Eco Holidays

posted by Catherine on Oct 22

If you are going to travel across continents – then why not make the most of it?

Having travelled regularly myself – I know that there is a huge distinction between going it alone based on guide books and actually taking a reputable escorted tour or longer guided trip.

Now, I won’t say that all of my ‘go-it-alone’ holidays have been rubbish – far from it!  I loved every minute of my trips from home otherwise I wouldn’t do it so often – but there is more to see than just what’ in the guidebooks – and it’s great!

People In The Know:
A friend of mine recently travelled to the Canadian Rockies for a vacation, and it was going to be just the 2 of them in various log cabins looking at a few things here and there – but I encouraged them otherwise.

I feel that if you are going to clock up the energy costs of travel in the first place, you should really cram as much into them as you can so that it is still enjoyable; but that you come away with a big grin on your face which hangs around for several months afterwards.

So I suggested that they look at some escorted tours Canada to get a real insight into the place before they headed off on their own.

photo credit: savillent

It Changes Your View:
Having signed up for a guided tour myself in this area – I know how much the experience can offer.  Not only does it allow you to learn a lot more about the history and the workings of the area, it also highlights wildlife patterns, tips on getting the most out of it and safety regarding the larger mammals in the woods!

Discovering that some beautiful birds flock to certain trees early in the morning is indispensible; locating an idylic mountain stream and waterfall is another ‘perfect’ moment; and finding out from a local how to act if a pack of wolves cross your path really helps to settle your nerves!

And hopefully a great guide on your tour will be able to fill you with enthusiasm about the whole region as well as the smaller things.  They will make sure that they add a bit a magic to your vacation.

There is no point getting home and feeling like you didn’t see everything or that you need to go back to see more sights – you’ll want to go back because you loved it so much the first time!

posted by Catherine on Oct 3

What easier way to have an eco friendly vacation – than to live it your way!

Buy renting a holiday villa whereever you want to go; like choosing villas in Florida; you can decide what you do and when you do it – there is no need to spend ages compromising on this and that.

The Problem:
Taking a trip these days can be filled with choices between what you want and expect from a holiday – and what you hope will be an eco friendly experience too.

We all know that hotels need to wash their towels for every new person who stays with them; they need to display food in a certain way for meal times; they need to use so much of this or that – but you don’t – and so your Orlando villas can be as eco friendly as you want!

By renting an empty villa in whichever location you desire – you can wash your towels when you want; only cook what you need; turn all the lights off and even supply your own eco friendly toiletries!

The Solution:
Renting a home from home also has other great benefits that you might not think of for your holiday – for example you can bring your bikes with you to get around. I would imagine you would get a pretty odd look if you were wheeling your bikes up and own the hotel corridors!

You can come and go when you want rather than avoiding the room service; have a lay in without worrying about being disturbed; you can eat when you want and you won’t have to give anyone a tip for their trouble!

And there are some pretty amazing properties out there for rent these days – some are simple and some have all the mod cons. You can rent as little or as much as you like – it’s your choice.

And you won’t have to share your facilities with a bunch of other people you don’t know. The basketball hoop or table tennis table; All yours. The pool and deck chairs; All yours.

The Result:
Having chosen one of these holidays for me and my family – I can really recommend it.

There were 12 of us sharing this amazing villa for 3 weeks – and we loved it! There are of course plenty of villas in Orlando to choose from - and we certainly struck lucky. A friend happened to recommend a company that she had used in the States, and we had a look for ourselves.

The price was right, the villa seemed to suit our needs – and to top it off; the service was perfect when we booked.

We are already looking at dates for 2012 to do the same all over again!

posted by Catherine on Jun 22

What is the fun in making a whole load of rules about the countryside?

The Countryside code is something that people rarely ever read – and this is for 2 main reasons. Either the people being shown the information are too rude and selfish to consider what might be best for the countryside itself and everyone else sharing in it’s beauty, so they have no interest in being ‘told what to do’.

