Green Holidays

Have you ever put into words your close encounters or your love of the landscape?

Every year BBC Wildlife Magazine offer you the chance to not only be published in their magazine – but to win a wildlife experience in some far-flung destination desperately in need of volunteers and research.

All you need to do is write a short passionate story about something you love or have experienced that you want to share with others to help them see another side of nature – your version.

Whether you want to describe the fox family living in your garden, that one off encounter with a tiger in India, your hopes for conserving a small patch of endangered wildflowers or even your first-hand description as you witnessed a tornado rip through a field near you!

As long as it was something outside – and could appeal to anyone interested in the ‘great outdoors’ – then get your pen to paper and write out your thoughts!

The Competition:
Don’t worry if you can’t think of anything for this years competition (closing date 30th April 2011) – but you can start thinking about next years entry.

Nature writing normally means that you have captured your thoughts while caught in the middle of things – or that you have a lot of experience in your subject – so know it inside-out. Needless to say, you can’t just pluck such a story out of thin air.

They offer plenty of tips for your writing and you can read past winners tales too – but only be inspired by yourself.

The hardest part will be reducing your passion down to just 800 words – so don’t even worry about all the judging and the other people entering – get your story straight first.

photo credit: whyohwhyohwhyoh

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What If I Can’t Write?
Not everyone feels comfortable writing – so BBC Wildlife offer other competitions too – including poetry and photography.

Whatever your passion, experience, age or ability – they offer something that you can sink your teeth into!

Everyone is different – and their version of events or the way they can share their experiences and knowledge will be different too. By all means try your hand at everything, but some people are naturally just better at some things – but it can take a while to figure out what!

Visit their website for ideas and inspiration – and maybe I could be reading your story or admiring your photos on their website soon!

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Hello again, and what a lovely time of year it is to be traveling through familiar environments!

There is nothing better for me sometimes, than to just walk a short while from my home to the beach or the countryside with a good book and my binoculars!  Pure bliss on a sunny day like today!

I’ve been out along the beach, up in the countryside – as well as visiting the family now that we all live a lot closer together these days!  Although, I shouldn’t have gone on the trampoline for so long – my legs are aching today!

Well, let’s see what the rest of you have been up to…….

It is quite clear that some of you are also planning to stay home too by the looks of Ana Paula’s article – with the Top 100 Gardening Blogs - many of which are eco friendly green fingered tips – but not all, so make sure you modify the un-green gardening tips!

Try to lighten up or even ‘green’ over your commute to work using Maria Clara tips: 100 Excellent Lifehacks for Your Long Commute. There are quite a few in there that totally make eco sense…….. and best use of your time. I mean if you have to take a journey, why waste it just staring out of the window – learn something new, do something new – make every second count!

Here’s a nice little article on one thing that even I struggle with – Tips for Eating Healthy While on Vacation by Debbie Dragon – and it had a great Vitamin gadget on the site too!

Here’s a lovely sort tale of what wonders a walk in the countryside can have – especially if you happen to pass through a farm – so thanks to Richard with his A Visit to Fulking Hill! – with some great photo’s in there too.

Next, Mike Vogt gives us something very different to think about with his great article on 10 Great Mission Trip Ideas.  Not many people consider the role that religion and religious thinking can have in developing countries.

the beach

And one for the summer: Tara V presents Green Wedding Guide; Planning an Eco-Friendly Exchange of Vows.  A great way to enjoy the best day of your life – as well as making sure that it doesn’t have a negative impact on anyone else!

It’s still sunny, so get back out there!

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Hello again, and I hope you haven’t been caught up in all this airline trouble at the moment!

No doubt if you had booked a quiet trip by train across Europe, it could have been affected by thousands of other holidaymakers who couldn’t get on a plane! 

Your quiet out-of-the-way hotel could have been besieged by families waiting for a ferry or coach to turn up!  It could make for some really interesting articles but wasn’t much fun I’d imagine!

Anyway, lets get on with those already in the system – starting with a great post about travelling around the States using car-shares rather than the hassle of hiring one yourself or dragging your car across the country!  Follow the tips offered by Byteful Travel in How to Get Paid to Travel 1,000 miles: Craigslist and see if you can go on a great plane-free car-sharing friend-making adventure!

