Green Holidays

Would you rather plan several small parties – or one big one?

We all know how difficult it is to get loads of your friends or family in one place at the same time. Planning that office party, family trip or surprise ‘passed your driving test’ party is never easy – and to be honest – not very green either!

We seem to find ourselves trying to ‘big up’ virtually everything these days – and mini celebrations are cropping up all over the place.

It’s nice to be invited to BBQ’s and afternoon teas all the time, but isn’t it rather a waste of resources to just keep celebrating quite normal things?

I don’t want to be a party pooper, but these celebrations are becoming big business, and can cost quite a lot of money to set up – not to mention the things that we buy for these parties are normally not so green either.

Shiny banners, balloons and disposible party accoutrements are not top of the list for their green credentials – nor is a pile of processed food, crisps and cakes!

Think Big:
So, why not stop planning for the tiny things and think of something immpressive, like renting a huge property in the woods, in the countryside or even in a lighthouse?

There are a huge number of absolutely stunning and amazing properties that you can rent out for the weekend or fortnight that will be a lot better than the corner of the office canteen or a few seats in a local pub.

photo credit: Kenski1970

Now don’t let the £2000 a week price tag put you off either, as these places usually have around 10 rooms or more, so that is going to be less than £200 each for a week board and lodgings in a place so unique that you wouldn’t be able to stay in it by yourself.

Not to mention it probably has tennis courts, sun rooms, terraces, a beautiful garden, secret rooms, spiral staircases, cellars and roof terraces. Now, you won’t get them down the social club!

It All Adds Up:
By planning something big like this for your family or friends means that you probably won’t need to book another holiday that year – have this one at home.

You can all car share, buy and eat in bulk and generally spend more time talking and playing with each other that you don’t drain on other resources elsewhere.

Perfect for that green holiday you have been thinking of – and a perfect way to have a green adventure!

And it saves time, money and tinfoil for all those cakes and cards!

Cod & Chips; Tuna & Sweetcorn and Salmon and Cucumber sandwiches – Just STOP!

Of course, as humans in a developed nation – we can eat whatever we choose; but should we be a little more picky?

As consumers, we can demand whatever we want from retailers and manufacturers without donning placards, signing a 10,000 people petition or starting any riots.

How? you may ask – How else can you get people to listen to your opinions?

It’s called: Your Choice.

By choosing to buy a certain product, we are also choosing to leave something else behind – and it is what is left behind that forces retailers and manufacturers make big changes.

If 40,000 people all chose not to eat cod this week – there would be plenty of it left on the shelves of shops or in the fridges or restaurants. And this means that they probably won’t order any more of it for a while.

It also means that they are selling out of all the other fish products that you are buying, and so need to buy more of those to suit your needs.

Basically, your shopping choices can help to make big changes – and save threatened species.

Cod, Tuna and Salmon:
Of course you can still chose to eat any of these threatened species if they are available for sale when you eat out on holiday, but it is interesting to know a bit about what makes them so attractive to fishermen.

Firstly, they are big and live in shaols or behave in a way which makes them easy to catch; and due to their size and tasty flesh, they make more money per fish than the same weight of sardines (tuna can weigh up to 200kg and are mostly muscle – but the same weight of sardines would be riddled with bones and guts – even if they are still just as tasty).

The only downside here is that the reason they get so big is because they live for so long – and living a long time generally means that they reach sexual maturity later in life. Ultimately, if we catch more adults than can be replaced by reproduction then we have a serious problem.

A second downside to these ‘higher’ fish, is that they are predatory fish and so have to eat lots of other smaller fishes to get so big themselves. And as happened with Tuna recently, they can accumulate very high levels of toxin (a little bit from each of the smaller fish they ate over the years) and can actually became dangerous to humans if ingested.

The Answer?
We need to do the opposite to what we do now.

By aiming to eat all those little tiny fish we could not only help the larger fish numbers to recover, but we could also eat more sustainably and more healthily!

Smaller fish like herring, kippers and sardines reproduce very fast – so catching the adults doesn’t affect the number of young still in the water; and as they are not predatory fish, they will not accumulate high levels of toxins and heavy metals through their feeding habits.

And, as they are not normally caught by the big trawlers (who want to save all the space on their ships for the larger species), these fish can be caught by more sustainable and small scale fishermen making the most of the oceans along our coasts without affecting fish stocks.

So, next time you pull over in a small village for a travelling lunch – try something different!

Your actions alone can make the countryside a better place for yourself and others.