Or they already know the code inside-out as it is all common sense to the the eco thinker!

I mean how more obvious could it be to anyone that dropping litter isn’t a great way to keep the countryside healthy! If you drop litter here today – what do you expect it to look like tomorrow?

The basic principles of the Countryside code are really just the exact same things as we see everywhere else in our lives – but maybe with sheep instead of hamsters, and oaks instead of rose bushes.

Would you leave the door to your friends hamster cage open after you put something inside? Would you start pulling roses off your neighbours bushes because you wanted a closer look at the leaves? Would you hit your dog waste under a hedge with a stick and into the school playground? While looking around a shop, would you start opening all the doors just to see what’s on the other side?

Strange. Because that is just what people expect to be able to do in the countryside.

How Are They The Same?
Unfortunately, because the countryside (and beaches and woodlands and mountains, moors and marshes) are all free to visit – some people assume that they have no value. And so they treat them as such.

For example, Family A travel to a small village for a visit and decide to wander off up a footpath as it is sunny. As they have not ‘done this before’ they may well ‘lose’ their way, find the path turning the ‘wrong’ way or come across a huge muddy puddle.

photo credit: robertsharp

Rather than thinking that the footpath goes another way for a reason or that the place they want to go might be private anyway – they say to themselves: ‘Well, we can see where we want to go – so if we just jump this fence, we can walk across this dry field and get there anyway’.

Now if you went around your friends house for a visit, walked to the end of their garden and saw a beautiful lake across someone else’s garden – you wouldn’t just bunk over your friends fence and trample your family across somone else’s garden to get to the private lake, would you?

So what makes it OK when it is just a farmers field?

All Are Welcome:
The countryside is usually ‘free’ to enter as many charities and private owners alike want people to experience to wonder and amazing character of the open countryside.

They do this by opening up for private business, extending their existing footpath and bridleway network to allow great freedom of the visitors and by making their land as easy to access and walk through as possible.

However, at any time they can revert to the bare minimum of access for walkers and riders. And repreated trespassing and vandalism will only bring this about sooner.

For example, shops that find large numbers of children encourage thefts restrict the number of children they allow in to their stores. Private Houses and Gardens open to the public often put barriers around precious items, flower beds and lawns and even close of certain rooms – usually due to past visitors damaging or breaking something with their carelessness.

The same could be true for your favourite areas of the countryside.

Imagine if all footpaths were fenced in; Open Access land was restricted back to the by-ways and gardens and houses were closed of?

Imagine also that due to the cost of repairs and alterations due to damage by visitors was placed on future visitors.

I remember a whole host of places that used to have ‘free parking’ or ‘free entry’ all year round – and churches that were left open all day.

That is not always the case anymore. More and more landowners, farmers, clergymen and charities are finding that unquestioning hospitality and generosity just are not traits that keep things ticking over.

Times are changing, but hopefully people can too!

Please pass on the Countryside Code to whoever you take out with you on your eco adventures. Pass on the reasons – not the rules – and hopefully you can change a few yourself.

posted by Catherine on May 31

Why take your safari in the same place as everybody else if you don’t have to?

Kenya, South Africa and Botswana get all the coverage with the big names for Safaris – but there is plenty to see in less visited countries – so don’t overlook places like Uganda and Rwanda too fast.

Not to name drop but you would be missing out on Bwindi Inpenetrable National Park and it’s mountain gorillas; both the Congo and the Nile rivers; the Great Rift Valley; and Lake Victoria.

When you are choosing an African adventure, make sure you give the less well known companies and countries their fair share of your attention and subsequently your funding. If we want to show countries that it is worth them keeping something – then we have to pay them in return.

And that is what your eco friendly travel plans should consider – what benefit does your vacation have on the people you spend it with – and those people you don’t spend it with?

So, here is a little bit of information on these 2 countries to show that there is plenty of Africa to see without sitting in a coach filled with 30 other tourists all looking at the same sleeping lion or baby elephant!

