have our resistance bands. And we’ll do a couple of exercises there. And I mean, you can always do step ups on a picnic table and push up against a tree or you know, those kinds of things.
Mike 23:27
Yeah, and Maryssa just gave me a good segue. So as far as specific exercises, we do like to provide some relief to folks that when they’re on a vacation, you know, whether it’s two days or two weeks there, there’s likely going to be little progress made in their fitness goals, unless they have access to a gym that entire time. And, you know, I don’t really like saying that I like to be more of an optimist. But, you know, my scientific brain says, you know, unless you can maintain progressive overload and, and all these physiological components of training, you’re probably not going to make a ton of progress, you at least can’t expect to make a ton of progress, you kind of have to set your expectations a little lower. So that being said, the goal should probably shift to maintaining which in a lot of cases we so one of the services we offer Richard is actually planning trips like creating custom itineraries for people to go on like a week long or too long, two week long trip. So what we’ve done for some of our folks is helped time that vacation when they need a rest day or help time their program when they need a like a deloading week or something like that. But but that’s not that’s requires a lot of planning a lot of strategy so So instead what what we do is just try to set expectations just try to maintain this week or just try to maintain these few days. You know, keep your maybe relax your nutrition standards a little bit but don’t go crazy every day or you’re going to go backwards. You know, weeks of progress, and stick to core fundamental movements. So when it comes to exercise, it can be a very complex discussion, we try to try to share what we call a paradigm approach. It was something I was challenged with by Professor mentor a long time ago. But rather than thinking of a specific program, or a specific type of exercise or anything like that, coming back to that unbiased perspective, if you adopt more of a general lens approach to exercise, I think it’s more effective. And what that looks like is sticking to core fundamental movements. So in general, there are five squat lunge hinge, which is like a deadlift, push pull, and then some people add in rotation. So if you’re going to do like an oblique twist, or something like that, and then the push pull is generally upper body. So sticking to those five or six core movements, and that can just be air squats, that could be like hip thrusts, where you just laying on the ground. Obviously, this is gonna be a lot of bodyweight stuff unless you have those bands, or if you unless you have access to a gym, you know, Maryssa was doing a push up motion, she’s like, push up, you might be able to do some rowing motions. If you have some heavy bags, you know, you can, you can do all these things, you can kind of innovate all these things. Sticking to a short timeframe, a little bit higher intensity is usually more conducive to being on vacation. So fundamental movements, a short end timeframe, higher intensity, that way, it’s not taking out a ton of your day, a little bit more effective than, you know, if you’re going to train for say, you know, hours, you can pack that intensity, and you wouldn’t be you wouldn’t be moving at 100% intensity for an hour or so. Yeah, yeah. So those are some ideas, Richard,
Richard Conner 26:49
very cool. Very cool. Since you guys have traveled to so many places, you know, such great experiences. I’d like to kind of wrap things up with what’s kind of some of your favorite places that you visited.
Maryssa 27:02
Yeah, absolutely. You go first, I know what you’re gonna say. So what am I gonna say? You’re gonna say New Zealand. That’s
Mike 27:07
exactly not what I was gonna say. Actually, I’m joking. That’s exactly what I was gonna say. Yeah, I’ll share. So I would say New Zealand, but we always talk about New Zealand. And I feel like everybody knows that New Zealand is wonderful. Yeah. Especially if you’ve been there. And I do want to say one thing. You have to you have to be there to experience it. It’s not you have to go there to experience it. And it’s almost indescribable. In words, you just can’t explain what really goes on there. My, my favorite place which I think is underrated, is is Mexico. So of course, New Zealand’s wonderful Of course, why is wonderful. But I like Mexico, and here’s why. If you’re talking about like the real essence of an awesome experience, I’ve never found the level of friendliness, and then customer service, and above and beyond treatment in Mexico anywhere else. And especially here in the US having traveled a little bit, we recognize how much is taken for granted here in the US. And so we can get kind of judgy about it like man if you only knew how things were, you know, other places in the world. And so anyway, when we’ve been to Mexico three times now I think and and each time we’re blown away by the quality of the food and the level of customer service at restaurants, and they’re even awesome areas outdoors to visit there
Maryssa 28:40
to now my new Mike has never been to Mexico like to a resort. So he’s not talking about Cancun or like to loom or Cabo. He’s talking about, like, we went to Mexico City we’ve been disapproved on which is in Guadalajara, and like things like that way. We’ve never been to resort Mexico, we’re talking about like, real Mexico. And people talk about how unsafe they feel like Mexico is and there are parts where I’m sure it’s not very safe. But if you’re careful, and you’re well planned, we never felt
Mike 29:09
unsafe places in the US. Yeah, it just it just depends. You have to be smart about it. But I encourage more people to visit Mexico.
