When exercise doesn't seem like exercise

This week, I went on a brief mid-week vacation with my wife.  It was a great trip for many, many reasons but one nice aspect was that I did about 27,000 steps in two days - well above the 10,000 per day I shoot for - without ever attempting to exercise!

The first, and critical, part of this was booking a hotel close to the event we were attending.  Like really close.  Just a few blocks walk.  I only did this for simplicity's sake and had no idea at the time what it would mean for my step goal.

Since our event was only a few blocks, we walked to and from it.  And since we were staying in an interesting town, which we had visited previously but never explored, we decided to go out and do so.  Once again, because we were staying right in the center of things, we didn't drive anywhere, but walked instead.  We found all sorts of interesting sites to enjoy!

We walked around the city, enjoyed the local culture, checked out a museum, walked to a restaurant, and much more.  That evening was the show we were attending, and we walked throughout that.  Because we were walking everywhere, we didn't eat meals but rather stopped here and there for healthy local snacks. Because of the geography of the city, we climbed lots of stairways, and up more than a few hills.

All of this created the perfect recipe for a healthy couple of days:

• Eating lighter and healthier because of walking a lot
• Walking a lot because of being centrally located 
• Exploration as exercise (which saves time in the day as well!)
• Lots of stairs, and hills, due to location

None of this was done on purpose, and it's not a revelation of any kind, but I loved the fact that what seemed like a decadent vacation to us actually provided us with 50% more than our goal steps, with 100% more fun getting them!  I'm definitely going to do this with more volition in the future!

Bonus - Lost a few pounds in the last few days as well!