Uganda:
Home to an estimated 50% of the World’s mountain gorillas as well as chimpanzees, 120 species of mammals, 250+ species of butterflies and 360 species of birds in the Bwindi alone – making this site one of the richest and most diverse wildlife site in East Africa (beating Kenya hands down!).

photo credit: Kabacchi

It also has over 200 species of tree, 100+ ferns and 86 species of orchid! A plant lovers dream location too then!

In total there are 9 National Parks in Uganda – so you won’t be short of a wildlife adventure or two for your efforts.

There are a variety of habitats including wetlands, marshes, mountains and cloud forests to explore as well as 40 different languages to discover amongst the 4 main areas of the country.

And due to its high altitude and rings of mountains it is cooler than other countries on the equator – as well as being less prone to tropical diseases than many of it’s neighbours – always a bonus for the traveller!

Rwanda:
After being in the news for everything but it’s wildlife and culture – why not take a look at the eco adventures on offer in this less visited country. After all, gorilla safaris are this countries leading tourist attraction!

There are habitats here ranging from active volcanos in the Virunga mountains, through rolling hills, savannah, plains and swamps as well as all the lakes that fill this part of the Great Rift Valley.

There are only 3 National Parks here – but you won’t be disappointed with the wildlife: gorillas, giraffes, forest elephants, 14 species of primate and over 700 species of bird.

The people of Rwanda all belong to one ethnic group and so share a common history and culture, including dance, music and story-telling – as well as shared and local arts and crafts.

Eco Adventures:
These 2 countries border each other (as well as Kenya, Sudan, Tanzania, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo) so you could easily travel between them all on an overland tour – either with an organised group or independently depending on your needs (overland tour buses don’t usually have toilets!).

So when you are planning your Safari Holidays - don’t look to the same old same old – think of something new and you might just have the best safari ever!

Following your heart – not the tour bus rules……

posted by Catherine on Apr 27

Would you know what to do if you found an unconscious person while out on a walk?

How about if a friend of yours just suddenly fainted, cut themselves, feels unwell, or had a burn? If you said no – or aren’t sure, then you should think about going on an Emergency First Aid course.

Many people only do a First Aid course because they ‘have to’ for work or volunteering – but why should we be forced to do it? Why haven’t you thought about saving your family and friends in an emergency rather than having to help a random person who happened to visit your shop or office?

Why do we wait to be asked to learn such and important skill – we should be climbing over each other to get on a course!

And it isn’t about what to do with the casualty either – it is about assessing your needs as well as those of the patient. And your actions also affect the emergency services and complete strangers who could be 30 miles away from you.

How? Well think of the larger picture as well as just your little part in it.

Just You:
Before helping anyone in an emergency situation – you should check that you are safe to help in the first place – there is no point you getting injured, electrocuted, trapped, burned or drowned as well as the casualty! And if you do get hurt – who will be there to help you?

Don’t forget that 999/911/122 calls will get routed through to the emergency services even if you are in an area with no mobile coverage – so if in doubt about your safety – call them first for advice.

The Casualty:
If you can get to them safely – then you need to assess them before you call the emergency services – as you will need to know a bit more about them. For example, if they are not breathing at all – then those first few minutes could be vital to their survival, so don’t waste them trying to make a phone call!

And you might find that they are not that seriously hurt or were just sleeping! Needless to say that if you do call out a helicopter or ambulance for someone who ends up telling you that they were just sleeping or drunk – you have wasted a lot of peoples time and resources.

photo credit: Artotem

The Complete Stranger:
He was just in his garden at home when he started getting chest pains – they didn’t go away when he laid down so he struggled to the phone to call an ambulance as he thought he was having a heart attack.

He speaks to the emergency staff and they tell him that they will be there as soon as they can – but they know that their last ambulance is on its way to that collapsed casualty in the woods 15 miles away.

Your casualty turns out to be hung-over while that complete stranger is getting worse! There are a limited number of emergency vehicles in any one area – so make sure that you don’t waste their resources by calling them for a non-emergency.

