travel

Top 5 Sustainable & Sensational Travel Destinations

/ lisarem / 5 Comments

Note: This article was published to increase traffic to a British currency company’s website. As part of my salaried duties, I researched, wrote and posted 3-4 similar original articles weekly.

 

Top 5 Green Sustainable & Sensational Travel Destinations 

The UN declared 2017 the year of sustainable tourism, lending a boost to the growing momentum towards environmentally responsible travel. Green travel, in its purest form would be hopping on your bike or walking to your holiday destination, since your carbon footprint would be reduced to your literal footprint.  Taking planes or driving cars to reach destinations is avoided by some eco-tourists, who favour using trains or other low impact transportation to reach natural areas.

Another form of the industry supports the locals- often indigenous people- to preserve their pristine environments by bringing them an income where they live. This means they aren’t forced to sacrifice their cherished surroundings in order to support themselves. These trips usually include flying around the world in order to experience tropical forests, wildlife, organic orchards and farms that are managed by locals who boost their income by providing hospitality for international visitors.

The creative solutions that eco-friendly lodging employs to protect the environment help you experience the world in exhilarating ways that are far more meaningful than typical mass travel can ever hope to be. Many of the resorts have built in physical challenges, giving guests the opportunity to exercise more than they would on other types of vacations.

Here are five fabulous green destinations to inspire your travels:

  1. Taking tree hugging to new heights

Tree hotel juxtaposes contemporary Nordic design with the iconic childhood tree house. The result: seven distinctive structures in a Swedish forest. There’s a nearby restaurant with a bar, television and internet but in each of the tree hotel rooms the emphasis is upon fully experiencing the majestic woodlands you’re nesting inside of. Tucked high into the Lapland treetops, guests enjoy majestic views of the Lule river and the northern lights. You can reach your tree hotel by taxi or a helicopter flight from Lulea Airport, which is a short flight north from Stockholm. All prices are in Swedish Kroner, so you can pay the bill for your room, airport transfers and meals by using your currency company to lock in the very best exchange rates.

  1. Alpine luxury geo-glamping

Whitepod offers an eco-luxury alternative for enjoying the Swiss Alps. The geodesic domes set on a hill overlooking Valais, Switzerland are kept snugly warm by pellet stoves. Both the staff and guests hike up steep hills to the pristine site. Waste is recycled and local ingredients are featured at the luxury restaurant on the grounds. The Les Cerniers restaurant also offers guests delivery of gourmet meals which they will bring to your pod so that you can stay warm in the winter. In warm weather, they offer picnics for guests who want to enjoy the scent of wildflowers and hillside views while they dine al fresco.

Mountain biking, paragliding and dog carting are among the activities at this ecological glamping option and a massage can be booked when you make your reservation. Since payments are made in Swiss Francs, remember that you could stretch your budget by making a transfer to pay for your stay through your currency company.

  1. Airbnb’s green contemporary

Ecobnb brings you affordable and sustainable places to stay, especially across Italy where the concept of a bio hotel network was born. The rooms that are listed on the site have green buildings with 100% renewable energy and car-free accessibility options like bikes and buses. Organic food and wines are also an important feature of many places that offer retreats you’d otherwise never discover in the Italian countryside. Children can play with small goats and chickens while spending some memorable family time away at organic Tuscan farms. Adults can learn how to made homemade Italian pasta in a small luxury hotel in the ancient village of Rotonda.

The network is dedicated to teaching travellers that there are better alternatives than visiting sites like Venice and Rome, which are increasingly overwhelmed by hordes of tourists. They suggest seeing lesser known places and travelling during the off-season to help support the destination by reducing the summer crowds which are destructive to the sites.

Ecobnb seeks to dissuade people from using cruise ships because they are the most ecologically destructive way of taking a holiday, as well as a fast-growing global industry. There’s hope that by educating travellers to the sustainable alternatives, the cruise industry’s popularity might wane.

  1. Nicaragua: Known for eco-tourism

The fame of Morgan’s Rock Hacienda and private luxury reserve has established Nicaragua as the world’s premier rainforest retreat. The lodge is tucked into a leafy canopy beside the Pacific Ocean where luxurious guest quarters with private swimming pools command spectacular views from a treetop setting high above the ground. Guests enter the resort from the jungle, crossing a suspension bridge through forest teeming with monkeys, sloths and tropical birds. Natural materials are used throughout the lodge; the buildings were constructed by local craftspeople and much of the produce is grown on the farm in the reserve. A 5-night special honeymoon package for two which includes an ocean view room with a private plunge pool, meals, cocktails, surf lessons and horseback riding among other amenities costs $3,900. That’s around £3,000, without considering the cost of the flight to Managua.

