Outdoor Adventures that Combine Entertainment and Exercise
The world we live in is busy and fast-paced, and sometimes, finding time for both entertainment and exercise can be challenging. Whether you have a hectic work schedule, lots of loved ones to see or simply don’t feel like you have easy access to healthy activities, it can be incredibly difficult to ensure that you involve enough health and fitness into your life.
However, one thing that has changed over the last few decades is the way in which we view exercise. Indeed, being healthy and exercising doesn’t only need to be about going for a run or hitting the gym. In fact, there are plenty of other ways that you can get active, outdoors and into nature that will be good for your physical and mental health. And the best part about this alternative way of thinking is that it can help you kill two birds with one stone (so to speak) – you can socialise and entertain yourself while doing something active and healthy.
In this article, we’re going to explore the idea of combining entertainment and exercise by giving you a few fun suggestions to try out and explaining what the health benefits are as well as the entertainment factor. That way, we hope we can help you incorporate some of these ideas into your day-to-day life.
- Hiking
The best thing about hiking is that it’s one of the most accessible activities. It’s suitable for people of all ages and fitness levels, because you can simply pick a route that suits your ability and go at your own pace. Furthermore, it’s free, unless you’re heading into nature reserves or other types of restricted areas.
Put simply, hiking is all about wandering into nature and walking, enjoying the natural environment actively. Depending on your location, you can typically follow trails or paths in the mountains, forests or countryside, and explore your surroundings as quickly or as slowly as you like.
You can make it a quick thing – hike to your destination and head straight back – or you can take it slow – meander along the path, enjoy a picnic en route and had back when you’re tired.
As we mentioned, it’s perfect for people of all skill levels, since you can walk as slowly as you like, or you could even take it as a trail run if you’re so inclined. This makes it ideal to do both alone (although you should be careful) or with friends.
Health Benefits of Hiking:
- Cardiovascular fitness: Hiking elevates your heart rate, promoting cardiovascular health and endurance.
- Muscle strength: Engages several different muscle groups, including the core, legs and your upper body.
- Mental wellbeing: The serenity of nature reduces anxiety, depression and stress, helping to foster a sense of peace.
Entertainment Factor:
- Scenery: Hiking provides massive visual appeal by means of natural landscapes – including mountains, forests and more, providing a feast for the eyes along with a sense of adventure.
- Social interaction: If you want it to be, hiking can be a social activity, providing quality and peaceful time with friends. Or it can be a great opportunity to meet new people through hiking clubs.
- Wildlife watching: Depending on where you go, hiking often involves encounters with wildlife, especially bird watching.
- Geocaching
Geocaching may sound like something from a sci-fi film, but it’s actually a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game that uses GPS-enabled devices. Although it sounds a little like Pokémon Go, geocaching has actually been around for a long time and is a really great way to have fun while enjoying the outdoors.
How does it work? Essentially, participants navigate their way, either alone or competitively in teams, to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (a container) hidden at the location.
Health Benefits:
- Physical activity: Geocaching involves walking, hiking and sometimes even climbing, offering a variety of physical challenges (all depending on the specific terrain and location of caches).
- Mental stimulation: Players need to utilise strategic thinking and problem-solving skills, keeping the mind sharp and constantly engaging the brain.
- Flexibility and mobility: Since there are varied movements involved, geocaching requires bending, stretching, reaching and more which is great for flexibility and mobility.
Entertainment Factor:
- Adventure and discovery: Since it’s basically a treasure hunt for adults, geocaching involves a lot of thrill and satisfaction from finding a geocache, along with a sense of accomplishment and adventure.
- Community engagement: Geocaching is an incredible global activity, allowing people to connect remotely with a worldwide community of likeminded adventurers.
- Learning opportunity: Often, geocaches are located in culturally or historically significant locations, offering hunters experiences to learn about geography, local history and more.
- Kayaking
Kayaking is an awesome activity for the more adventurous among us, blending water and the outdoors with a full-on full-body workout.
It involves paddling a small craft through a body of water using a double-bladed paddle. Of course, there are many different ways to enjoy kayaking, depending on where you do it. You could choose a flat lake for a relaxing activity, or, if you want to get your adrenaline pumping, you may opt for rapids.
Health Benefits of Kayaking:
- Upper-body workout: Since it’s all about paddling, kayaking primarily engages the muscles of the arms, shoulders, back and chest, enhancing upper-body strength and endurance.
- Core strength: Kayaking isn’t only about paddling, it’s also about balance which requires constant engagement of the core muscles, promoting stability and strength.
- Cardio exercise: Paddling increases your heart rate, providing a great cardiovascular workout. Best of all, you can choose how hard you want to go depending on your fitness.
Entertainment Factor:
- Exploration: Kayaking allows for adventurers to explore bodies of water like rivers, lakes and coastal areas that are inaccessible by foot.
- Thrill of rapids: For those looking for real adventure, white-water kayaking on rapids is an absolutely exhilarating experience.
- Wildlife encounters: Being on the water gives you the opportunity to observe aquatic wildlife including birds, fish and sometimes, eve marine mammals like whales and dolphins.
- Social aspect: You can kayak alone or with a group of friends to experience nature.
Final Thoughts on Combining Entertainment and Exercise
Combining entertainment and exercise is an excellent way to make physical activity more fun, to be social and to add additional exercise and movement to your life. If you can’t make it outdoors, you have other options too, such as walking on a treadmill and playing at Grand Bay casino or cycling on a stationary bicycle and watching TV or chatting with friends virtually.