Maryssa 29:16
Awesome. I like that one. I am going to have to say for me a place that I went without Mike which was Thailand. And Thailand is gorgeous. And we went to so many places in Thailand, especially in the north, north of Thailand, we I spent a lot of time working with some elephants in Chiang Mai. And then we went to this very tiny town called PI. And pi is really beautiful because they don’t have cars there and so it’s only little like motorbikes and regular bikes and things like that. And there’s just waterfalls and canyons and little cafes that that have all sorts of fruity drinks and fresh mangoes and just it’s just such a nice area. And it’s so cheap. I mean you can you can Get hotel rooms and pretty nice areas of Thailand for really cheap. And so, and the people were also friendly and just so excited that we were coming over there. And since I’ve been there, it’s a little bit more commercialized because I think people have found out that it’s such a nice place to travel, but you can still get the same really, really great deep cultural experience there. So that’s what I’ll say.
Richard Conner 30:23
Okay, well, both of those experiences sound really nice. Personally, I’ve been to Mexico, I’ve been to Mexico City as well as a few other places, as well as the the touristy places. And my wife and I have said the same thing that you guys have shared that the level of customer service is is great there. So definitely agree. And, and yeah, and Thailand. I have not traveled to, but it is on my list. So hopefully I get to get the family there. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh, god. Yeah. Definitely. Mike and Maryssa, thank you so much. Like I said, I love this conversation. I love your story and the work that you’re doing, and thank you for all these great tips that you’re sharing with our community. So to that end, how can the Inspire virtual ones community find you and follow your journey and follow you online?
Mike 31:14
Well, we sure appreciate to Richard, it’s been a really awesome experience. And you know, we are most motivated by just supporting you in what you’re doing, because we believe in it. Yeah. Where to fit travelers everywhere. So that’s TWO as in the number two Two Fit Travelers. And that’s our website, that’s her Instagram, on Facebook. And I would say our website for now is probably the best place that people can find out about what’s going on with us get access to the course, and any and all other resources that we dream up and decide to put out a product or service that’ll help people stay healthy while they’re traveling.
Maryssa 31:50
Yeah, thank you so much for the opportunity to talk to your audience. And we just like Mike said, We believe so much in the Inspire Virtual Runs Podcast. And we just we really hope that everybody can see what benefits you can get from fitness and living an adventurous exciting lifestyle.
Richard Conner 32:07
Great, thank you so much. Thank you both for coming on the show. And you know, with that, again, good luck with the launch. And thanks again, have a great day.
Maryssa 32:16
You too. Thank you.
Richard Conner 32:18
So once again, I just want to take a moment to thank Mike and Maryssa, again for coming on the show last year, and sharing their insights and advice for all of us about how to create habits before you go on vacation or before you really need them. The importance of having a support system, and you know, just relax when you’re on vacation, obviously without going off the rails but really enjoying it and just kind of building in that physical activity while you’re out there. So if you enjoyed this episode, I really appreciate it if you can go into Apple podcast and rate and review the show Inspire Virtual Runs Podcast, and from whatever platform that you’re using. Please please please subscribe and share with your friends. So with that, thank you again for listening, and have a great day.
Intro/Outro 33:07
That’s it for this episode of Inspire Virtual Runs Podcast. If you enjoyed this podcast, please leave a review. Also, be sure to click the subscribe button so you don’t miss an episode. Thanks for listening
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Welcome to Episode 47. About this time last year, I had a great conversation with Mike and Maryssa from Two Fit Travelers about how to travel and stay active and stay fit. And I thought it was such a relevant topic. For right now as once again, things are opening back up, and summer is right around the corner. So I want to bring back this interview for all of you and I hope you enjoy. Here’s what you can look forward to on this episode of Inspire Virtual Runs Podcast
Mike 0:33
Create habits long before that event occurs and invests you reduce the cognitive load when you get there. So it’s much easier to go for a run when you’re on vacation and you’re with family and you don’t really feel like being healthy and fit. If you already have a habit of that going into it. It’s not a negotiable at that point. It’s just part of what you do. So the reason Maryssa and I always work out and we’re on vacation is because we do it every day at home.
