Exercising Your Options While Far From Home

On hectic days at work, when I daydream about a vacation, I see myself lounging around by the water in some tropical locale, flipping through trashy gossip magazines and sipping Day-Glo drinks that sprout tiny umbrellas.

On an actual vacation, that works for me for about an hour. Then I need to hike through town, jump on an exercise bike, anything to get moving. Apparently so do many of you.

More than one in four Americans visited a fitness center or gym in recent years while traveling, a survey by the Travel Industry Assn. of America shows.

It’s getting easier to work out without leaving your hotel. More than two-thirds of U.S. hotels have health or fitness centers, compared with about one-third in 1988, according to the 2001 Lodging Survey that Smith Travel Research did for the American Hotel & Lodging Assn. But it’s also getting more expensive to use them. Nearly 90% of U.S. hotel gyms were free to guests in 1994, compared with 62% last year, the same survey found.

For a more adventurous--or sometimes misadventurous--option, you can’t beat hitting the streets to jog or to find a gym away from your hotel, says Suzanne Schlosberg, a Santa Monica-based health and humor writer who has written “Fitness for Travelers: The Ultimate Workout Guide for the Road,” to be published later this month by Houghton Mifflin. It’s a useful and often funny book for anyone who wants to work up a sweat away from home.

Take jogging. It’s a great way to see the local sights and exercise, but it can also get you into trouble. In her book, Schlosberg recounts the tale of artist Cristina Acosta of Bend, Ore., who was staying at an upscale Orlando hotel set amid canals. Says Acosta: “When I walked through the lobby in my running clothes and waved to the concierge, she said, ‘Wait, you can’t go running around here. Don’t you know about the alligators?’” Acosta told me she went jogging anyway but changed her route to avoid the canal area.

Another jogger, this time in Chad, ran into five armed guards at a palace. “They all pointed guns at me, and I backed up real slowly, trying to show them I had no weapons,” David Negus, deputy controller for a D.C.-based nonprofit, is quoted as saying.

Schlosberg told me, “I had more stories than I could use” about lost or surprised joggers. Her advice: Consult the concierge or a local running-gear store about routes before striking out, and wear a pack carrying ID, the phone number and address of your hotel, and a cell phone. I would add one more item: a compass.

As for gyms, Schlosberg’s book offers an overview of facilities at major hotel chains. Generally, the larger and more upscale the lodging, the more likely you are to find a gym there. Only 12% of budget hotels have gyms, compared with 83% of luxury hotels, according to the 2001 Lodging Survey.

Be sure to ask what’s in the gym before plunking down your money. Schlosberg writes that she was inspired to develop her book after handing over her credit card to the gym at a hotel in Marrakech, Morocco, and then finding out it consisted of “a small, stuffy room with a collection of America’s most disgraced infomercial exercise gadgets,” including a “treadmill with a belt that did not move unless you propelled it yourself, a very scary piece of machinery that would have collapsed under the weight of Kate Moss.”

Although Schlosberg says that hotel gyms have improved, she confessed to me that she doesn’t use them during the six weeks or more that she typically spends on the road each year.

“I travel really cheap,” she said. “I tend to stay at a Motel 6 and find a gym nearby.” Such clubs are apt to have more extensive facilities than even well-equipped hotel gyms, which often favor machines over free weights to avoid liability issues. Some hotels may have deals that let guests use a nearby gym at no or low cost. But for Schlosberg, “it’s part of the fun of the trip to see where I can find the best workout.”

A case in point was a cross-country bike trip she took with a group a few years back. In the wide-open spaces of west Texas, “we went for days without seeing a gym,” she recalled. “So we stopped at the local high schools and worked out with the football players.” On a camping trip in Alaska last year, she did pull-ups hanging off the Alaska pipeline.

Have an hour to kill between flights? “You can get a decent workout just walking around the airport,” she said. Her book also recommends climbing stairs at your hotel or jumping rope--easily packed--for an improvised cardio session.

To work off the Vegas blues, McCarran International Airport offers a full-service, 14,000-square-foot gym, which it opened in 2000, says Shannon May, spokeswoman for 24 Hour Fitness, which operates the club. A guest pass costs $15 per day. For $30 you can get a workout package that includes the pass and rented gym shoes, plus shorts, shirt, towel and socks that are yours to keep.

The Internet is handy for finding gyms in your destination before you leave home. Schlosberg recommends www.healthclubs.com and www.nutricise.com, which have thousands of listings searchable by location. Chains such as Bally, Gold’s Gym and 24 Hour Fitness may give you access to out-of-state clubs; charges and terms vary. A guest pass for the day may typically cost $10 to $20. More than 1,000 of the 2,400 YMCAs in the U.S. allow visitors from other Ys; restrictions vary.

For finding swimming pools, Schlosberg and Mariana Field Hoppin, a New York publicist who logs about 60,000 air miles a year and swims an hour every day, recommend www.swimmersguide.com. About 35% of U.S. hotels have indoor pools, and 39% have outdoor pools, according to the 2001 Lodging Survey.

Although Hoppin has some favorite hotels for pools, such as the Bel-Air Hotel in Los Angeles (oval-shaped, up to 10 feet deep and “absolutely glorious”) and the Inter-Continental Hotel in Chicago (huge windows and stadium seating personify grandeur at this venue, formerly the vintage-1929 Medinah Athletic Club), she generally prefers nonhotel pools.

Hoppin’s pet peeves include pools that are too small (she prefers at least Olympic junior-size, 25 meters), too shallow (newer ones may be under 4 feet, she says) or overheated. “Swimming in a hot pool is like swimming in hot tea,” she says. Her advice: Call the pool to get the rules and tips on when it’s least crowded, and plan to swim early if you’re serious about getting in some lane time. You’ll find Hoppin splashing by 6 a.m. or even earlier.

While I admire Hoppin’s determination, the notion of hitting the water in the predawn is daunting. Frankly, it’s enough to set me daydreaming of lounge chairs and Day-Glo drinks again.

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Jane Engle welcomes comments and suggestions but cannot respond individually to letters and calls. Write Travel Insider, Los Angeles Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012, or e-mail jane.engle@latimes.com.