By sharing your adventures – I don’t mean inviting other people along to your picnics, dog walks or countryside rambles – I mean allowing them to have as much fun as your yourself would expect.

Your actions can directly affect other people who are within a few feet or even a few miles of you while you are outdoors – but they can also affect people who follow in your footsteps a few weeks or even a few years after you.

How you may wonder? But it is all quite simple.

The Countryside Shop:
Every inch of the countryside is owned and managed by someone. Whether it is a private landowner, a charitable body or your local council – someone is looking after the land and using it or maintaining it according to their needs.

You are however, permitted to walk through their land, fields, forests, glades and even gardens on footpaths (or for a small fee) if they are on a footpath, bridleway or other right of way. But you are only a visitor.

Imagine the countryside as you would a high street shop. You are allowed in – even welcomed in – but there are unspoken ‘rules’ – like a society code. For example you can just go in and break things, scream and shout, play loud music, drop litter, let your dog run wild, allow your kids to climb on display areas or run into ‘private’ areas or eat their food and scare of other customers.

Yet people do this in the countryside all the time.

What Happened Next?
Well, firstly in this shop – you would be seriously affecting their profits – and just like any business they react to problems and can’t afford to lose money.

But how can they make money if you are scaring off their other customers and have left the shop in such a state that they have actually spend money to fix things and replace broken stock. However, some things are irreplacable – so they may never have them in the shop again.

And secondly, they may well introduce a few rules to make sure that these things don’t happen again, like not allowing children or dogs, closing off certain areas at certain times, charging people to go in to get some money back and changing what they sell.

In the same way, landowners who suffer from vandalism, injured livestock and crop damage may put up extra fencing and funnel the ‘humans’ down a thin footpath rather than allowing them free access to the land.

photo credit: Crystian Cruz

Other Changes:
They may also be forced to lock gates, block entrances to farms and other buildings that aren’t actually on the footpath but were a beauty or were of great interest to walkers like yourself.

They may have to introduce entrance fees to car parks or other areas to re-coup some of their lost funds – which you will have to start paying if you want to visit the area – or maybe close off the ‘free parking’ that they had allowed on their land until all the rubbish that was dumped their was costing too much to have removed!

And damage to certain rare plants or wildlife species may be too much for that species to survive there anymore – so it will be lost forever just becasue you wanted to take that unusual plant home with you!

So noise and vandalism can affect more than just other walkers on that day – and carelessness, selfish actions and laziness can change the very landscape we love over time.

The countryside can’t keep going in its current state if we don’t do everything we can to preserve or improve it. If landowners can only run their business by shutting out humans – then that is just what they will have to do!

You might be dying to walk the Inca Trail – but you don’t want to actually die!

You might not believe that 1 in 10 serious mountaineers actually die every year from altitude sickness; so if they can be affected by this strange affliction – then what makes you think you won’t?

And as we all know – avoiding dangerous situations in the first place is not only the best way to keep your adventures as eco friendly and as people friendly as possible – but makes for a better holiday than having to call out the emergency services and spending a while in recovery or hospital!

First Steps:
The first thing to think of is whether you are at risk in the first place.

So if you are trekking anywhere under 10,000ft you are probably ‘OK’ – but when you start going above this height (places like the Andes, the Himalayas, Kilamanjaro and Mount Kenya) you should really know the symptoms of mountain sickness in yourself and your climbing friends.

This is expecially true if you are flying into this height from sea level, catching a train into the mountains or driving to very high locations as you haven’t acclimatised yourself to the different physiological challenges of less atmospheric air and the extra strains it puts on the active body.

The main thing to remember at all times is that altitude sickness can strike quite fast, may only have a few seemingly random symptoms, can affect even the most fit and experienced climbers or trekkers, and can and does kill people.

So take it seriously.

photo credit: discosour

How To Avoid It:
The best way to avoid getting ill from mountain sickness is ascending very slowly when at high altitudes – preferably acclimatising slowly on arrival.

Following recommended climbing ‘rates’ is also a good plan – at about 1,000ft a day – or as slow as your slowest walker. And of course this means after you have acclimatised to being at 10,000ft in the first place.

Not planning a ‘rush climb’ is another key factor, as most stories of problems are from people who ignored earlier symptoms as they felt that they ‘had to get to so and so before stopping’. As a result they pushed too hard and their bodies reacted badly.

And make sure you are planning for stops along the way, take frequent breaks and always know where your descents are incase you need to get lower. It is better to arrive healthy in 5 days than have to stop after 3 and get air-lifted to a hospital!

