My adventures in ‘sweat jetting’ (or why I’m running on vacation in Morocco) | Canada Voices

I am a competitive distance runner and much to the chagrin of my loved ones, every vacation with Alex is a running vacation. On a recent family trip to Vienna, schnitzel and Sacher tortes could only be enjoyed after my daily 20-kilometre run along the Danube River.

Somehow, my weird hobby has become trendy and cool. As running itself has surged in popularity since the pandemic, so has “sweat-jetting.” Tripadvisor identified it as a major trend of 2026. Travel agencies are offering packages that involve races. There is now an app that helps runners discover destinations across the world based on the type of running they like to do: road, trail or otherwise. You can fastpack in Patagonia, shuffle from hut to hut in the French Alps or test your fitness in Kenya alongside the world’s greatest marathoners.

To understand why an increasing number of people appear drawn to this type of travel, I joined a group running trip organized by U.S.-based Rogue Expeditions. It runs guided trips around the world for about 10 to 15 people at a time.

Over one to two weeks, guests run on pre-selected routes in the mornings and take part in cultural experiences arranged by the company. Meals are included and often reflect the local culture, and there is ample free time in the afternoons and evenings for self-guided exploration.

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I chose Rogue’s Morocco trip because it was road-based: more than 160 km in and around the Sahara desert over 10 days. The majority of their other expeditions are in mountainous areas such as the Dolomites in Italy, Yosemite National Park, Mammoth Lakes in California and British Columbia’s Bella Coola Valley. These are scenic and fun, but less appealing to me and my obsession with running fast.

I landed in Marrakesh excited to see North Africa for the first time and run on new terrain, but I was also a bit skeptical. Why would someone pay upward of $5,000 to have their runs picked out for them? And would our entire group be forced to run at the same pace?

I was arriving with my $400 sneakers and my own pre-run carb mix. I hoped this trip would work as training for my fast-approaching racing season. Surely, not all the guests would feel as comfortable running at my speed?

Our guide, Kara Folkerts, a Canadian who lives as a nomad, quelled my fear: Everyone was free to run at their own pace.

Running on my own backfired at first. On one of the first runs, while powering down the Atlas Mountain switchbacks followed by our driver Lahsen, a Moroccan man who followed us in his Land Cruiser, I ran past a herd of sheep and caught the attention of their two guard dogs. They began to chase me. Instinct told me to outrun them – a poor plan, it turned out – until Lahsen intervened, stepping from the car and pretending to throw a rock in their direction. Startled, they turned around and went back to their herd.

Not all runs were as risky. There were treks through the Sahara, flat routes through Berber villages, and what our guide calls the Mars Run: A full 18 kilometres through a landscape of otherworldly red rock that’s about 100 kilometres east of Marrakech toward the Algerian border.

Driving south and inland from Marrakesh, in between the runs, we moved through seven different garden courtyards, or riads, of varying polish in as many days. One night, we slept among five-metre dunes in simple desert huts arranged around a fire, with shared bathrooms whose flushing mechanism involved little more than gravity and a bucket of water.

That day felt like old-school camping: A sandy, 75-minute run gave way to a campfire with our Berber hosts, where one of them, Yousef, used his djembe to draw us – and a group of Austrian tourists – into a conga line circling the flames.

Our abode in Zagora, a desert-side town in southeastern Morocco, was the complete contrast – a full resort with a swimming pool, all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet and traditional Moroccan massages or hammams (deep scrub-downs). By day six, my left hip was plotting to wage war with the rest of my body. Thankfully, 45 minutes of light pressure and argan oil calmed it down by next morning’s run. Our riad in Marrakech, meanwhile, was so nestled in the bustling souks that you’d walk out and stumble into a fruit stand.

The trip balanced physical challenges and being present enough to enjoy the destination. One day, our main driver Hamid invited us all to his family home in M’Hamid, a town on the edge of the desert, that ends where the road becomes sand.

We gathered in his guest room and sat on a banquette as his wife, mother and son entered the room and long-poured us tea from a ceramic pot. They served us vegetable msemen, a savoury Moroccan flapjack that became both a source of carbohydrates and motivation to burn calories on the run a few hours later.

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Our tour group was incredibly diverse as runners, and even more so as people. Yet, before long our runs finished in high-fives, our dinners exploded into laughs and our trip ended in hearty goodbyes, number swaps and a vow to stay in touch. How did we all get along so well?

Folkerts proposed a theory: These trips unite people who want more out of vacation than lounging by a pool. It made me wonder if many of the vacations we take in an effort to disconnect us from our daily lives – the boozy all-inclusives or the lazy cruises – also disconnect us from the things that make us human: social connection, intellectual challenge and, yes, physical effort. And running trips, where guests cover many kilometres in new places with a group of strangers, offer all of that.

In Morocco, over many kilometres and mild struggles, the nine of us became teammates. That unspoken kinship between runners extended beyond the group, too. Midway through the trip, I encountered another local runner on the Mars Run’s rocky path. We wore the same shoes. In broken French, he told me he was training for a half marathon. I couldn’t resist.

“How fast are you?” I asked. He drew “1:05” in the sand. I drew my half-marathon time next to his: “1:03.” We shared a look and smiled. We then went our own ways, but not without understanding something profound about each other – a shared pursuit of a physical goal.

Running itself is trivial, but what it can mean to people is not. It’s a way to connect that spans ages, speeds and culture.

If you go

Rogue Expeditions trips welcome all speeds of runners. The next Morocco: Gorges and Sahara trip leaves in November. The 10-day package includes meals, cultural experiences and accommodation, and starts at US$4,195. International flights are not included.

Over-pack your running clothes as laundry opportunities are limited. Many shops are cash-only, so ensure you carry the local currency, Moroccan dirhams.

The writer was a guest of Rogue Expeditions, which did not review or approve this article. Stories are based on merit; The Globe does not guarantee coverage.