Cabins on an organic coffee farm nearby don’t come with plunge pools, but Finca Esperanza Verde affords guests the opportunity to enjoy 247 acres of cloud forest that is being organically farmed and preserved. The jungle views from cabins that are perched high atop stilts are breath taking and the meals fresh and locally sourced. The prices are more down to earth in a country where the average annual salary is under £350. The largest of the solar powered cabins of this finca are £85 a day, at most, and you can sip the local organic coffee all day, for no extra cost. What’s even better than free coffee? Knowing that your relaxing vacation is helping save the Amazon forests!

  1. Go native on Canada’s sunshine coast

There’s nothing new about living with reverence for nature. The Haida tribe have inhabited British Columbia’s Haida Gwaii Park, which means islands of the people, for some 13,000 years. Visitors can explore the waters of the park by kayaks, paddling in waters that are home to 20 species of whale and dolphin. Sailboat charters are also available and Butterfly Tours offer eight-day guided camping tours in the forests and kayak excursions into the Unesco world heritage site of SGang Gwaay, a sacred site which the Haida guard and preserve.

The watchman program serves to protect the native heritage site where trees carved into totem poles reflect their belief that chief’s spirits become one with the trees when they die. The Haida natives are also there to share their native culture with the very few visitors who reach this remote spot.

For those who wish to experience a rustic homestead on remote Rose Harbour, the few residents there will work together to provide lodging and exceptional meals for guests. The former historic whaling station outpost has no electricity or indoor plumbing; accommodation with three organic meals is $150 Canadian Dollars a day.  You can reach Rose Harbour by boat or chartered plane from the village of Queen Charlotte to enter a timeless world where rugged, friendly people live in harmony with nature.

During the summer months, Air Canada flies into Sandspit International Airport from Vancouver daily. There are also trains and buses that bring you to the starting point for your unforgettable wilderness holiday on British Columbia’s sparkling sunshine coast which is warmer and sunnier than Vancouver or the mainland of Canada.

 

Meta: Top 5 global travel destinations for an unforgettable holiday in nature with tips to help you save money, too.

Tags: Green, travel, tourism, currency, holiday, sustainability, luxury

 

 

 

 

Getting Those Babies In The Sun

/ lisarem / Leave a comment

Writing can be too dang solitary. Lots of writers work in coffee shops because being near other people gives them the ability to cop a buzz of energy. I laughed today when I passed the village coffee shop, snickered at the ludicrous image of myself trying to focus on writing there. Since I write non-fiction, maybe this is a stretch toward making new patterns, the following imaginary interaction which is fiction:

The men nod, but fall silent as I enter their domain. I try giving each a respectful flash of eye contact that’s neither so long it might possibly enflame passion nor so short that it appears I’m a shy child. I tip my head toward all seven of them as I say “Yasas.” Their raucous laughter has skittered away, replaced by the void of shocked silence and their eyes flashing volumes of suppressed conversation between them. It’s insane, they begin to mutter. The one with the largest mustache rises and strides out the open door, scowling back at me, his eyebrows twitching. It’s too sunny to sit outside at a table-I couldn’t see the screen in the midday glare and it’s not much better in the corner, so I have to angle my notebook and scrunch down in a position that makes my neck ache even before the woman comes to take my order. There’s no hope of them having decaf, so I don’t even ask.  I do enjoy a Greek coffee but…it’s a small shot that packs a lot of caffeine. You knock it back in six sips and then there’s the glass of water which you could drag out into a half hour affair, at best. It’s not as easy to nurse as a latte. And when the beverage has been consumed, there I am: the Foreign woman squatting in the men’s territory: The coffee shop. The laughter resumes; it’s good I don’t speak Greek because I don’t need to know precisely what’s being said about me. These old timers know all about laptops. People use them to watch porn. Period. That’s the one and only thing they do on them. Ever. And look at me with my nose almost touching the screen- my God what a nymphomaniac I obviously am! Brazen hussy dragging her obscenity right into the last bastion of Cypriot male sanctity- to their coffee shop! Filthy slut.

Yeah, what a charming work day that would be, eh?

This site seems like a better alternative today. Yesterday I entered my first writing contest ( Creative Nonfiction on the topic of weather)and now here I am starting this site because my babies need to see the light of day. I’ll never be as good a writer as I ache to be, but I’ve graduated to the stage where I need to join a community. A single expat American woman living in Cyprus, I’m writing a memoir-a big ambitious first book that’s teaching me how and why I write. I write to connect. I write to learn. I yearn to meet fellow travelers and writers in every nook and cranny of the globe. Whether you’ve put your work into the glare of the light or are just coming to be ready to do that, like me, I’m joining the tribe and I hope to be of some use to you.