Some of the earlier symptoms of altitude sickness could be mistaken for something else, or ignored if people don’t want to ’cause a scene’ – but if you are at height, you should always assume that it is altitude related and consider stopping for the day or descending slightly until the symptoms disappear.

Bearing in mind the headache you get is your brain swelling up, and the cough is due to fluid flooding your lungs – I think anyone in their right mind should think about descending anyway!

No flights, local services and eating out don’t always add up to Green Holidays!

Say you decided to stay in your own country, drive to town with something worth seeing in it and eat ‘local food’ for a few days – sounds like a reasonable plan for a green adventure, doesn’t it?

But what if the actual story was: you drove yourself and your partner 300 miles to a town with a giant themepark close by and ate take-outs?

Not quite so green after all.

But it is what many people do when they stay home for their vacation – whether they meant to be green or just wanted to ‘save’ money.

But the savings are not just in physical money spent – there is an invisible cost too.

The Problem:
The ideal ‘green holiday’ is something that not many people want to actually do with the few precious days off a year – especially if their job is quite hectic.

They don’t want to carry all their clothes on a train to get there in the first place; then after arriving in the nearest town – they don’t want to have to get public transport to their guest house when there are ‘hotel chains’ right outside.

Preparing food would also be a chore – as even if their eco-friendly guest house gave them use of the kitchen, they would have to then go and buy all their food from a local store – check it was all locally grown or organic (no usually the case in smaller or more rural towns) and then carried it back on foot or by bus.

Alternatively, they would have to go out all the time and try to find a suitable eatery for their meals – and I’m sure after a few days in the town – they would have exhausted the eco choices and then have to keep going back and using all the same places.

The Answer:
Well, it is difficult to plan a totally green holiday even close to home – but you can eliminate the worst offenders along the way – like the flight.

That one part of a holiday could account for a huge amount of carbon emissions – so even if you drove your half empty car 1000 miles across the country, you still would have emitted less.

photo credit: woodleywonderworks

You still want pleasures though – otherwise why take a holiday in the first place – so go 50/50. If you love the city – then settle for that not-so eco friendly chain hotel on the high street, 2 seconds from the train station – as you won’t be needing the car in town, so can make eco savings elsewhere.

If you love the countryside, then you can drive to the isolated eco friendly guesthouse with a car full of food as you probably won’t need the car when you arrive as you will be walking everywhere anyway.

The same can be done for other areas of your holiday, think of what you actually want out of your holiday in the first place – what is most important. Then think about green savings around that.

If you want luxury; you might be able to cut back on the distance travelled. If you need a specific location; then look to change your transport or maybe increase the time you are there.

Holidays are meant to be fun – and it doesn’t hurt if they are a shade of green too!

You know how to pack a rucksack properly – but what about save a life?

We all learn to pack our racksacks top heavy, learn which wildfood we can eat, how to get our tents back in their tiny bags, how to purify water and how to run away from a bear.

But what about help another human being?

When was the last time you took a first aid lesson? At school, in your teens or because your workplace told you to go?

Why do we wait – when our friends or family could get injured at any time!

Things that we learn on these courses could save other peoples lives – as well as our own, so why don’t we sign up in droves?
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What are you going to do?
Things change all the time in medicine and first aid – so some things your parents told you or that you learnt over 5 years ago might not still be current – like laying a person who fainted on their back with their legs raised. Wrong.

How about pinching the top of the nose and tipping the head back to stop a nose bleed! Wrong. Putting soothing creams or lotions on a burn – WRONG!

You don’t even check for a pulse anymore – there are better, more effective ways to save a life.

Obviously we all hope that we never have to deal with an emergency – but if you like to travel a lot – especially out in the countryside, emergency first aid could be your only chance of survival.

Call The Emergency Services!
It is all well and good to assume that the emergency services will come and save the day – but if the casualty isn’t breathing or is bleeding heavily – then 10 minutes is too long to wait. And you will probably be out in the countryside or up a mountain!

photo credit: Adam Tinworth

So, you could save someone by starting first aid straight away.

Immediate Action:
I can’t teach you first aid in this article – but I know that making sure that someone is breathing is more important that calling 999 in the first instance. The time it takes you to make the call is more time that they aren’t breathing.

By first checking the airways are clear and listening for breathing you could have done all that was needed to save a life. People who are unconscious and on their backs can suffocate on their own tongue – so by you moving their head to free the tongue – you can help them breathe again. Then, by putting them in the recovery position – and knowing that they can still breathe – you could have just saved their life.