Intro/Outro 1:02
Welcome to Inspire Virtual Runs Podcast, whether you are new to running or seasoned. Get tips in the inspiration that you need to achieve your health and fitness goals. Now, here’s your host Richard Conner.
Richard Conner 1:19
Hi, everyone. Welcome to Inspire Virtual Runs Podcast. I am here today with the Two Fit Travelers Mike and Maryssa. Mike has worked in the fitness industry for 12 years, either owning managing or consulting companies until he earned his first master’s degree in Exercise Science, Injury Prevention and Rehabilitation Science. He holds several fitness industry recognized certifications from organizations like the National Academy of Sports Medicine, national Strength and Conditioning Association, and precision nutrition. Mike has trained 1000s of clients, including collegiate athletes during his career. Now he consults small businesses and elevates other entrepreneurs to practice business in the modern world. Maryssa is a companion animal veterinarian. She has a wealth of fitness experience, a former division one scholarship competitive swimmer, eight tying triathlete sprint and Olympic distance and former AFA certified fitness instructor. She also participates in obstacle course racing with Spartan and Tough Mudder for fun. Mike and Maryssa hosts the Fit Travel Show, and we’re excited to have them here on Inspire Virtual Runs Podcast. So welcome to the show.
Mike 2:38
Hey, Richard, I don’t think we’ve ever heard our background told that eloquently. And I sure hope that we can give your audience what they’re expecting after that introduction.
Maryssa 2:48
live up to those standards. Thank you.
Mike 2:50
We sure appreciate that, man. Thanks for having us on the show.
Richard Conner 2:52
Yeah, no, thank you guys. And I’m impressed with your bio as well. And the moment that you guys had asked me to come on the show, I’ve been wanting to bring you guys on this show. So this is exciting for me as well.
Mike 3:04
Awesome. we sure appreciate that.
Maryssa 3:06
Yeah.
Richard Conner 3:07
So there’s a ton here, you guys got a lot going on with the Fit Travel Show and Two Fit Travelers. Let’s like just kick things off and just talk about like, How’d you get started with Two Fit Travelers and tell us you know, a little bit more about yourselves.
Mike 3:21
Yeah, so Marissa always gives me like an under the table poke to, for me to tell the story because I, I like to describe it as kind of like a fairy tale beginning and then like a business ending. So I’ll go ahead and kick us off. Way back in the day. I don’t know for about four years ago, we when we right after we started dating, we realized that we had a passion for travel. So Maryssa always wanted to do a travel blog. She followed a lot of folks on Instagram and social media that had travel blogs. And if she wasn’t going to become a veterinarian, her dream job was to become a travel blogger. And so with some experience in business at that time, I said, Well, sure let’s let’s do this. Let’s let’s make a business of it. And we had shared aspirations of turning it into a like a full time income someday. And we started out our I think our original name was called m&ms meanders, and we just did what everyone else was doing. We just started a platform. But we quickly realized that that wasn’t really going to turn into a full business and we had to do some intentional things to turn it into a business. So thankfully, Marissa came to me about three weeks after we started that platform and said, Hey, I think two foot traveler sounds a little bit better, which it did because it would have been I think we even purchased the URL. It was like mmm, Anders, and it was just a mouthful, and it was cute but confusing. So we started to fit travelers for about a year we just practiced everything that we would potentially enjoy doing as a business and within our niche which was things that we love to do travel and stay fit. And so we figured man, maybe we can add value to people who also want to live a, an adventure, lifestyle and stay healthy while they’re traveling. And so that that manifested into the Fit travel show, which is where we talk to other inspiring folks like yourselves who are like yourself who are keeping people active and healthy while living an adventurous lifestyle. And then other things that we’re doing as well with the platform, things like our healthy travel guides, a wellness course that we just started. And a whole host of other things. I’m not sure if you want to get into detail about that now, but it turned into what two foot travelers is today, which is Maryssa and I, and a team of six other folks all over the US, I think we’re in five different time zones, or sorry, not us all over the world in five different time zones, and we’re just cranking things out. Yeah.
