Love running, have to travel for work and love to explore new places? Can you do all these when you travel for work? Sounds like too much to plan, to pack? – here’s the good news, it is a lot easier now with technology; apps, location based technology and the internet.

Whether or not you are travelling alone, with a colleague or a friend, this is a list of 8 things you need to know for a Run-Work-Cation:

1. Know your work-times
   First of all, know your work times and work schedules.
2. Travel time
   Travel time can be long and at times, you don’t get much options. Try to arrive at your destination with some time for you to rest and adjust to time differences. If you are allocating a day to travel to your destination and another day to travel back, try to find flight options that takes you into the city of your destination in the daytime. Then you get to travel a bit later in the evening or at night. Do budget for travelling time from airport or stations to your intended hotel.
   

   Many museums like the National Museum in Hanoi operate as early as 8am. I visited the museum before my 12 noon flight back home

3. Find a strategic location to stay
   Road travels can be time consuming and you would want to stay somewhere strategic – close to your work location and tourist attraction spots. If you like running outdoors, find a place to stay that is closer to a park or a running area. If you have the freedom to choose where to stay, use trivago.com, booking.com traveloka.com, expedia.com or others. Pay attention to the the attraction locations when you book. It is also nice to know where the closest mosque is.
   

   Tourist spots and monuments have wide open spaces with attractions close to each other – within 500 meter – 1km range. There were many runners at the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum area. It is next to the Ho Chi Minh Museum

4. Plan Time to Run
   • Participating in popular international marathons or other races need more planning. You may need to go through ballots mechanism and there is registration deadlines. But who knows you may be lucky to be at popular races. Here’s a list of tops marathons across the globe.
   • If you plan to train and run –   morning before 8am or evening after 5pm is good. You can run outdoor as soon as the sun is out. If you have tight schedule and no time to go outdoor, run on the treadmill in the gym (book a hotel with a treadmill).
     1. Check out top running spots in the cities where you are at. Use Routes on MapMyRun mobile app to find nearby places to run or you can search for the city at MapMyRun. You could also create your route in advance and plan the distance. Unfortunately, not all city or countries routes are listed, but on those listed it would be of great benefit for planning your run times.
     2. Strava Routes do have similar route planning options that can assist you through your mobile devices, be it your phones or Garmin forerunner watches.
        

        Hoan Kiem Lake is a tourist spot in Hanoi and here’s a route loop using Strava. You can get these routes in advance!

        These apps and technology have made running exciting as you can explore places while running on your own. Share your route!

5. Plan Time to Play Tourist
   What are your area of interests? Be it adventure, shopping, sight-seeing, religion, history or culture, you can get many good suggestions at travel site such as tripadvisor.com, agoda.com or country-specific tourist guide websites.
   Select those to your interests, study their location and make sure they are close to your place of stay. Plan your visit to tourist sites based on their :
   • Locations. This is where location-based and google maps are useful. You can know how far they are from your hotel by using google  maps, and that would give you an estimation of how long it takes to reach your destination.
   • Operating hours. Typically this info is listed on websites or Google Business Site
   • Weather condition. Plan for indoor activities if the weather is not friendly, and plan for outdoor activities if weather forecast is good.
     

     At Hoan Kiem Lake. Running & exploring tourist sites on foot after work, then to the night market close-by

6. Weather Forecast
   • Do know the temperature and climate of the cities you are travelling to at least a week before you travel and a day before you travel. It is important so that you can pack the right attires and shoes. Items like raincoats, sweaters and sun gaiters would be most useful in those circumstances.
7. Pack Smartly
   • Athleisurewear & Travelwear
     Make your running attire your travel attire too! Hoodies, moisture-wicking tops, leggings, running pants, sportsbra, raazglove and scarfs that are lightweight are great for travelling.ar
   • You know what you need to bring. No compromise.
   • Shoes
     Wear running should when you travel and bring workshoes if you travel light. If space is not an issue, ladies, bring more !
     

     Travelling in my running attire

8. Transport
   • It is convenient to get around if you put up close to transportation hub. If you are not, use public transportation that is most convenient and safe for you. Nowadays, I find services like Grab and Uber super convenient. They can be faster and cheaper too.
     

     Other than on foot, I was on Grab  90% of the time in Hanoi. Super convenient!

Make sure you have your mobile phones, smart devices, good data services and purposeful apps of travel and sport installed to have a great Run-Work-Cation!

Most of all – Stay Safe!