However, if you make the call first; all the while you are trying to describe where you are for the emergency services to find you – they will be getting worse.

First Aid is about dealing with the most critical thing first – like not breathing. There is no point stopping them bleeding if they aren’t breathing, and no point moving them into a more comfortable place if they aren’t breathing either.

And an Emergency First Aid course can help you understand why things are important and when they are not. The course will help you gain confidence in your actions even if they seem rather odd and ‘different’ to what other people are saying.

You would have taken the most up-to-date course (to protect your friends and family) so it will be the best you can do for a stranger too!

And thank you for caring.

Buying a dog can be one of the best experiences for a family or individual – but take care!

It’s not just about buying from a reputable breeder, or making sure that it is vaccinated and wormed – it’s about what that dog can do for you – or what it can never do.

For example – if your dog is prone to skin problems and needs cream applied, you can’t take it for water-filled days out. If it get out of breath quickly with its short ‘bulldog’ face – you can’t go cycling with it or for long walks with it – or take it anywhere that it might get too hot!

And if it is prone to digestive upsets, takes certain medicines every 6 hours, has sore joints, patches of fur missing or can’t stop scratching – how much fun is he going be when you take him on holiday with you?

Your Dog Breed:
Some dog breeds are just the wrong shape to be outdoor active pets – for example any dog with a very short nose, dogs which are longer than they are tall, dogs with really droopy skin and dogs that have no fur!

photo credit: Jen and a Camera

Most dogs like this will have some sort of problems when you take them out over their lifetime. Now I am not saying that dogs with normal faces and skin won’t suffer from problems – I’m saying that these types probably will.

So if you want to run, swim, cycle, climb and basically spend hours out in the sunshine (and rain) with your dog – then think about getting a hardy average-shaped breed – like a pointer/retriever/terrier type. And avoid Great Danes, Bassett Hounds and Pugs!

Extra Un-Green:
In addition to choosing a dog that suits your lifestyle – you will also be choosing a dog that demands less from the environment.

For example, endless trips to the vets, tablets, treatments, therapies and operations can’t reduce your eco footprint can they? Even if you are insured (which I recommend) that only covers the money for treatment, it doesn’t buy carbon credits for all the fuel and chemicals you will be using!

Dogs which need extra grooming and clipping add to their footprints too – as well as dogs that have to be on special diets.

But, if you want a pet dog that can enjoy the outdoors as much as your – then consider all these things, and plan for the dogs lifespan (10-20 years).

They might not have any problems when they are young, but they will soon catch up with them as they mature.

If you lost your dog on holiday – what could you do to get it back?

When you are in a new area – you may not know about the local vets, rescue centres or capture policy for ‘found’ pets.

And you really should!

Needless to say, if there was a simple and fast service available that did all the searching for you; shouldn’t you know about it?

Obviously not all countries offer such services – but if there was one available where you were heading – shouldn’t you really be signing up? Otherwise how would you find your lost dog?

Pet Finding Procedure:
Generally, if someone loses a pet like a dog, they would start by calling a few local vets and rescue centres locally, leaving details with everyone about their dog.

They may also contact other local services like pet stores to take their details – possible enlisting people to start travelling around looking for the animal.

And all this costs money and uses other people resources. The owner may just be making phone calls, but it is the charities that are using up time and money keeping records of all these details.

photo credit: ToniProtto

On average my local pet rescue centre gets 3 or 4 calls every day with people looking for their lost dogs and other pets. And each call takes at least 10 minutes of (volunteered) time, as well as ink and paper to record the details.

And if you multiply that up by all the other people that are called up about the same pet – and all the lost pets in a month – this can get quite costly.

But What If You Are Lost Too?
This is the standard route for someone living at home – but what if you were travelling and you were in a new town or city. Would you know which companies to call to help you? Would you even know where you were to say where your dog was last seen?

And – what is the standard procedure for finding dog owners? Some countries use microchips, some use tattoes and others give you 7 days to find your own dog in a Lost Dog Shelter – otherwise it is simply rehomed!

That is why it is worth knowing what happens to pets in the areas you are visiting – or finding someone who does!

The Experts:
There are several companies available now who know all the local vets to any given address in an instant.

Once your dog has been reported to them, they will alert all relevant centres and vets as to the description and contact details of you and your dog. You don’t need to worry about a thing.

Having built up a relationship with all these vets and centres, their faxes and texts are treated as urgent rather than as routine. So if your dog has been handed in to anyone on their contact list – you will have a result in no time!

