Over the past five years I’ve spent a lot of time travelling. I’d always wanted to travel more than I did, but through my twenties and early thirties I just wasn’t in a financial position to do as much of it as I’d have liked.

Then at 36 I had my son. A few weeks later I was listening to a Jordan Peterson podcast where he said something like, you have little kids for four years, and if you miss it, it’s gone. It hit me like a ton of bricks. Not just the point about missing it, but the point about time running out. So as a family we made the decision that before our son went to school, we would prioritise time together travelling.

Over those five years I’ve had to work out how to train from pretty much anywhere. A deserted beach in Sri Lanka, a local island in the Maldives, the jungles of Costa Rica, running in minus 21 in Canada, the humid islands of Thailand. What it comes down to, every single time, is basic bread and butter movements.

Keep it simple

I run, because I love it and it keeps my heart fit, but if I’m honest, running has become much more my thing over the last five years purely because I can do it anywhere. If I’ve got my running trainers, I can run, and I lean into that heavily while travelling.

The second thing I lean into is calisthenics. If I can find a pull up bar, my favourite workout is simple. Ten pull ups, twenty push ups, thirty bodyweight squats, as many sets as possible. That’s it. Simple but effective. Fitness is about moving the body, it isn’t about overcomplicated programs.

I’ve also leant into open water swimming when it’s been safe to do so. You can build some brilliant workouts with no equipment at all. I’ve done sessions like a two mile run to a pull up bar, pull ups and push ups every minute on the minute for 20 minutes on a beach, straight into a 1km swim and a two mile run home. Believe me, that is not a day off, it’s brutal.

Just yesterday I did an eight mile run on a Croatian island and came back to an old kid’s swing frame for a 20 minute calisthenics workout.

You don’t need kit, you need the ability to move

The truth is you don’t need loads of kit and you don’t need a gym, but you do need the ability to move, and that’s where the training actually comes in.

Train at home with some equipment to build enough bodyweight strength that you can still get a meaningful workout in when you’ve got no equipment at all. If you can already do a pull up but you struggle to get past five push ups, you’re going to be limited when you’re away with nothing but your own bodyweight. Use the time when you do have access to a gym to build that capacity.

The same goes for swimming. I’m only confident swimming in the sea because I put the time in learning to swim properly and building fitness in a pool first. I’m confident running in the heat because I’ve trained for it. I’ve even run in temperatures below minus 20, where my beard completely froze, and again, that was only possible because of the work I’d already put in beforehand.

Training is just practice

Training is purely practice. You’re practising a certain movement or a certain skill, and you’re training your body to cope with it through adaptation. If you tell your body every day that it needs more strength and muscle, it’ll adapt. If you tell it it needs the fitness to run, it’ll adapt. That’s all training is. Practice.

I hate it when people online start acting like they’re somehow better than someone else because they can do a specific exercise well. It’s nonsense. They’ve just practised it more. That’s all it is.

Three workouts you can do from anywhere

You don’t need variety when you’re away or working with limited facilities. You just need to move. Here are three ideas, one beginner, one intermediate, one advanced, all doable with little or no equipment, wherever you happen to be.

Beginner

Five rounds of: 10 bodyweight squats, 10 push ups (on your knees if you need to), 20 second plank, 20 walking lunges. Rest as needed between rounds. Finish with a 15 to 20 minute walk or easy jog. This is about building the habit of moving daily, not about pushing to failure.

Intermediate

Find a pull up bar if you can. Ten pull ups, 20 push ups, 30 bodyweight squats, as many rounds as possible in 20 minutes. No pull up bar, swap it for 20 more push ups or a set of inverted rows off a sturdy table or railing. This is the one I default to most often when I’m travelling.

Advanced

20 minute AMRAP, no bar, no water, no kit. As many rounds as possible of: 10 burpees, 20 jump squats, 30 mountain climbers (15 each side), 40 second plank. Straight into a descending ladder, 20 to 1, of press ups and squat jumps (20 of each, then 19, then 18, all the way down to 1). This one is entirely bodyweight and entirely brutal, and you can do it on a beach, in a hotel room, or on a patch of grass in the middle of nowhere. It’s exactly the kind of session that reminds you fitness was never about the equipment in the first place.