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Think about the last big travel day you had. A car to the airport, a seat at the gate, a moving walkway, an elevator to the lounge, a nine-hour flight, a taxi, another elevator up to the hotel room. You can cross an ocean and take fewer steps than on an ordinary Tuesday at home.

For frequent travelers, that adds up. String a few of those days together every month and “sitting all day” quietly becomes your default. The good news is that airports and hotels are full of easy chances to move, if you know to look for them. This week we looked at what preventive cardiologist Dr. Joel Kahn has written about steps and stairs, and what the CDC says about sitting on long flights, and turned it into a travel-day plan.

What a cardiologist says about steps

Dr. Joel Kahn, an integrative cardiologist who runs the Kahn Center for Cardiac Longevity in Michigan and hosts the Heart Doc VIP podcast, has written several blog posts on everyday movement. In “How You Can Step Your Way to A Longer Life Free of Heart Disease,” he discusses a 2023 meta-analysis in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology that pooled 17 studies covering 226,889 people.

The study, led by Maciej Banach, found that each additional 1,000 steps a day was associated with a 15% lower risk of death from any cause, and each additional 500 steps a day with a 7% lower risk of cardiovascular death. Dr. Kahn’s takeaway is encouraging for anyone who will never hit a big number on a travel day: 10,000-plus steps is “a noble goal,” he writes, but “even lower achievements have important consequences on health and lifespan predictions.”

One caveat worth keeping in mind: these are observational studies. They show that people who walk more tend to live longer, not that a specific number of steps guarantees a specific result. People who walk more may also differ in other healthy ways.

Why he likes the stairs

In a second post, “Skip the Elevator: Walk 5 Flights of Stairs and Slash Heart Disease Risk,” Dr. Kahn highlights a UK Biobank study of 458,860 adults followed for a median of about 12.5 years. He frames stair climbing as NEAT, or non-exercise activity thermogenesis: the movement you get from ordinary life rather than a workout.

According to the study summary, published in Atherosclerosis in 2023, people who climbed stairs roughly 6 to 20 times a day had a lower risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (heart attack and stroke types) than people who reported no stair climbing. The authors concluded that climbing more than five flights, about 50 steps, a day was associated with lower risk. Two nuances: the lowest group (1 to 5 times a day) did not show a clear benefit, and the link was weaker in people with higher genetic or family risk. Again, this is association, not proof.

What the CDC says about long flights

Movement matters for a second, more immediate reason on long trips. The CDC’s travelers’ health page on blood clots explains that long periods of sitting can let blood pool in the leg veins, which can raise the risk of deep vein thrombosis (DVT). It suggests an aisle seat so you can get up and walk every 2 to 3 hours, seated calf exercises, and talking to your doctor before you go if you have extra risk factors, such as a previous clot or recent surgery. The CDC also says not to take aspirin to prevent travel-related clots, and to seek medical care right away for leg swelling, pain or redness, or for chest pain or trouble breathing.

The travel-day movement playbook

Before you fly

1. Pick the aisle on long flights. Use your seat-selection perks (elite status or a premium card benefit) to grab an aisle so getting up does not mean climbing over a sleeping neighbor.
2. Check your step count at home. Know your normal daily baseline so you can see how far a travel day pulls you below it.
3. Ask your doctor if you have risk factors. If any of the CDC’s risk factors apply to you, ask about compression stockings or other precautions before a long-haul trip.

At the airport

4. Walk the terminal before you sit. Long hubs are made for this. Do a full lap of your concourse after security and before you settle in at the gate.
5. Skip the moving walkway and the escalator. Take the stairs where they are open to passengers. That is exactly the kind of everyday NEAT Dr. Kahn describes.
6. Treat the lounge as a base, not a couch. Grab a drink, then go for a walk and come back.

On the plane

7. Get up every 2 to 3 hours when the seatbelt sign is off, as the CDC suggests, and walk to the galley and back.
8. Do the seated calf routine. Raise and lower your heels with your toes on the floor, then raise and lower your toes with your heels down, then tighten and release your leg muscles. Repeat a few times an hour.

At the hotel

9. Take the stairs for a floor or two. Even if your room is on the 30th floor, walking up the last few flights adds up over a week. Check that the stairwell lets you back onto guest floors first.
10. Take a walk after you check in. A daylight walk around the neighborhood gets your steps back up, and in a city with poor air quality, a session on the hotel gym treadmill does the job.
11. Book walkable. When you are comparing award hotels, give extra credit to properties where you can walk to dinner instead of taking a car.

Our take

At Points Capital, our international team prioritizes staying active, fresh air, sunshine and water on the road, and when a big city’s air is bad we take the workout indoors. This is the easiest health habit we know of for travelers because it costs nothing and needs no gear: walk the terminal, take the stairs, get out of your seat on long flights. You will not hit 10,000 steps on every travel day, and the research Dr. Kahn discusses suggests you do not need to for movement to count. The goal is simply not to let a day of flying become a day of sitting.

Related on Points Capital: Andrew Huberman’s “Protocols”: How to Use It to Stay Healthy While Traveling All Year, Healthy Travel Snacks: How to Pack Your Own Plane Food and Dr. Rhonda Patrick on Sauna: How to Use Your Hotel Spa Sauna on the Road.

Sources

• Dr. Joel Kahn, Kahn Center for Cardiac Longevity: How You Can Step Your Way to A Longer Life Free of Heart Disease
• Dr. Joel Kahn, Kahn Center for Cardiac Longevity: Skip the Elevator: Walk 5 Flights of Stairs and Slash Heart Disease Risk
• Banach M, et al. The association between daily step count and all-cause and cardiovascular mortality: a meta-analysis. European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, 2023.
• UK Biobank: Daily stair climbing, disease susceptibility, and risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease: A prospective cohort study (Song Z, et al. Atherosclerosis, 2023)
• CDC Travelers’ Health: Prevent Blood Clots

This article is for general information only and is not medical advice. Talk to your doctor before changing your diet, exercise, sleep or supplement routine.