The Emergency Services:
Obviously if you find an unconscious person anywhere who is not responding to your loud voice or a firm shoulder pat (as they could be deaf) – then you should clear their airways and make sure that they are breathing and then call the emergency services for advice.

However, you must assess their situation first to be of most help to them. They have been trained to save lives and have the equipment to do so – but if they are 20 miles away from the casualty then they can’t do their job.

There are also alternative emergency advice solutions – particularly if the casualty is conscious and not in a life-threatening situation. Taking them to one of the many minor injuries or illness clinics is a great first option, calling NHS Direct (UK only) can answer many of your questions and advise you of the best course of action.

But nothing beats getting your own skills in Emergency First Aid – that way you can help your friends and family immediately – and offer the correct help to others in need.

You’ll never regret taking the course – only not taking it.

posted by Catherine on Mar 25

The sun is shining and the lambs are hopping round their field – or are they?

When we see little lambs bouncing around in the sun – we can only think of how cute they are. Out come the cameras and the high pitched voices as we point at them with our friends and children.

But did you know that those little sheep are fighting to keep adonis blue butterflies breeding in southern England?

How? Well, it isn’t like they are waving banners about or stopping urban development in the area – they are just doing what they do best. Eating grass.

An Easy Life:
Basically, these sheep are grazing the hillside landscapes that blanket the south of England as well as other sloping grassy surfaces around the world because that is what they are good at.

Sheep thrive in these niche landscapes due to their breeding – or our manipulation of their breeding – and so they have changed the way things look around them. And as a result of that have helped to create habitats where wild flowers and insects thrive.

But these habitats are man-made (or sheep-made) and a few years of no grazing, and all the plants, insects and birds are at risk of being lost!

Without the sheep mowing the hillsides flat – including shoots from all other plants, bushes and trees – the grass would soon become covered in scrub, brambles and gorse, which in turn would become overgrown and then allow for tree growth.

How You Can Help.
Now that farming is becoming less and less profitable, sheep farmers are limited to the amount of sheep they can keep for this valuable biodiversity control – and so flocks are getting smaller and grasslands are shrinking.

So are wildflower and insect populations.

So, when you local farm invites you inside to watch the lambs, stroke them, hold them and maybe even take a ride around the farm in a tractor – he is really asking you to help make sure that the sheep can stay.

And ultimately, he is asking you to save your local grasslands and your local landscapes.

Could you imagine your local open spaces covered in prickly bramble and spikey gorse bushes instead of fields of soft picnic-inducing grasslands?

All you have to do to help keep them that way – is to pay to go and see some cute lambs; your local species and habitat saving warriors in disguise!

photo credit: Tim Pokorny

posted by Catherine on Mar 9

Does booking an eco holiday really mean you have to pay more for everything?

We all know that you can’t find a great eco holiday package for less than a ‘short hop to the sun’ type holiday, because you are comparing 2 different things: you either want to respect the environment and the people living in it, or you want to spend as little as possible to get somewhere warm.

But if you are planning to find travel deals that can help you to plan a more independent holiday – then you shouldn’t have to pay more to get there and back for example.

If you are planning to spend 3 months travelling across Europe, or spend a year moving around South America – there is no need to pay full price for your transport if you can get it at a reduced price.

I mean why would you offer to pay full price for a train ride from New York to Los Angeles if the person behind you in the queue was only paying a fraction of that cost? There is nothing you can do to stop a company from offering a promotional rate – however you could always refuse the offer and pay full price if you want – but I’m sure nobody would really do that!

Your Long Trip:
So if you are planning a long vacation somewhere – you may still want to search for the best deals on transport, food and accommodation – so that you can travel for longer.

You will of course still have your normal eco standards, like no ‘bush meat’ or no meat at all; no consumer products from giant stores; no hotel chains; etc – but you can find the best vacation discount for whatever it is that you are looking for.