If you are traveling north to Canada instead then why not take a peek at the photos in Mark H’s article: Wicked But Stunning (Jasper National Park, Canada) where you can see images of pure tranquility! And imagine if you a life there for next too nothing – wouldn’t that make it all the more magical?

Eco Living Advice wants to share with you some destinations on the other side of the Atlantic with 7 Eco Friendly Tourist Destinations in the UK, showing that you don’t need to travel across oceans to see some great sites – you have plenty right where you are now!

And if you want to take along some pretty unique clothing and accessories when you travel – maybe for yourself (laptop bag) or for others (hair bands and wallets) – then take a look at some of the links which Gabriella White has in the post 100 Amazing Upcycling Ideas Anyone Can Do and maybe give one a try! It makes using all your rubbish so easy – and you get something totally unique virtually for free!

However, if you want a taste of a country without actually going there, take a look at the huge choice given by Rowena Hebert for travel literature that summons up the taste and feel of exotic or distant destinations that could interest and inspire you: 100 Novels That Let You Travel The World Without Leaving Home. I have added a few to my reading list that I hadn’t heard of before……

……but if you want to see rather than read, then take a look at Daniel Jones’ list of Top 100 Travel Photography Blogs and see some amazing shots – and like me you might wonder why you aren’t doing your own travel journal like this!

And finally, Jerry Rogers offers up a huge list of links for the student and includes a small section on green travel links 100 Essential Blog Posts for Students Going Green, and you might even find something else inspiringly green that you weren’t really looking for as well!

So, get reading and change today for the better…….

Write an exciting live travel diary of your green holidays to share with your friends!

We all know about writing blogs these days – as they are just like an online diary.  However, as they are updated live across the world in an instant, they are a great way for all your friends and family to be kept up-to-date with your adventures, without you having to email them all individually.

There are so many around these days that there is bound to be one that you love out there, but the problem is sometimes finding one amongst thousands that you like!

And, you need to find one that is easy to use – namely a ‘WordPress’ (Wp) theme.  This type of blog is very easy to use and update – and you can add loads of extras these days – called ‘plug-ins’. 

There are plug-ins, for example, that allow you to easily add your photo’s from Flickr to your travel blog, called flickrRSS; and there are even ‘plug-ins’ that can be used to translate your blog into other languages if you meet people on your journey from other countries who want to follow you on your trip!

Finding Your Theme:
You can search online for a ‘WordPress theme’ but you will get about 8 billion sites coming up to wade through, this drops to just over 46 million if you want a ‘free WordPress theme’!  However, many of these will be just a handful of themes, and at the other extreme, there could be 1000′s to choose from.

But how do you check them all and find your favourite wp blog themes?

Thankfully, there are websites out there that let you choose based on the colours that you like, the appearance that you like or even the particular genre you like – like ‘pets’ or ‘beaches’.  This type of listing and wide choice is perfectly suited to those of you that are thinking or writing a vacation blog and need to find a nice theme for it. 

And if you want it quick, you can cut down your search time with a site that gives you a miniature graphic of the theme.  This way you can see if a particular theme is worth looking at in closer detail before you click into it and have to wait for another page to load up!

Choosing Your Theme:
So, find yourself a WP Themes site that allows you to view anything up to 7000 Wp themes for the best choice (I know this sounds like far too many – but don’t forget you only want to look at a handful of theme types, so the more they have in total the more likely you are to find a nice selection to choose from in the style you like!).

Then think about what you want your online diary to represent.  Are you looking for it to represent the sunshine (yellow and beaches), the adventure (green and tropical scenes) or maybe the people you meet (culture and buildings).  Or you are into nature (frogs, green, lizards), or maybe travel itself (trains, boats, bicycles or just a winding road!).

Also consider what information you want to show on it.  Do you want just 1 column showing your everyday updates?  Or your updates as well as a second permanent column with your location and other ‘exact details’.  Or a section that rotates your latest pictures?

There are even some that come ‘AdSense ready’, so are able to immediately start earning you money from the  ads on your site to fund your green adventure!

Why wouldn’t you do it?