Friends of mine are traveling this week. My sisters were out on the road last week. My daughter is planning a trip in a few weeks. Everyone is traveling.

I always liked traveling in the fall. You don’t have the summer crowds or its heat and humidity to deal with. It’s well before the holiday travel seasons so those crowds are avoided. The weather is still warm so you’re not stuck packing multiple layers and trying to figure out what to do with that heavy winter coat when you get unbearably hot in either the plane, train, or car. And if you catch it at the right time for leaf changing, it’s a pretty trip. All in all, fall is the time to go.

But there’s one thing that fall vacationing isn’t noted for. Unless you are travelling far south (or far north for the Southern Hemisphere crowd), hotel swimming pools are not an option.  Oh there are certainly those high class establishments that sport the heated indoor variety of aquatic recreation facilities, but even in my best year those places weren’t within my travel budget. No, the places I visited were of the kind that sported the tarp covered outdoor variety of aquatic recreation facilities.

If you are looking for exercise while vacationing around the autumnal equinox your choices are limited to the indoor exercise room or sprinting across the hotel parking lot to the neighboring bar and grill and back. Now, about those exercise rooms. They are almost universally labeled “Fitness Center” on their door signs and the hotel floor plans but they aren’t likely to be mistaken for your quintessential, full service YMCA. You’ll find no sauna, no juice bar, no Pilates classes. These “centers” do not boast of juice bars or healthy living cafes. And they have no indoor pools! There are, at best, travel size “fitness centers.”

Still, the “fitness center” was always the first place I would seek out on my arrival at an unfamiliar hostelry. I went not to exercise but to observe. No, not to observe others exercising. That would be creepy. I went to observe their cleanliness. I liked to see how clean “the fitness center” was so I knew if I could feel comfortable using the bathrooms. No it’s not like you can’t use a bathroom while you’re traveling, but at least you should know if you could feel comfortable doing it.

See, those travel sizes do come in handy.