Ethical travel picks
Posted by Joelle
August 27, 2008
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Another in my occasional series of ethical picks.
This year I am saving up my carbon karma and holidaying without any flying, and it has turned out so far to be no sacrifice. We took the Eurostar to Bruges and Provence, and loved it. Somehow the old fashioned glamour of train travel, generally now all but lost, is revived when you can whizz along in comfort and end up in Avignon by lunchtime. Keeping local, we’ve got a weekend planned in Dorset, and one picking apples and making cider on a farm in Herefordshire. In my head I have planned and imagined countless more, if only I had the time and money!
Here’s a selection of my favourite ethical travel picks:
Taste the Wild - foraging, wild food and bushcraft courses, in probably my favourite part of the country, the North Yorkshire coast.
Cider making - this is an article about a cheap (and boozy) weekend, camping for free at a cider farm in exchange for helping with the harvest and cider making. This is Broome Farm in Herefordshire, but I’m sure many farms do a similar thing.
National Trust working holidays - learning to build dry stone walls, planting trees, maintaining footpaths in some of the UKs most lovely spots for the good old National Trust.
Green Traveller - great site full of ideas for green and ethical holidays
Intrepid Travel - excellent, responsible adventure travel company.
Under the Thatch - the most amazing, charming self catering accommodation, from Romany caravans to retro Scandinavian forest cabins. A great ethical company, with all profits used to preserve historic buildings.
The Man in Seat 61 - amazingly helpful site all about how to travel the world by train and boat.
Fforest - possibly the best campsite in the country?
Nothing to see here - I love this blog some of the world’s lesser-signposted places to go. It has lots of my favourites: Shipley Glen Tramway, the Keswick Pencil Museum, Saltburn-on-Sea. Not ethical travel in the usual sense, but it’s important to value and preserve these odd little places.
Categories: adventure, green, shopping
August 27th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
One of the editors at work has just left to travel to New Zealand without flying. It’ll take her a while, but I reckon she’s up to the challenge!
Unfortunately, it’s poverty rather than environmentalism that’s keeping me firmly Britain-bound this year. I am so looking forward to my week in the Cotswolds, though.
August 28th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Ooh, that foraging place looks super! If only I weren’t stuck Down South this year - sigh.
August 29th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Very useful post, thanks. That foraging one looks great.
Incidentally, I’ve been put off going to Italy because of the deployment of troops in major cities. That’s my ethical travel consideration this year.