Richard Conner 5:57
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. And, you know, again, I love what you guys are doing travel fitness, two of my favorite topics. So the fact that you put them together, it’s just really awesome. And I think the timing of this conversation is great. Because you know, as you know, things are starting to open back up. And there’s light at the end of the tunnel. And I’m sure folks are thinking about, hmm, can we make some travel plans this summer, or if they’re in the northern hemisphere. So, you know, I love the fact that we’re having this conversation now. So, you know, on as far as virtual runs, we talk about a lot about inspiring folks to incorporate running as part of their fitness. And that’s hard enough just to do it when you’re at home. Right? Just to fit it in with your within your schedule. So now I’m thinking about, Okay, well, if I’m making travel plans for the summer, and I just got into this routine, I don’t want to keep it going. Like Like, how do I do that? So I love the fact that we’re having this conversation now.
Maryssa 6:52
Yeah.
Mike 6:52
Oh, same.
Richard Conner 6:53
So let’s, let’s talk a little bit about some of the things that you guys are doing and some of the services that you offer. So, you know, you talked high level fitness and travel, those are the topics you cover, but like, what specifically do you get into? And what kind of, you know, guidance, advice or services you provide for folks? Yeah,
Maryssa 7:11
yeah. So a lot of it stems back to our own personal experiences. When we travel, which Mike and I, we traveled to New Zealand, it was kind of our first big trip. And one of the things that we really wanted to experience is how people stay fit and work out in other countries. Is it something that is, you know, as high of a of a desire as the people who work out in the US? Or is it something that it you know, our culture is very appearance focused a lot of the times and so is it something that they do as well. And so, once we were in New Zealand, we started to kind of look around for opportunities to workout and we were lucky enough to work out at a couple of really, really nice gyms. And we had a really great time, we met a lot of really awesome people. And they were able to recommend some healthier places to eat. And we’re able to kind of recommend some things to do. And we found that the gym community in general, in New Zealand, at least, and you know, since in other places has been really welcoming and really great kind of asset to our travel. And so once we realized how, you know, kind of synergistic travel and fitness were and how much we really enjoyed doing them together, we decided to kind of help other people along. And so that kind of led to our first service, which is our healthy travel guides. What these are is basically this is a kind of a packet that tells you how to stay fit while you’re traveling in different places. So we have a couple of ones we have staying fit and healthy. In Oman, we have a Bali guide, we have the Grand Canyon, and we have the power lifters guide to travel which is another great resource. And so all of these guides share kind of what we just talked about. So places to work out healthy options for places to eat, and then things to do outside or how to stay active while you’re traveling. We love the services because it gives a person who is traveling access to being able to stay healthy. So many times we hear and we hear it from you know people we work with that it’s so difficult to keep your routine and to keep healthy while you’re traveling. And so we just wanted to, you know, kind of help other people stay fit like we do.
Mike 9:16
Yeah, so we were just doing some marketing efforts. This week when a, I think was the Los Angeles Times article came out that they were opening up Napa Valley, and one of the healthy travel guys that we created was for Napa Valley. One of the girls on our team lives in Denver. She’s been in Napa countless times she has a brother or cousin. That’s a Somali in Napa Valley. So she was able to kind of work within her experience in her family to build out this really wonderful guide. Everything from you know how to stay healthy while you’re out at wine tastings to healthy restaurants that are nearby the fitness facilities that are around and so so basically what our guides do is they gather all this information up to save people a lot of time and headache from trying to plan this all out. So a lot of our products and services have to do with really taking the weight and the work off of creating a wonderful experience. So we do all that work for you, all you have to do is purchase one of our guides, and you have access to all that information. The only exception to that rule is our wellness course that we recently created. And that was certainly inspired by adding some convenience, but it was more inspired by my experience training. So one thing I found when I worked with clients is that the first three to six weeks of working with any client was nearly identical. And it basically went like this, we would start working together, but I would start to build a relationship with this client. And they would start sharing with me everything that they thought they knew about health and wellness, a lot of questions about nutrition, like, hey, so I heard that eggs are bad for you. Or, Hey, I heard you can’t eat after 7pm At night, or all these different kind of buzzwords that they had read in blog articles or heard from other people and those types of things. And then a lot of a lot of missed assumptions about exercise too. And so I really believe that the first three to six weeks of working with any client was an improbably is for other fitness professionals as well, just helping them unlearn things, and adapt a little bit more of an unbiased approach to health and wellness. So, with with the whole onset of the pandemic, and people being stuck at home, we were really inspired to create a course. And we call it the wellness reset course. But it’s basically a roadmap to getting back on track to your wellness goals, or back on track to a running program or whatever it really is that you want to do, we try to use a very unbiased practical approach to any goal. And it delivers only the essential information that you need in order to accomplish your goals. So one thing that we are polarized by being in this influencer sphere is that a lot of influencers try to be a guru, or they adapt one philosophy, like they’re only vegan, or they’re only keto or paleo and, and the truth is like that might be appealing. But the truth is that there are plenty of options out there. And for me as a fitness professional without me sitting down across the table from somebody and doing an appropriate assessment, I really don’t know where they’re coming from. So we just, we want people to be healthy, we want people to live more adventurously. And so that’s kind of where all of our products and services come from.
