Traveling the World Without Leaving My Basement

Last week I completed my 12th tour of different parts of Egypt. I have walked approximately 14 miles through the desert. I have toured Giza, including the Great Pyramid and the Great Sphinx. I have walked to the Bent Pyramid of Dahshur, and the Pyramid of Sakkara. I have walked through Luxor, Egypt, visiting the Karnak Temple, the Colossi of Memnon, the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, and have gone inside the Tomb of King Tut. I have walked the streets of Cairo, visiting the Al Moaz Street Bazaar and Tahrir Square. I have loved every minute of these tours, thanks to my tour guide - the entertaining, informative, highly educated Egyptian Egyptologist, archeologist, and Emmy award-winning documentary filmmaker, Ramy Romany. It did not hurt that he allowed his sense of humor to occasionally intersperse his serious explanations. He REALLY hates camels. I am laughing as I write this, recalling how he kept his distance from one of the huge beasts while giving me facts about their legendary spitting, mean tempers, and foul odors.

I was enthralled and mesmerized, as I soaked up the information I was receiving, all while never tasting the dust of the desert sand or feeling the scorching heat of the desert sun. Or leaving the comfort of my basement.

By what incredible feat of magic was it possible for me to experience so much Egyptian culture and not leave the house, you must be asking. It’s called IFIT, an APP that is part of the giant, fancy treadmill my sister and brother-in-law purchased for me to use during the year I am staying with them. This miraculous APP allows me to tour the world from the comfort of home, while racking up thousands of steps, incrementally increasing my mph walking and jogging speed, and building endurance in this creaky, old body that has been around for 7 decades.

Before continuing this story, some background information is needed. Two of my specialists – Lung Doctor and Fat Doctor - insisted that I walk, walk, walk. Dr. Lung, in order to prevent a recurrence of the life-threatening pulmonary blood clots that had almost killed me in 2019, and Dr. Fat, in order to maintain the 125 weight loss which resulted from the bariatric surgery he performed on me that same year.

I hate walking for exercise. I really do. I don’t have a particular reason. I just hate it. But the looming threat of death and regaining 125 lbs. kind of made my dislike irrelevant. Due to my bout with the blood clots, I was in very shaky shape, so as if walking wasn’t distasteful enough, I now had to walk with a cane. Luckily, I was living in Florida at the time, so the weather cooperated, and what started out as a five-minute breathless crawl to the end of my block, ended up, after one year, as a 3-4 mile walk three to four times a week. I hated it slightly less by then and was pleased with my progress.

When the pandemic travel restrictions finally eased, I hadn’t seen my family in almost 3 years. Loneliness got the best of me, so I packed up and moved to Chicago to live with my sister for a year, where I could get reacquainted with my 6 “quickly growing out of childhood” great-nieces and nephews. And closer to my California son, who would rather travel from San Francisco to Chicago than San Francisco to Florida. There was only one problem with this brilliant idea to assuage my loneliness. I hate the cold weather even more than I hate walking, and I surely hate walking in sub-zero temperatures, for which Chicago is well known.

Now back to the treadmill. After 15 years of living in Florida, I knew I could not walk in temperatures lower than 60 degrees, so I offered to buy a basic treadmill to use for the year I was staying with my sister in Chicago, or as I prefer to call it – The North Pole. I would leave it with her and my brother-in-law for their use when I returned home to Florida.

My brother-in-law unequivocally declined my offer. He said if they were going to have a treadmill, he was willing to pay for a Ferrari model. You know, the ones you see on TV with the large computer screen and built-in personal trainer. I arrived at their house on July 19. On July 21st, I started my outside walking routine, just as I had been doing at home in Florida. On September 29, the Ferrari arrived, and I haven’t walked outside since.

As if this piece of equipment isn’t expensive enough on its own, in order for the friendly trainer to appear on the screen, you must download the IFIT APP, and purchase a yearly subscription to it, which gives you access to 137 different trainers and an entire world of tours from which to choose. The options are endless. Beginner, intermediate, and advanced. You can take a leisurely ½ mile walk through downtown Nashville or a test of endurance hiking up to Machu Pichu. The trainer sets the pace and inclines, but if you cannot keep up, you can adjust the speed and incline on the machine to suit your ability. You can do difficult high-intensity interval walk/jog/runs with a gung-ho motivator, who ignores the background scenery and concentrates on pushing you up to and beyond your ability. Or you can choose someone who is more tour guide than trainer. If you prefer, as I do, the tour guide over the trainer, you will get the experience, scenery, and education of the part of the world you have chosen to visit, without sacrificing any exercise.

In the last 2 ½ months, I have jogged through and learned the history of Salem, Massachusetts; have walked the Freedom Trail in Boston, Massachusetts; toured underground caves in Istanbul, Turkey; toured the real Count Dracula’s castle in Transylvania, Romania; done HIT (High Intensity Training) through the Florida Everglades, to name just a few samples of the opportunities this miraculous machine has afforded me. I have also participated in a LIVE, interactive 5k race in San Francisco, for which I received a real Finishing Medal.

I didn’t win, of course, but accomplished more than simple participation. I probably had the slowest time of anyone in both the live San Francisco race and the home treadmillers, but I FINISHED.

Rain or shine; sleet, snow, or hail; 95 degrees or -20 degrees. The weather no longer matters to me. I can travel anywhere in the world from the comfort of my home while achieving physical fitness at the same time. I am LOVING IT.

The best part of this is that I found out a little secret that the fancy Ferrari treadmill commercials don’t tell you. When I return home, I don’t have to take out a mortgage to purchase one. I can buy a basic treadmill, the price of which will fit on my Visa card, download the IFIT APP onto my IPAD, and pay a minimal monthly fee for the subscription. I can then sync my IPAD to the treadmill, prop the IPAD up on the treadmill and get the same trainers, world tours, and exercises that come on the screen of the high- priced models. Now that’s a walking program I can love.



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