When traveling, gauging your best fitness bets takes some planning ahead and sometimes guessing. On a recent trip to Sioux Falls, I sorted through my options. I knew the hotel had a gym, but how extensive was it? Should I pack my resistance tube, or would the hotel gym’s weights suffice? Would the hotel pool be the right size – and empty enough – for lap swimming? I printed out a whole list of Zumba classes in Sioux Falls, but had no idea if they were easily accessible from the hotel.
Okay. I admit it. I can be kind of an obsessive freak about planning my workouts.
Anyway, I packed athletic shoes, my favorite jump rope, a swimsuit and a couple of exercise outfits.
A huge bike trail encircles Sioux Falls
My best Sioux Falls fitness activity turned out to be running. While the Ramkota Hotel was kind of in the boonies, it was situated very conveniently by an access point to the 23-mile trail that loops around Sioux Falls. From my hotel, I could run in one direction and check out the airport, and run the other way for views of the quarry, where they excavate the region’s distinctive pink quartzite. My sunrise runs were lovely with the sun coming up over old footbridges and a gully dotted with wild sunflowers.
Oh my god, is that the sunrise? What am I doing up and running so early?!
I hoped to rent a bike one day, but ran out of time. Several Sioux Falls bike shops will rent you a bike, but the rental place with the longest hours is Ace Hardware. You can take that 23-mile loop and ride by the zoo, Falls Park (where you’ll see Sioux Falls’ eponymous waterfalls) and a whole series of other parks that skirt the Big Sioux River. Or take a detour from the main loop and check out the lovely old Japanese garden in Terrace Park.
You can walk or bike through the Japanese Garden.
If you crave gym equipment, the downtown YWCA is a great deal. For a seven-dollar day pass, you can swim, take fitness classes and lift all the weights you can handle. The staff is friendly and accommodating. For example, I got the impression they don’t have a lot of people walk in off the street claiming to be travel writers and requesting photo tours of the Y, but one worker showed me around and answered all my questions. She said the YWCA is especially popular with older women while next door at the YMCA is louder with more children and families. She stressed that men are also welcome at the YW.
Swimming!
A jump rope is a wonderful fitness travel accessory, but only if you’re un-self-conscious enough to use it. Jumping in my hotel room was hazardous, what with being pinned in laterally by the bed and the dresser and alternately lassoing a flat-screen TV in front of me and a picture on the wall behind me. If I had been bold enough to jump in the huge, flat parking lot, it would have been an awesome workout. But I was unwilling to make that much of a spectacle of myself, so it was a very stiff jumping session in which I dared not migrate even a few inches.
I wished I’d brought my resistance band, as the only weight equipment in the hotel gym was a complicated multi-purpose machine that I somehow lacked the will to figure out. They had a half dozen cardio machines in a windowless room, which would have been fine in an emergency. But running outside was much more enjoyable. I would always rather run or walk or bike in a new city, if possible, so I can see what’s out there.
Did I mention the wild sunflowers?
So if you’re headed for Sioux Falls, I recommend seeing some or all of the loop around town on a bike or on your feet. And if you hit one of the cold and blustery months, check out the YWCA. My source told me Zumba is coming soon.
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