You still need to sleep somewhere, buy products, eat food and travel from A to B – so why not use the Internet to help you find what you are looking for with link-filled sites like TravelFinders.co to help you find specific travel websites that could help you.

People you meet will also have reduced prices to offer you when you arrive somewhere – maybe 1 night free if you stay a week, half price trip if you book another trip through the same agent, etc. Deals are all around us and taking advantage of them doesn’t need to go against your eco thinking.

If you saw 6 free range organic eggs for sale for half the price of another brand of free range organic eggs – I’m sure you wouldn’t opt for the more expensive ones. Same thing with everything in life.

And there may be times when you do need to book a ticket on a plane for those longer journeys or in times of trouble – so why not look for a cheap flights going the same way?

Being eco friendly doesn’t mean you have to pay more – it means you won’t settle for less than what you believe in.

posted by Catherine on Feb 22

Why not take an extended eco holiday to a part of your past?

These days you can buy yourself a genome-realted DNA test that may well help you to see where your ancient ancestors came from or travelled through on their journey to becoming you!

It is currently believed that around 60,000 years ago the first humans started to move away from their original homeland. Theories still abound as to why they moved and how they managed it – but basically from those first steps – they sowed the seeds for all the thousands or cultures, languages and peoples that we know today.

Some of these groups are still very isolated such as island communites, whereas others are now highly mixed up including many capital cities like London and New York.

Over thousands of years of migration, settlement, working and trade; cultures have met, mixed and moved on. But where does your history come from – where has your distant family been living all this time?

Genome Testing.
It is now possible to buy a testing kit for yourself or a friend that will tell you about the journey of your ancestors as far as we know it.

There have been many studies over the past few decades that have found certain ‘markers’ in human DNA which can be plotted on a map of the world based on where these markers are found within indigenous populations still living in those locations.

For example, certain markers found in indigenous people living on Island A will be identified as different to all other marker combinations, so if your DNA is found to have most or all of those same markers, then you can almost guarantee that your ‘family’ were there too at some point.

And as humans moved from Africa across Asia, Europe and the Americas, they left a trail of these similar markers – and it is these markers that the DNA test can highlight for you.

These markers can be found for both your maternal linage – through your mother and then her mother and then all the mothers for ever; or paternally through your father, then his father, then all your family’s fathers (however only males can follow their paternal lineage due to the ‘Y’ chromosome – as ladies don’t have one!).

This tracing backwards doesn’t give you a list of all their names and addresses of course, it just tells you whether your markers are found in certain populations over time and in which areas and countries.

Wow!
This is of course something that could change your life. Especially if you have no idea what your ancestry is and find out that most of your past relatives were from a totally different continent to what you thought.

I know skin colour and your direct relations might give you a clue to more recent family ties over the past 100 years (like the last 3 generations of my family were all from Europe) – but they can be hiding a whole host of other relatives over the past 59,900 years that are hidden within our genes!

And finding out that your history is focussed in a whole new landscape could be the very input you needed to find a new path in life. What if you could travel back to that place for an extended period of time; learn about who still lives there and past events.

And if it is still a developing region – there may be volunteer or teaching opportunites close by so that you could actually be helping people still living in that very place who share a similar past to you.

If you are interested in learning more about yourself, then maybe take a look at one such Genome Project and take it from there?

photo credit: Lordcolus

posted by Catherine on Dec 31

When booking your vaccinations – make sure you turn up on time!

Everyone needs to have their vaccinations for foreign travel – as it prevents expensive treatments and days or months or illness.  And of course, if you don’t catch these viruses or diseases – then you can’t pass them on to others at greater risk than yourself.

However, you will be amazed how many people don’t bother to turn up for their appointments – creating a delay in others receiving their boosters and protection.

Vaccinations:

Many vaccinations for travel need a certain amount of time to work in the body before you are 100% protected – so ideally you need to get these in advance of your travel – however, sometimes you just don’t get that much notice.

But what if when you went to book your appointment – they didn’t have any spaces?

