I am in a friendly competition with a coworker back in Boston to maximize daily steps to promote good health. We use a Fitbit to measure how many steps we take each day. Our trip to Mongolia presented a challenge; how do you achieve your step count goal while on a vacation that involves a lot of sitting? Well, it turns out, I need not have worried.

Day one of the great horse adventure found us meeting our guide, drivers, and cook and loading our gear and ourselves into two Furgons. A Furgon is a four wheel drive Russian-made van with high ground clearance which was necessary for the off-tarmac travel.

One of our trusty Furgons.

When you think of a highway in Mongolia, imagine a two-lane ribbon of asphalt weaving across the green steppe. By the end of the 280-kilometer drive to the Bayan Gobi, I was surprised to see that my Fitbit had registered over 35,000 steps. I had felt the rough road but did not expect the step count.

For the next ten days, our vehicles were mostly horses. Five or more hours in the saddle each day in the desert sands netted an average of around 35,000 steps, even with long lunch breaks to seek out the mottled shade in the 40°C heat.

Camels are truly the ships of the desert. A half hour camel back walk was a welcome change from horseback and gave me Fitbit credits too.

Fenella, Doug, Chris, Anne and John on camels. What would a trip to the Gobi be without a camel ride.

The six-hour drive from the Gobi to the Orkhon Valley was all dirt track; multiple car paths crisscrossing across open pastures, up and down hills. We did not have to pay extra for the roller coaster ride we got when our two drivers decided to race each other. “You take the high road, and I’ll take the low road” has new meaning for me as our driver, Mugii, veered onto one track while the other driver, Togee, took another route. When we finally made the final turn toward the herder’s ger (yurt) camp we would stay in that night, Doug said “thank goodness.” My Fitbit gave me credit for 30,000 steps for the day.

High road and low road.

After 3 days horseback riding in the desert, we were ready for longer and faster days. Our average distance went from 20 km per day to 30 to 35 km per day and our tempo went from a walk to a trot. My step count went up too. With a little bit of actual walking – down a gorge to the base of the Orkhon waterfall, at a hot spring, and climbing up to a mountain top monastery – my Fitbit average soared to over 40,000 steps per day.

Riding through the forest on a very long day.

The final day, with of a long ride to Karakorum at the base of the Orkhon Valley, a treacherous river crossing where we and our horses almost floated away, and several long stretches of cantering and galloping, I racked up over 50,000 Fitbit steps!

When we got back to the hotel in Ulaanbaatar and I was finally able to upload all my Fitbit data, I had over 300,000 “steps” for the last 10 days, even though I had been sitting in a Furgon or sitting on a horse for most of the trip. No wonder I am so sore? At least my Fitbit friend is going to be very annoyed with me.