{"id":17095,"date":"2014-09-08T13:19:51","date_gmt":"2014-09-08T13:19:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.expedia.com\/stories\/?p=17095"},"modified":"2021-10-28T16:38:12","modified_gmt":"2021-10-28T16:38:12","slug":"blogger-spotlight-kara-williams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.expedia.com\/stories\/blogger-spotlight-kara-williams\/","title":{"rendered":"Blogger spotlight: Kara Williams"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve known fellow Expedia Viewfinder Kara Williams as a colleague for years but I&#8217;ve had to admire her from afar, given that she lives about 20 miles northwest of Aspen, Colorado, and I live in Seattle. This means we generally connect in person at conferences and meetings, and online through Facebook and email.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the distance between us, I totally dig the life she&#8217;s created for herself as a writer, travel blogger, and, by all accounts, very cool mom to two outdoor-loving kids.<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s been most interesting for me to see in recent months is her commitment to keeping fit while she (and the family) are traveling. She, her husband, and kids don&#8217;t seem to miss opportunities to hike, walk, zipline, bike, or ski wherever they are.<\/p>\n<p>This spring, before Kara set off for her <a href=\"http:\/\/thevacationgals.com\/semester-at-sea-im-sailing-around-europe-next-summer\">Semester at Sea<\/a>\u00a0as communications coordinator on board the <em>MV Explorer<\/em>, I had a chance to ask her some questions about how she&#8217;s able to coordinate staying healthy while she&#8217;s traveling and running a business.<\/p>\n<p>Q. What are some ways you&#8217;ve managed to keep a workout schedule when you are traveling and therefore away from your normal routine?<\/p>\n<p>A. I&#8217;ve been very conscious in trying only to book trips where I know I&#8217;ll be able to get exercise every day; whether that&#8217;s walking around town in <a href=\"https:\/\/viewfinder.expedia.com\/los-cabos\/surprise-romantic-getaway-to-cabo\">Cabo San Lucas<\/a>\u00a0(I racked up about nine miles a day for each of three days on a recent getaway there!) or skiing and snowshoeing in <a href=\"https:\/\/viewfinder.expedia.com\/alberta\/skiing-the-best-of-banff-alberta\">Banff, Alberta<\/a>, and Park City, Utah. On travel days, when I might be sitting on a plane for much of the day, I&#8217;ll get up early and do a 30-minute P90X video that I&#8217;ve loaded on my laptop.<\/p>\n<p\/>\n<div class=\"small-width-image-container lansdscape-099f36a7-50ee-63e1-bbde-ff000073f150\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/images\/default-source\/user-beth-whitman\/kara-scuba-[size_512x290].jpg\" id=\"landscape-099f36a7-50ee-63e1-bbde-ff000073f150\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"Title\">Kara SCUBA diving<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Q. What are your favorite activities when you&#8217;re traveling?<\/p>\n<p>A. I&#8217;m a HUGE walker, whether it&#8217;s up and down hills on a hike, through city streets on an urban trip, or along the beach. Since getting my FitBit digital pedometer as a Christmas gift in 2013, I&#8217;ve made an effort to get in 10,000 steps a day. Usually I&#8217;m successful. But if I&#8217;m offered the chance to kayak, canoe, ski, or snowshoe on my travels, I&#8217;ll typically jump at it.<\/p>\n<p>Q. You often travel with your family, are they as active as you are when you travel together?<\/p>\n<p>A. We are freakishly active on our travels. For example, on our most recent family vacation to Puerto Vallarta, my husband, two children (ages 12 and 14) and I <a href=\"https:\/\/viewfinder.expedia.com\/puerto-vallarta\/teen-adventures-in-puerto-vallarta\">tried ocean flyboarding<\/a>, which was hilariously awesome. It was a workout, too! We also embarked on a crazy day of adventure that involved jungle trekking, ziplining, rappelling, and water slides. Also, every day for the entire week-long vacation, we played in ocean waves together. Active fun in the outdoors, plus building family memories! On a 2013 Caribbean cruise I challenged everyone in the family not to take the on-board elevators at all. We succeeded, using steps the entire 7-night cruise, except for embarkation and disembarkation days, when we had our luggage with us (and didn&#8217;t want to lug it up and down several flights of stairs).<\/p>\n<p>Q. As a family travel blogger, would you say your husband and kids are your favorite traveling companions?<\/p>\n<p>A.\u00a0I love making memories with my family in tow. Ever since I brought my daughter (now 14) on a plane when she was 3 months old, I&#8217;ve enjoyed traveling with my kids (my son is now 12). I must say, however, that weekends away with just my husband are wonderful, too, and you can&#8217;t beat a girlfriend getaway either!<\/p>\n<p>Q. What are the challenges you find trying to schedule your workouts when you&#8217;re on the road?