Part of our Eat Clean series. Because healthy doesn’t stop when you leave home.
Travel Wellness
I’ve been on nearly 20 flights since January.
By the time early May rolls around, I will have spent more nights in hotels than in my own bed. The most consecutive days I’ve been home this year? Just over a week. Once.
That’s not a complaint. It’s just my life right now. It can be thrilling and exciting — or exhausting. But either way, it requires a system.
Because here’s the thing: traveling is one of the greatest tests of your health habits.
Everything that’s easy at home gets hard on the road. Your routines disappear. Your kitchen vanishes. The airport is a gauntlet of bad food dressed up in wellness language. And you’re doing all of this while running on less sleep, more stress, and a schedule that someone else mostly controls.
I’ve been navigating this since my consulting days over 20 years ago — with many years hitting 100K+ airline miles a year. And what I’ve learned is this: the difference between coming home depleted and coming home recharged is almost entirely preparation and mindset.
Here’s my travel toolkit. Non-negotiable items only.
Movement: make it ridiculously easy
I wear my running shoes – or boots I can really WALK in – on the plane. Always. Not because I’m going to sprint through the terminal (though sometimes, honestly, yes!) — but because from the moment I go through security to the moment I land, I can walk fast and get extra steps in without thinking about it (all the while strengthening my arms by pulling my suitcase!). Remove the friction, and the habit takes care of itself.
I bring a travel yoga mat — a thin Gaiam that folds up and sits on top of everything in my bag. I check if the hotel has yoga mats available; some do, and will put one in your room if you call ahead and ask. But I don’t rely on it. My mat comes with me.
Workout clothes and a reusable stainless steel water bottle are non-negotiables. The water bottle lives in my purse or work bag at all times. Hydration is the single easiest health lever you have when traveling and is one that many people ignore entirely.
My morning goal before any meeting, any call, any obligation: get up at least two hours before I need to leave. That gives me time for gentle stretching, breathwork, qigong, yoga, meditation, and prayer. If I have time, I’ll do a quick 10–15 minute circuit to work up a light sweat. Getting a light sweat every day when you’re traveling makes an enormous difference in how you feel and how you perform.
Sleep: protect it like it's your job
Because it is.
I always travel with a sleep mask. Hotel rooms have rogue light sources everywhere — alarm clocks, charging ports, that one inexplicable LED on the TV. A sleep mask can cost as little as $10 and eliminates all of it.
I also disconnect everything in the room I can — phone notifications off, alarm clock unplugged if I’m using my phone instead. You’re already sleeping in an unfamiliar place. Don’t make it harder.
Food: the whole point
This is obviously where Healthy Anywhere comes in. I plan my food before I arrive — always. It’s the entire reason I built this app.
Right now I’m in Los Olivos, California. Before I got here I knew exactly where I’d be eating, what I’d be ordering, and where I could grab organic snacks, pasture-raised eggs, and fresh fruit if I needed to supplement. We ended up with apples, bananas, and pasture-raised eggs in the room. Exactly what I needed.
The mini fridge trick: Call ahead and ask the hotel to have a mini fridge in your room upon check-in. Most hotels have them, but don’t put them in rooms automatically. Request it before arrival so it’s there when you check in — no waiting, no one coming to deliver it later.
The mini fridge is your secret weapon because it means leftovers don’t go to waste. I don’t care where I am. If a restaurant gives me a beautiful, nourishing meal in a portion that’s too large, I’m taking the rest back to the room. I’ll even eat it cold the next day. Works fine. Zero food waste.
Mindset: the one nobody talks about
Here’s the part that doesn’t show up on most packing lists.
Yesterday we’d planned to rent bikes and ride. It didn’t happen. Part of me was really irritated about it. And then, we didn’t get a run in either — before our big birthday dinner! (gasp!) And we ended up splitting a bottle of wine, which was more than I’d planned on.
I woke up the next morning not feeling my best.
And you know what I did? Yes, I woke up and felt angry. Then I noticed it and asked myself if I was gonna let it ruin today. Nope. I got up, got out the mat, and got back to the proccess. A run will happen today, darn it!
No dwelling. No shame spiral. No internal lecture. Pick yourself up, and move forward.
It’s too easy to get attached to how we think things need to be, so that when they don’t go as planned, we create an unnecessary layer of stress on top of an already challenging travel day.
Resilience isn’t about never getting knocked off course. It’s about how fast you get up and move on after getting knocked down.
Every trip I go on, my goal is the same: make it a wellness destination. That means I’m not white-knuckling my health habits through the trip — I’m building them into the trip so that I come home better than I left.
The toolkit at a glance:
- Travel yoga mat (Gaiam thin fold)
- Running shoes / Comfortable fast walking shoes
- Workout clothes (enough for the trip)
- Stainless steel water bottle — always at the ready
- Sleep mask
- Mini fridge (request in advance)
- Food and nutrition plan before you arrive (👋 that’s what Healthy Anywhere is for)
- Mindset: adapt, don’t resist
More on the food planning piece: I’m working to make destination-based healthy dining planning even faster and more personalized. News before summer. Stay tuned.
Now go pack your yoga mat.
Leigh Balkom is the founder of Healthy Anywhere and a certified holistic nutrition consultant. She helps health-conscious travelers find the best healthy, sustainable, delicious food anywhere they go.
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