Arizona Photolog: My Healthy Road Trip Days 1-3

Today I’m sharing photos from the first part of my 6-week North American road trip. I’ll show you how I stayed healthy while in Arizona, including meals and fitness. I’m a Plant Ecologist, so hopefully you will see the beauty of the desert through my photos.

Starting out from Las Vegas, Jay and I began our North American road trip last Friday. It doesn’t take long to reach the Arizona border, just over the Hoover Dam.

Getting Food Packed and Ready in Vegas

One easy, no hassle thing we did for our road trip was bring a couple of boxes of bananas – each at different stages of ripeness. If that doesn’t label us 80-10-10ers, I don’t know what will! These have been great for Jay, both for grabbing snacks as he drives and blending smoothies when we stay at hotels and with friends or family (yes, we brought our Vitamix). At our current stop (Fort Collins, CO), I made some banana ice cream for the friend we are staying with and introduced her to a whole new world! One hint – plan ahead and blend your breakfast smoothie the evening before if you plan on waking up at 5am! Or you might get kicked out by sleepy neighbors…

We also took most of our fridge with us. This included several cobs of fresh (non-GMO) corn, a few heads romaine lettuce, some cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, celery, and a few containers of cooked quinoa, black beans, and lentils. We brought it in two coolers. This was a great, cheap way to start our trip as we used these leftovers over the next several days and didn’t have to spend any money on food.

Drive from Vegas to Phoenix

The best way to stretch your legs and keep feeling good when in the car all day is to get out and hike! Every couple hours, pull over on a random road in the middle of nowhere, preferably somewhere beautiful where you can walk along a dirt road or trail (that doesn’t have a no-trespassing sign!). We also did some stretching and must have looked pretty strange to cars passing…

Staying healthy in Phoenix

A fridge is useful (but not absolutely necessary) for eating healthy on the road. When we arrived in Scottsdale (part of the Greater Phoenix area), we found our room had an unexpected kitchen, and we unloaded all our leftover food into our hotel fridge. We could have left it in the coolers no problem, but took advantage of the amenities. Well, honestly, we only took advantage of the fridge, sink, and counter space!

Keeping up your workouts is so important on an extended road trip like ours! It’s so easy to get lazy when you’re out of your routine on the road. One great way to keep up your fitness is to establish a routine independent of your location and do it every morning. For example, right after you wake up every morning, go for a run no matter your location. Or do an interval training series like I shared in my healthy travel game plan article.

Drive from Phoenix to Santa Fe, New Mexico

Next stop New Mexico! In the next post in this series, I’ll share photos of my New Mexico trip with some scenery and how I stayed healthy in a Santa Fe hostel. Then I’ll drive north to Colorado and Fort Collins.

Now your turn. Got any upcoming road trips? How do you plan to stay healthy?

This is another What I Ate Wednesday.