No wasted calls, no endless reciting of your details and dogs description – just one call and then you can focus on looking for your dog rather than on the phone!

So I think it is best practice to make sure you find out about these companies before you head off on your green holidays – rather than wasting resources after the event!

This is where the phrase ‘Leave it to the Experts’ rings true!

Why not try some new recipes to save money on the road?

There are plenty of new dishes you can try when you travel overseas – but when you are on a budget – or living in a remote location – you might need to try some new things!

There are a lot of new foods available in the countries that you are probably travelling through – so why not take advantage of them when you are working you way through a continent or working on a volunteer project.

Forget your normal ways of eating – and embrace the new!  Maybe this will involve taking a cooking book with you or just taking a few classes on cooking times and sauces!

The Standards:
Now, there are many combinations of foods that you could come across when cooking overseas – although to be honest most of them will be focused on rice!

However you might not have a fridge for most of it – so you need to be aware of how best to store fresh food – and how to limit what you buy in the first place!

Depending on how far away from stores you are – your menus will vary immensely.  I mean if you can get you hands on fresh veg almost every day, then buy as little as possible each day – but when you only get fresh supplies every so often – then you need to get creative!

Storage Skills:
Something in the kitchen almost as important as the cooking is the storing!

If you don’t look after your ingredients or use them in the right order – then you are wasting them.  So you need to think ahead as soon as you get raw materials.

Thinking of basic recipes can really help you – but learning how to create new recipes and to store things to get the best shelf-life out of them is key to making you food go further and saving on waste.

Food doesn’t normally come with more than a few days freshness when picked and left on the kitchen table – especially in tropical climates.  And even in the fridge, dairy products and watery vegetables don’t pass the week really.

So you need to work out which things can be used fresh, which need cooking before storing and those which can be treated in some way to preserve them for many months – and many of these things you will find already in use by the local people.

photo credit: andrewrennie

Local Skills:
There are many ‘specialist’ foods that have evolved not due to their great taste – but because they are locally found foods and this is the way they need to be cooked or stored to best serve the communities they are found in – and learning a bit about them won’t do you any harm!

For example ‘stir-fried’ food was used in China where they didn’t have a lot of fuel for cooking over a long period of time – so they invented a food that took just minutes to heat up. 

Many colder European countries needed to grow all the root vegetables they needed for the year in their short growing season – so they learned to pickle a huge amount of them to last them through the cold winters when nothing would grow – like sauerkraut!

And if you didn’t have a car or supermarket – or a lot of money – wouldn’t you eat things that was found close to home and that you could make last a long time!

Stores where you visit might sell brands from back home – but you don’t need to buy them….

Think how much more you could achieve overseas if you were learning as you travelled?

Many of us seem to have a real passion for something – but have no certified proof of our skills in that area.  Take for example those of us who spend hours trying to get the best view of that elusive woodcock, or days collecting hazel nuts to find out if there are dormice close by.

There are many more examples of people who follow a passion without a thought for the amount of time and money it takes up – people like you.

Yes, we all have qualifications in this or that for our work, or have been sent a various courses over the years – but this is a means to pay the bills.  I mean who would have thought you could earn a living counting trees, weighing turtles or promoting bee-keeping!

But these days with the right experience – you can!

Why Study?
Well, you may well be taking some previous experience with you on your green volunteering adventure, but how much more could you offer your team if you were learning more along the way.

Imagine knowing bushcraft skills already before you start your volunteering in the Amazon – but then studying ecology or statistics in the evenings so to make better use of the data you collect.

photo credit: Speculum Mundi

Or you have listening skills that you put to good use working with disadvantaged families in Bangladesh – but then study teaching or life coaching skills in the evenings to further enhance the support you can offer.

Not only would you be offering them your existing skills – you would be increasing your worth 10-fold with these new skills along the way.

And many course and projects need you to write reports and complete projects – now what better way to get results than to actually be participating in active projects overseas – actually working hands on with an exciting and unusual project.  You won’t be writing about a new supermarket in your coursework will you?

Your Future:
As you can imagine when you add together the experience you will have gained volunteering in the first place with a certified course, diploma or foundation degree – you will have made very good use of your time.

Returning home could open up a whole new vocation window – and that’s if you even come home in the first place.  Why return to that office job in the city when you could be working in a jungle office, or returning to that tower block when you could be surveying under the ocean instead.

Working with people and animals really can pay the bills if you just turn your passion into a skill by quantifying it.

And then you could become the worker instead of the volunteer!