Maryssa 12:43
Yeah, and I think the other thing to kind of tie those two things together is the wellness reset really gives you the tools you need to get started at home and create your own fitness lifestyle. And then once you have those tools and those basics, it’s super easy to transition those two on the road and to really, you know, continue to travel with that.
Richard Conner 13:01
Yeah, that’s that’s a great point. So first off, thank you for sharing that about the the services and wellness reset course. And congratulations on that. That sounds like it’s going to be a great course. And you know, as you’re talking about it, I’m thinking you’re helping kind of remove some of the barriers that are in place for someone to like, get started and do some of these things and get fit. And I’m just wondering, like, mentally? How do you get rid of some of the barriers or some of someone saying like, this is something maybe I don’t have time to do or I can’t do especially if I’m traveling, I’m on vacation, I want to eat whatever I want to eat, I don’t really want to spend time working on I just want to hang out at the pool like these are probably things that are going through someone’s mind. So like, how do you kind of get past those mental barriers?
Mike 13:48
Yeah, Richard, I think that’s an awesome question. And I think the answer is twofold. I’m sure there are other answers, but from our opinion, because we have this conversation a lot, I think the answer is twofold. Number one, like Marissa said, you create habits long before that event occurs, and, and thus you reduce the cognitive load when you get there. So it’s much easier to go for a run when you’re on vacation, and you’re with family, and you don’t really feel like being healthy and fit. If you already have a habit of that going into it. It’s not negotiable at that point. It’s just part of what you do. So the reason that Marissa and I always work out and we’re on vacation is because we do it every day at home. The other thing is finding ways to trick yourself into the routine. And then I’m not talking about like voodoo magic. I’m just saying find ways to put it into your routine without having to really deal with the emotional side of things. So for example, a lot of runners are our morning runners. And I think that’s less to do with the the the personality that’s doing the running. I think it’s more to do with the fact that they inherently know if they don’t get up early and do the run. Something’s going to happen or they’re not going to be able to time it in between meals properly, or they’re just going to get tired. They’re not going to want to do it later on. So, you know, planning, you can do that by planning it ahead, making it a staple to do first thing in the morning, you know, putting out your clothes, so that you’re, you’re ready to go. As soon as you wake up, you just roll out of bed, you know, throw your shoes on and go. Any of those things that you can kind of trick yourself into adding in your schedule would help.
Maryssa 15:24
Yeah, absolutely. And I think another thing is, you have to be working with a person who also has a desire to do that. Because, you know, if you go into the the mindset of I’m on vacation, I’m not going to work out, then you probably aren’t going to work out. But if you are at home, and you think I’m going to work out three times on vacation, that is, you know, a week long vacation, you’ll probably do those those three times, because you’ve already set a standard for yourself before you go. And just like Mike said, I think a lot of it has to do with prep them ahead of time.
Mike 15:53
Yeah. And I want to add one more thing, Richard. And this is not just because we’re on our show on your show. But I think having someone that you’re accountable to whether they’re with you or not, is also extremely powerful. We talked about that a little bit in our course. And so when we’ve been creating this course, for weeks, so we’re I’m primed to think about this, but I was thinking about your your community and your group, as we were getting prepared for the show today. And I was thinking, you know, I could be I could have an accountability partner, if I’m anywhere in the world. If I am part of the Inspire virtual run group community, then you know, I might be over here on my, on my own with my family, none of them are necessarily part of the community. But I know somebody in that groups holding me accountable, or I know somebody in that group is going to get up and run Saturday morning, regardless. And so I have to do it too, so that I can contribute positively to that community. It’s good. So I think any three of those things.
