Discovering the World, One Runner at a Time By Ntando Ximba

Before Brazil, I think I understood travel in the ordinary way, which is to say the way most of us understand it before a place quietly embarrasses our understanding of it. You go somewhere. You land. You check into a hotel. You see the famous thing everyone told you to see and you take the picture that proves you were there.

But Brazil reminded me that travel is also a movement through people. You can go to Rio and see Rio. But you can also sit across from another runner at breakfast, hear about where they come from, where they run, what broke them, what built them back up and suddenly arrive in a place no itinerary could have listed.

That is what the Rio Marathon 2026 became for me.

The running festival took place in Rio de Janeiro from 4 to 7 June 2026, with the full marathon on Sunday, 7 June. The route is known as one of the most beautiful in the world, the route passes through neighbourhoods that sound almost musical even before you see them: Leblon, Ipanema, Copacabana, Botafogo and Flamengo, before finishing at Marina da Glória. It is the kind of race that almost feels unfair to describe plainly. Ocean on one side. Mountains rising inland. Christ the Redeemer watching over the city with that still, impossible calm. Rio does not simply host a marathon. It stages one.

I travelled with Just Run Tours, a proudly South African sports travel company whose purpose is to help people discover the world through sport. Before the trip, that sounded to me like a neat idea. After Rio, it felt much bigger. Just Run Tours did not only get us to Brazil, to the hotel, to the races and to the city’s famous landmarks. They created the conditions for people to meet properly. A group of runners became a small travelling community, held together by early mornings, race shirts, sore legs, nervous jokes and the shared decision to go very far from home to run very far once we got there.

I had signed up for a series of runs, which meant that I experienced Rio in layers. Not all at once, not from behind glass, not as a tourist being moved from one famous place to the next. I experienced it one road, one breath and one kilometre at a time. When you are running for the joy of it, without being held hostage by Strava, a place has more space to reach you. You notice the light. You notice the sea. You notice the way the road bends and the way strangers cheer as if your finishing somehow matters to them too.

One of my favourite moments came during one of the runs, when I looked up and saw Christ the Redeemer in the distance. Not close. Not staged. Not as the destination of a tour. Just there, above the city, watching over everything. Later, when I went to see it properly, it was magnificent, of course. But strangely, I preferred that first sighting. Seeing it from afar while running through Rio felt more intimate, almost accidental, as if the city had offered it quietly rather than asked me to admire it.

The races themselves were beautifully organised. The logistics were smooth, the energy was high and the medals wereabsolutely gorgeous, the kind of medals you keep taking out afterwards because they seem to hold more than the race. They hold the tiredness, the laughter, the early departures, the heat, the views and the disbelief that you were there at all.

And then there were the people. This is the part that has stayed with me the most.

I met runners I hope will become lifelong friends. I met people from South Africa who made me want to discover more of my own country. Someone would tell a story about a race in their hometown or a route they love and suddenly I would think, that is where I want to run next. I met an older runner who had done Comrades several times and, in the quiet, unshowy way of people who have earned their wisdom kilometre by kilometre, gave me a piece of advice so brilliant that I know I will carry it with me for the rest of my running life. Through them, I realised that discovering the world through running is not only about travelling across borders. It is also about allowing other people to become a kind of map. You hear where they are from, how they train, why they run, what they have survived, what race broke them, what race healed them, what they still want to do and suddenly the world expands.

I left Brazil with beautiful medals and sore legs, but also with something less easy to pack away. I left with new friends. I left with future races in mind. I left with a deeper affection for runners and the strange, stubborn, generous culture that forms around this sport. I left understanding that Just Run Tours does not simply take people to marathons. It creates the possibility of encounter.

Rio was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. Not only because of the city, although the city was unforgettable. Not only because of the marathon, although the marathon was extraordinary. It was beautiful because, somewhere between the road, the ocean, Christ the Redeemer in the distance and a group of people who began as fellow travellers and became something closer to friends, I discovered the world in the way travel is meant to make possible.

Not as a place to be seen.

As a place to be shared.