Like a lot of my friends, I spend a sizeable chunk of my income on travelling. In the past couple of years I’ve been everywhere from Morocco to LA, on whirlwind weekend breaks, and slow, languorous beach holidays. But one thing I haven’t done, since I entered the world of work over 10 years ago, is have a real adventure.
The truth is, most of the travelling I do nowadays is pretty mundane. I’m an office manager, shuttling between sites across London and the south-east – with occasional trips to Germany. I clock up more miles in a week than most other commuters manage in a month, but it’s not exactly what you call exciting. It often seems that once you reach the age at which meetings, commutes and conference calls become part of your vocabulary, your chances for proper travelling (you know, toddler-sized backpacks, anecdote-worthy hostels and hippy trousers) have disappeared over the horizon; strap in for 50 years of train delays, short-haul flights and service stations – then maybe you can go on a cruise when you retire.
But this year I decided that a few weeks somewhere “nice” in the sun simply wouldn’t cut it. I needed a trip that would push my limits and take me out of my comfort zone – and I certainly found it. Come November, I’ll be trekking around Guatemala and Belize with a group of total strangers, ticking off an itinerary that includes kayaking, climbing volcanoes, and, slightly terrifyingly, swimming with sharks (sorry Mum!).
‘I knew I was right to pay extra for a one-on-one session’
The adrenaline-packed itinerary is one of the things that drew me to the trip, but as soon as the payment had gone through, my safe-and-serious business brain kicked back in. Yes, I want an adventure, but I also want to come back in one piece, so I was keen to find a travel insurance package that covered all eventualities. I can’t remember the last time I bought travel insurance myself – my work picks up the tab for my excursions in the line of duty – so the task ahead felt a bit daunting, and very much not what I wanted to be doing on my weekend.
I was keen to get a full overview of all the different deals around, so it seemed a good idea to head to Compare the Market where I was amazed to find it had a whole area of its website dedicated to backpacker insurance. Get in! I read through some handy FAQs on what backpacker insurance is and why it was the right package for my trip, and then got started. In the space of a few clicks I narrowed down the list of policies that fit my needs – based on things such as the duration of my trip, the countries I’m visiting and the activities on my itinerary – and was shown a long list of quotes that I could filter every which way until I found the right policy for me.
Reformer pilates is the definition of multitasking
Having taken care of that bit of admin – and saved myself the untold miles of hiking between one insurance provider and another – I had time on my hands to get started on my physical preparations. I’ve always been pretty active and enjoy exercise, but with a hiking trip ahead of me, I felt like it was time to up my game. I’d been wanting to try reformer pilates – a machine-led workout that seems to be forever popping up on my Instagram feed – for a while, so I bit the bullet and signed up to a one-on-one class at Frame.
Reformer pilates machines look a bit like a cross between a rowing machine and a torture rack. They have several straps, which hook up to various limbs at various points during the workout, and a padded base that slides back and forth on rails. As soon as I climbed aboard for the first time I knew I’d been right to pay extra for a one-on-one session, as my helpful coach, Shannon, politely told me that my head was hanging off the wrong end of the contraption. Great start, Anna!
I’ve done some mat pilates in the past, so I knew that the basic idea is to strengthen the core muscles around the abdomen and hips. But over the course of the lesson, while Shannon (who somehow leads 24 reformer classes a week) blasted Shola Ama from the stereo, I discovered muscles I never knew I had. I also realised that the placid faces of the Instagram exercisers are a complete and utter lie and give no indication of how intense a reformer class can be; during one exercise, called “superman”, I found myself wobbling on one knee, supported by the opposite hand, with the base of the machine slipping out from under me and threatening to spill me on to the floor. It was the very definition of multitasking.
By the end of the day, I was feeling excited, invigorated and fully prepared for my backpacking adventure (and yes, OK, a little sore). Now, with my covers-all-bases travel insurance and super-strength core, when the time comes to swap commuting for proper travelling, I’ll be ready.
Head over to comparethemarket.com and get a travel insurance quote for your next trip. Customers of Compare the Market can also use the app to get two-for-one at restaurants and cinemas for a whole year. T&Cs apply