Richard Conner 16:49
Absolutely. I love it. Thank you so much for sharing that. And you know, just to, to go off with something that you said there about the accountability. I remember when I was training for my half marathon last fall, in between the the training, I think was about 10 week training program that I was on, I went on vacation, and we went away, I think we went to Vermont. And that’s when I started to get into my long run. So if you can imagine, we’re on vacation, we’re in the woods, I have these hour, hour and a half long runs in a place I don’t know, away from my family. And what kept me going was not only you know, my why and my goals, but knowing Hey, you know, I’m gonna post this and share this with the community and let them know that I’m still here and plugging away. And I’m still working towards my goal. So I definitely love that you said that, because that is something that we promote here all the time about that accountability.
Maryssa 17:40
Yeah, absolutely. I think that we do that too. There’s some days we’re on vacation, where we’re like, oh, we’re totally going to work out today. And then you know, some mornings, you just don’t want to, but we know, you know, we have the whole community of people that were inspiring behind us. And so it helps us to,
Mike 17:54
you know, Richard, something else came up, while you’re sharing that kind of a fourth piece, if you will, or fourth pillar, is, I’ve never been more motivated to train than when I was training for or like planning to compete. Or in your case, you know, training for a specific event, like a half marathon. So, you know, again, it becomes now non negotiable. If you know I have this event coming up, I have to prepare for it, I have to show up and perform, I don’t want to do poorly I want to do well. If you have all these things going on in your mind, then you’re more likely to you know, do something uncomfortable, like get up at 6am and run. So I think that’s also powerful.
Richard Conner 18:34
Absolutely, absolutely. And you know, something else that that you said about, you know, having your partner or someone having the same mindset as you, I have to admit to you guys, that’s something I absolutely love about the two of you, seeing your Instagram posts and listening to your podcast how you have that same mindset, you traveled together, you’re interested in the same things. And you guys really work really, really well together. So just want to share that there’s something I really admire about you, too. Thank you. Well, thank
Maryssa 19:05
you a lot. It’s it’s definitely from speaking from my point of view, I have not really ever had a support system before I was with Mike of somebody who is also on my level. And so I can attest to having somebody who’s on the same level as you makes it so much easier. Because again, if you’re like I’m going to eat healthy, and I’m going to train and your partner’s, like I’m not going to do either of those things. It’s a lot easier to be like well, I guess I’m not going to do those things today either. So just like you said, I think finding somebody who supports you is is great. And I’m lucky to get to be with that person. So
Richard Conner 19:39
okay, all right. So let them so with that, let’s let’s kind of switch gears a little bit and let’s kind of bring it back to travel. So again, summers coming. I know folks are thinking about making some travel plans. We talked about a lot of great stuff here like building those habits now. So So by the time you go away on travel, whether business or vacation It’s not as big of a barrier for you to maintain your routine. Sounds like you have some great tools to help you with this upcoming wellness course, as well as with your travel guides. So let’s talk a little bit about, like, what are some of the things that you recommend that that people could do when they’re traveling to to maintain their fitness? Like, what are? What are some of the tips that you give them? Are there specific exercises that they can do? Like what high level? What would you say?
Mike 20:31
So, yeah, so great question. You know, as far as what we say specifically, you know, it certainly depends on the person the background. But one of our one of our first recommendations is to have some packable travel mobile equipment to take with you. So not not everybody plans, the way that we do for trips, where they’re looking for lodging that likely has a fitness center, or they plan, you know, outdoor excursions or things like that. So even if you don’t like to exercise while you’re on the go, it’s important to stay active and mobiles. So having some resistance bands or some resistance loop bands, so the little like the giant rubber band, ones that kind of go around your legs, for example, or the bands with the handles. Those are those are two items that we bring on almost every trip, especially every road trip, if we’re flying, it depends, it depends on if it’s a short trip or a longer trip. And like I mentioned, we’re pretty adamant about planning our lodging around being near a fitness center. So that’s really the first thing. In general, we don’t necessarily encourage exercise on vacations, we just try to make it more accessible for those people that are already in a routine a lot of our community is like CrossFit athletes or physique competitors, or, or athletes in general. So so for those folks, you know, we have slightly different recommendations. But when people do travel, we we encourage them to do outdoor active things, like, you know, hiking or kayaking. As much as I love the idea of stand up paddleboarding. Actually, that would be a good exercise, good for exercise. But things like that, you know, getting outdoors and experiencing adventure, but also staying active.