<\/p>\n<p>A. Challenges to fitting in exercise usually have to do with lack of time, rather than motivation. If I sleep in, and have a busy sightseeing day on the docket, I might not have time to scoot to the hotel gym to do some strength training (though sightseeing usually involves a boatload of walking, if I have anything to say about it, so usually I get some semblance of exercise in the end). I do try to knock out exercise first thing every day, so I can just relax and enjoy (and eat!) without feeling guilt the rest of my vacation day.<\/p>\n<p>Q. How do you pack when you&#8217;re including clothes for your workouts?<\/p>\n<p>A. I&#8217;ve just discovered vacuum-seal packing bags which are SO GREAT for getting a lot of clothing and gear into little luggage space. I do typically bring two sets of gym clothes if, say, I&#8217;m traveling for a week, and also pack laundry detergent so I can wash smelly gym clothes in a hotel sink, while having a set to wear as one set dries.<\/p>\n<p><div class=\"small-width-image-container lansdscape-219f36a7-50ee-63e1-bbde-ff000073f150\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/images\/default-source\/user-beth-whitman\/kara-bike-[size_512x290].jpg\" id=\"landscape-219f36a7-50ee-63e1-bbde-ff000073f150\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"Title\">Kara heading to the beach<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Q. Do you now choose your destinations based on how active you can be there or do you just make sure you work out no matter what the destination is?<\/p>\n<p>A. Both! As I noted above, I tend to choose destinations that naturally lend themselves to activity, especially in the outdoors. My family and I love visiting U.S. National Parks, namely because we like to get up close and personal with natural wonders on park hiking trails. But, I contend anyone can fit in a workout on his or her travels, no matter where those travels might be. Even if your budget motel doesn&#8217;t have a fitness center, you can tie on tennis shoes and make laps around the building (or, if it&#8217;s a multi-level hotel, you can find a stairwell and go up and down the steps). You also can do push-ups anywhere, though folks might look askance if you drop to the floor at an airport gate.<\/p>\n<p>This past summer, when I worked on the Semester at Sea ship, I visited 10 different countries in 10 weeks. I used the (small) on-board fitness center and met up with other fitness-minded folks. I also signed up for some of the more active field programs (a.k.a., shore excursions) that involved hiking, biking, and canoeing.<\/p>\n<p>Q. What are your three must-pack items now that being active is much more important to you when you travel?<\/p>\n<p>A. My FitBit, my sneakers, and my P90X videos!<\/p>\n<p>Q. With all the travel you do, do you have a favorite place on Earth?<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5;\">A. This may sound crazy, given I make my living as a travel writer, but my favorite place on earth is my front porch. I live at 7,000 feet in the Colorado Rockies, and my front door faces a mountain that is more than 13,000 feet tall and capped with snow for 10 months out of the year. We also look out on a green valley and other jagged, more distant mountain peaks. I love the Colorado mountains, and I write about my &#8220;backyard&#8221; a lot. I think it&#8217;s one of the best vacation destinations in the world (summer or winter) and I get to live here. How fortunate am I?<\/span><span style=\"line-height: 1.5;\"\/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5;\">Q. Finally, what&#8217;s the craziest trip you&#8217;ve even taken?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5;\">A.\u00a0One of the craziest things we&#8217;ve ever done was a promotion for Country Inns &#038; Suites. A few years ago, my entire family was flown to Minnesota and we set out on a &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/thevacationgals.com\/day-7-1k-country-adventure-comes-to-an-end\/\">mystery road trip<\/a>&#8221; that brought us to seven destinations over the course of driving 2,000 miles in seven days (the trip ended in Texas). It was a fast-paced road trip, but one that revealed my children are superb travelers and my husband is a saint for doing the bulk of the driving.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Balancing family travel and fitness with Expedia Viewfinder, Kara Williams<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12195,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1789,1803,1782,1777,1778,1788,1792,1843,1776],"tags":[117,33],"authors":[2225],"class_list":["post-17095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adventure","category-colorado","category-destinations","category-family","category-features","category-interests","category-nature","category-solo","category-type-of-vacation","tag-all-the-girls","tag-couples","authors-beth-whitman","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the 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