Lenise Marais, 27, from Montclair, Durban, is a defender for the South African hockey team that will be heading to the 2012 London Olympics
Favourite place to train: Stellenbosch University (Maties) astro. You don’t mind running your legs into the ground when you have the mountains and sunset in the background. It’s beautiful.
Favourite place you have competed in: Melbourne, Australia. We were there in 2006 for the Commonwealth Games. Everything was so well organised and the city life was fantastic. Melbourne was beautiful like Cape Town but the weather was stunning, warm like Durban.
First started travelling? In 2006 really, when I was part of the Junior and Senior National teams. My first big trip was to Buenos Aires, Argentina, with the senior team.
Ideal holiday? Most places I’ve been to with the team, I’d like to go back to without my hockey sticks. Means I’d get to really be a tourist. Australia, America, Argentina, Ireland – I’d like to see them properly.
Bucket list: Africa, but I’d also like to find some of the gems in our very own country
Tanith Maxwell, 36, is a SA marathon runner representing us in the 2012 London Olympics.
Favourite place to train: Has to be Richmond Park in London. It takes 18km to complete a lap of the park on fine gravel tracks which are free of traffic.
Favourite place you have competed in: I would have to choose Melbourne. The city is awesome and one can’t beat running along the Yarra River past famous sporting facilities like the Rod Laver Tennis arena and the MCG. Then, of course, Melbourne was the first place I was able to cuddle a Koala – at the Healsville Animal Sanctuary.
First started travelling in? With my sport in 2004. My first destination was Mauritius. Location was great, but the heat/humidity made any running distance a challenge.
Ideal holiday? Cornwall is a great destination – endless running along cliff tops and fantastic historical interests to stop at along the way.
Bucket list: Darwin in Australia. I have been fascinated with that area and the vast expanse of the Outback. It seems wild and remote at the same time. I just think it sounds like a place for an exciting adventure.
Ricky Robinson, 25, from Carletonville, Johannesburg is a sailor and coach for South Africans who will be competing for the Royal Natal Yacht Club at the prestigious Lipton Challenge Cup.
Favourite place to train: I would choose Durban based primarily on the reliable, yet sufficiently-variable wind and wave conditions. Other bonuses are the ability to launch small boats safely off the beach, the use of a big harbour and yacht clubs for support craft to use, and mostly because of the year-round warm sea.
Favourite place you have competed in: Cascais in Portugal. The venue is supplied almost daily by stiff but warm Atlantic breeze and good waves, while the city itself functions fantastically in giving residents and visitors great access and viewing opportunities of the harbour.
First started travelling: The first international regatta that I travelled to was at the age of 15 with my brother Brennan, who helmed at the time. The event was the Mirror Class World Championships in Hobart, Tasmania.
Ideal holiday: If I did somehow get the opportunity to go on a purely cruising trip then I would probably choose the Adriatic and Aegean seas around Greece, Croatia and Italy as a place to explore further because they have very easy summer conditions and a multitude of nearby islands that could make a fun series of day-sail island-hops. It is also a great platform to explore the greater Mediterranean from.
Bucket list? Tristan da Cunha. It is apparently the most remote islands in the world. The place is not accessible by plane and only has a small anchorage so it would be amazing to see how a community of people live with such isolation.
Hanli Prinsloo, 30, from Cape Town, is an 11 times South African freediving record holder, filmmaker and ocean adventurer. She is currently travelling through Madagascar discovering dive spots.
Favourite place to train: The Blue Hole in Dahab on the east coast of the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. The Blue Hole is a subaquatic sinkhole surrounded by coral walls that drops down to 95 metres. The water is a deep, deep blue and up to 50m visibility on a good day. It is so easy to dive deep there. I have several free diving friends who live in this small bedouin village full time.
Favourite place you have competed in: Gullmarsfjord in Sweden. This is a deep cut in the granite rocks on the west coast of Sweden where the rock faces form a dramatic V cut into the water. It is around 18°C at the surface and dark and cold, close to 4°C, at depth. This fjord has offered me some of my most peaceful competition dives. Diving with my eyes closed in the dark water has allowed me an inward journey and complete focus that the most perfect clear blue hasn’t always given me.
First time travelling: I was lucky enough to do a six-week camper van trip with my family when I was in high school. My parents both have a serious wanderlust and my sister and I were writing our “Europe packing list” since the age of 10. We flew to Germany and rented this very temperamental camper from a terribly pedantic man, Herr Venk, whose instructions and must-nots haunted our trip. Sleeping in fields, next to lakes, high up in the Alps and far into the midnight sun in northern Norway I discovered my love of travelling. I lived in Sweden for seven years after school, so Europe has a special place in my heart.
Ideal holiday: At the moment, travel is a big part of my life, for my free diving training and photography.
Holiday has become a complicated word for me, as all my travels are so much fun but never real holidays… so I think I would go to my house in Kalk Bay on holiday.
Bucket list: The Galapagos Islands. The diversity of life on these islands is mind-blowing. It is also one of the wild places that have been protected for the longest time, thanks to Darwin making it famous. - Sunday Tribune