Many appointments are left to run empty by people who fail to call ahead to cancel.  It only takes a second to do it – but multiplies up into a huge delay for all those people waiting afterwards.

I know my surgery only offer travel vaccinations 1 afternoon a week with only a handful of appointments each time – so around 15 in total for the month.

Your Jabs:

Now say you were travelling in a few weeks and were told that you had to wait 3 weeks for a space – even though unbeknown to you the first appointment tomorrow is going to be missed on purpose because the person had changed their mind and didn’t think it was important to call as they weren’t going to be charged for it anyway.

photo credit: Daniel Paquet

Of course the surgery can’t be expected to call you at a moments notice and offer the appointment to you instead – so you will have to wait until your appointment even though the nurse won’t be doing anything for that 15 minutes.

There is, unfortunately, no way that the receptionist on the day you called, leave all your details out for the different receptionist working tomorrow morning with a note to say that if anyone doesn’t turn up to call you immediately as you are only working around the corner.

Needless to say, even if you were available at short notice there is no way that ‘notes’ can be left around the surgery ‘just incase’ something happens. 

I mean if they took a note for you – they would have to do it for everyone – and as you can imagine, if everyone thinks that they are a priority the reception would be covered in notes and they would need a whole other receptionist just to be in charge of sorting out all these notes and then calling them all up as and when!

Best Prevention:

Obviously, keeping you jabs up to date in the first place is a great way to prevent these last minute worries – but please be considerate when you are the one unable to get to your appointment.

Just because you are in no hurry to get things done yourself – it doesn’t mean that there isn’t someone else working to a tight schedule at the same time and who could really appreciate you making a decision either way.

Think about when someone who isn’t in a rush to get home stops right in the middle of the shop doorway to check their receipt – even though you are rushing about on your lunch break and haven’t got a moment to spare!

You might not think that all your everyday decisions can be so important to other people you don’t even know – but they are.

So think ahead, and you are helping out a lot of other people without even trying!

posted by Catherine on Dec 20

You can get so much more out of your travels if you are learning along the way!

Say you are volunteering at an animal sanctuary in Brazil, and wetland habitat in India or underwater in Fiji – what could be a better use of your evening than learning more about it all online?

I’m sure that you will get plenty of on-the-job training once you arrive – but you could make that 10 times more effective by studying a related course at the same time – in your own language – and possibly with a qualification at the end of it.

So not only would you come home with 3 or 6 months hands-on active experience under your belt, but also a certificate, a diploma or even a foundation degree under there too!

Why Study?
Many people have their ‘career’ qualifications and experience on the one side to pay the bills - but they often don’t get qualifications or certified experience in their passion.  That’s where short course and diplomas, etc, come in – they boost up your ‘hobby’ into an active skill.

I mean, if you love wildlife – and spend many hours reading about it and wandering through woodlands, mountains and open countryside with your binoculars - this doesn’t translate into any quantifiable experience or application of that passion.

So, if you were to apply for a job in this field - you couldn’t really use “20 years of walking outside looking at wildlife” as a qualification could you?

This is where these short courses online could come in really handy for you.  You could get an actual certificate to prove that you have the knowledge and experience in the field – which could hopefully open up a whole new window of opportunity for you.

Add this new qualification to a few months active volunteering in the field with a well-known college, institute or tour company and you could well have found yourself a new vocational path.

Extra Curricular Activity:
Many courses can also require a certain amount of practical experience and may even have many units based purely on hands-on activities like animal care, people skills or habitat management.  And no doubt you will have plenty of things to use a mini projects if you are actively working in the field.

Rather than the usual things like reporting on a local cat rescue centre, or new supermarket near you, your project could be ‘how building a school in a remote village empowers women and children’ or ‘discovering new species of reptile in the pristine forests of Papua’.

Rather than thinking of ways to add extra information to bulk your projects up to 5000 words of whatever – with all the action around you – you may have a hard job deciding what to cut out instead!