Maryssa 22:20
Yeah, I think something cool that Mike and I like to do and that is I think is a great starter activity is when you’re going to a city, almost all of them now have those rentable bikes, I think some of the ones in Chicago are called like Divi bikes, or you know, a lot of places have city running tours or things like that. And so if you’re already traveling to a place that’s new, instead of like, I’m going to go buy a ticket. So I can sit on a bus and be carted around in shown all these places. Why don’t you grab a bike or grab a running group or something like that, so that you can go around and get your exercise in while you’re seeing all those places. I mean, you’re still moving, you’re still seeing all the places as you intended, but you’re adding in that exercise. So it’s not like you actually had to carve out time to go to the gym, you just added it into your day, we do that a lot with with trips where we don’t have access to the gym, where we are on a road trip or something like that, we’ll make a point to stop at a park where we can hike a little bit. And while we’re on our hike, we have our resistance bands. And we’ll do a couple of exercises there. And I mean, you can always do step ups on a picnic table and push up against a tree or you know, those kinds of things.
Mike 23:27
Yeah, and Maryssa just gave me a good segue. So as far as specific exercises, we do like to provide some relief to folks that when they’re on a vacation, you know, whether it’s two days or two weeks there, there’s likely going to be little progress made in their fitness goals, unless they have access to a gym that entire time. And, you know, I don’t really like saying that I like to be more of an optimist. But, you know, my scientific brain says, you know, unless you can maintain progressive overload and, and all these physiological components of training, you’re probably not going to make a ton of progress, you at least can’t expect to make a ton of progress, you kind of have to set your expectations a little lower. So that being said, the goal should probably shift to maintaining which in a lot of cases we so one of the services we offer Richard is actually planning trips like creating custom itineraries for people to go on like a week long or too long, two week long trip. So what we’ve done for some of our folks is helped time that vacation when they need a rest day or help time their program when they need a like a deloading week or something like that. But but that’s not that’s requires a lot of planning a lot of strategy so So instead what what we do is just try to set expectations just try to maintain this week or just try to maintain these few days. You know, keep your maybe relax your nutrition standards a little bit but don’t go crazy every day or you’re going to go backwards. You know, weeks of progress, and stick to core fundamental movements. So when it comes to exercise, it can be a very complex discussion, we try to try to share what we call a paradigm approach. It was something I was challenged with by Professor mentor a long time ago. But rather than thinking of a specific program, or a specific type of exercise or anything like that, coming back to that unbiased perspective, if you adopt more of a general lens approach to exercise, I think it’s more effective. And what that looks like is sticking to core fundamental movements. So in general, there are five squat lunge hinge, which is like a deadlift, push pull, and then some people add in rotation. So if you’re going to do like an oblique twist, or something like that, and then the push pull is generally upper body. So sticking to those five or six core movements, and that can just be air squats, that could be like hip thrusts, where you just laying on the ground. Obviously, this is gonna be a lot of bodyweight stuff unless you have those bands, or if you unless you have access to a gym, you know, Maryssa was doing a push up motion, she’s like, push up, you might be able to do some rowing motions. If you have some heavy bags, you know, you can, you can do all these things, you can kind of innovate all these things. Sticking to a short timeframe, a little bit higher intensity is usually more conducive to being on vacation. So fundamental movements, a short end timeframe, higher intensity, that way, it’s not taking out a ton of your day, a little bit more effective than, you know, if you’re going to train for say, you know, hours, you can pack that intensity, and you wouldn’t be you wouldn’t be moving at 100% intensity for an hour or so. Yeah, yeah. So those are some ideas, Richard,
Richard Conner 26:49
very cool. Very cool. Since you guys have traveled to so many places, you know, such great experiences. I’d like to kind of wrap things up with what’s kind of some of your favorite places that you visited.
Maryssa 27:02
Yeah, absolutely. You go first, I know what you’re gonna say. So what am I gonna say? You’re gonna say New Zealand. That’s
Mike 27:07
exactly not what I was gonna say. Actually, I’m joking. That’s exactly what I was gonna say. Yeah, I’ll share. So I would say New Zealand, but we always talk about New Zealand. And I feel like everybody knows that New Zealand is wonderful. Yeah. Especially if you’ve been there. And I do want to say one thing. You have to you have to be there to experience it. It’s not you have to go there to experience it. And it’s almost indescribable. In words, you just can’t explain what really goes on there. My, my favorite place which I think is underrated, is is Mexico. So of course, New Zealand’s wonderful Of course, why is wonderful. But I like Mexico, and here’s why. If you’re talking about like the real essence of an awesome experience, I’ve never found the level of friendliness, and then customer service, and above and beyond treatment in Mexico anywhere else. And especially here in the US having traveled a little bit, we recognize how much is taken for granted here in the US. And so we can get kind of judgy about it like man if you only knew how things were, you know, other places in the world. And so anyway, when we’ve been to Mexico three times now I think and and each time we’re blown away by the quality of the food and the level of customer service at restaurants, and they’re even awesome areas outdoors to visit there
Maryssa 28:40
to now my new Mike has never been to Mexico like to a resort. So he’s not talking about Cancun or like to loom or Cabo. He’s talking about, like, we went to Mexico City we’ve been disapproved on which is in Guadalajara, and like things like that way. We’ve never been to resort Mexico, we’re talking about like, real Mexico. And people talk about how unsafe they feel like Mexico is and there are parts where I’m sure it’s not very safe. But if you’re careful, and you’re well planned, we never felt
Mike 29:09
unsafe places in the US. Yeah, it just it just depends. You have to be smart about it. But I encourage more people to visit Mexico.
Maryssa 29:16
Awesome. I like that one. I am going to have to say for me a place that I went without Mike which was Thailand. And Thailand is gorgeous. And we went to so many places in Thailand, especially in the north, north of Thailand, we I spent a lot of time working with some elephants in Chiang Mai. And then we went to this very tiny town called PI. And pi is really beautiful because they don’t have cars there and so it’s only little like motorbikes and regular bikes and things like that. And there’s just waterfalls and canyons and little cafes that that have all sorts of fruity drinks and fresh mangoes and just it’s just such a nice area. And it’s so cheap. I mean you can you can Get hotel rooms and pretty nice areas of Thailand for really cheap. And so, and the people were also friendly and just so excited that we were coming over there. And since I’ve been there, it’s a little bit more commercialized because I think people have found out that it’s such a nice place to travel, but you can still get the same really, really great deep cultural experience there. So that’s what I’ll say.
Richard Conner 30:23
Okay, well, both of those experiences sound really nice. Personally, I’ve been to Mexico, I’ve been to Mexico City as well as a few other places, as well as the the touristy places. And my wife and I have said the same thing that you guys have shared that the level of customer service is is great there. So definitely agree. And, and yeah, and Thailand. I have not traveled to, but it is on my list. So hopefully I get to get the family there. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh, god. Yeah. Definitely. Mike and Maryssa, thank you so much. Like I said, I love this conversation. I love your story and the work that you’re doing, and thank you for all these great tips that you’re sharing with our community. So to that end, how can the Inspire virtual ones community find you and follow your journey and follow you online?
Mike 31:14
Well, we sure appreciate to Richard, it’s been a really awesome experience. And you know, we are most motivated by just supporting you in what you’re doing, because we believe in it. Yeah. Where to fit travelers everywhere. So that’s TWO as in the number two Two Fit Travelers. And that’s our website, that’s her Instagram, on Facebook. And I would say our website for now is probably the best place that people can find out about what’s going on with us get access to the course, and any and all other resources that we dream up and decide to put out a product or service that’ll help people stay healthy while they’re traveling.
Maryssa 31:50
Yeah, thank you so much for the opportunity to talk to your audience. And we just like Mike said, We believe so much in the Inspire Virtual Runs Podcast. And we just we really hope that everybody can see what benefits you can get from fitness and living an adventurous exciting lifestyle.
Richard Conner 32:07
Great, thank you so much. Thank you both for coming on the show. And you know, with that, again, good luck with the launch. And thanks again, have a great day.
Maryssa 32:16
You too. Thank you.
Richard Conner 32:18
So once again, I just want to take a moment to thank Mike and Maryssa, again for coming on the show last year, and sharing their insights and advice for all of us about how to create habits before you go on vacation or before you really need them. The importance of having a support system, and you know, just relax when you’re on vacation, obviously without going off the rails but really enjoying it and just kind of building in that physical activity while you’re out there. So if you enjoyed this episode, I really appreciate it if you can go into Apple podcast and rate and review the show Inspire Virtual Runs Podcast, and from whatever platform that you’re using. Please please please subscribe and share with your friends. So with that, thank you again for listening, and have a great day.
Intro/Outro 33:07
That’s it for this episode of Inspire Virtual Runs Podcast. If you enjoyed this podcast, please leave a review. Also, be sure to click the subscribe button so you don’t miss an episode. Thanks for listening
Transcribed by https://otter.ai