Articles tagged “adventure travel”

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Eco-Friendly Hotel Amenity: Pedal-To-Power LCD Television

by Jessica Festa on

For those interested in keeping vacation weight off while also doing something good for the planet, the Cottage Lodge in Brockenhurst, United Kingdom, is offering a unique amenity. Instead of allowing guests to turn on the television the old-fashioned way, the bed and breakfast features a pedal-to-power LCD television in their Standing Hat room.

The purpose of the unusually active method of television powering is purely environmental. While you’d think some travelers may not be happy about having to work to turn on their TV, the accommodation has actually received positive feedback, especially from cyclists.

“I focused on three things when constructing the room: reducing waste, minimizing pollution and using resources with the lowest impact possible,” the hotel’s owner, Christina Simons, explained to the Telegraph. “I also wanted to show that being green can also be exciting and fun, and guests love cycling on the bike.”

And for those with low stamina, don’t worry, you also have the option to make use of the electric supply generated by photovoltaic cells on the roof, so you’ll still be going green while you travel. In fact, the hotel utilizes many sustainable features, like solar panel heating in the summer, heating via a wood burning stove in the winter, low-impact building materials and furniture created by a local tree surgeon from a single fallen beech tree.

Travel Partners From Hell

by Jessica Festa on

For those debating whether to travel in a group or go solo, you’ll want to read this. Just because you get along with someone at happy hour or Sunday morning spin class, doesn’t mean it’ll be smooth sailing on the road. After backpacking around the world for five years, both solo and with others, I’ve had my fair share of unpleasant travel partners. Think about these situations, and decide if your potential travel partner seems laid-back or fits into one of these categories.

The Cheapskate

For the most part, backpackers are budget-travelers by nature. They stay in dorms with 13 other people, forgo tours for the cheaper do-it-yourself version and will walk 15 blocks to save the equivalent of $1.50 on a meal. However, there’s a big difference between trying to stretch your dollar, and being downright cheap. When backpacking Europe, I traveled with a girl who talked of nothing but how much her condo cost, and how she couldn’t afford to eat or take the subway. She was so cheap; she used to eat the egg yolks from my daily chef’s salad as her lunch. We also went to an amusement park in Vienna, but didn’t go on any rides because she felt it was too expensive. In my mind, I was wondering why we had even walked the two hours to get there – because she refused to spend money on public transportation – if we weren’t going to enjoy it. Before traveling, make sure you’re both on the same page about the budget.The Spend Thrift

On the other hand, there are those who have no budget at all, which can make you feel like you need to spend more than you have. In Argentina, I traveled with a girl who clearly had a lot more money than me. She constantly wanted to eat in nice restaurants, take guided tours, opt for fancy tourist buses and take taxis rather than the bus or subway. Not only did I not have the money for this, but it went against my mentality of trying to get away from the tourists and go local. Before signing up to travel with someone, make sure your travel philosophies are aligned.

The Clean Freak

While I’m not suggesting being clean is a bad thing, there is a point where it can be borderline high maintenance. Especially when in other countries, you’re going to have to deal with certain places not being up to par with western sanitation standards. When I was in Thailand, I was with a girl who would constantly whine about the bathrooms – how squat toilets were gross and how there was never any toilet paper. She also almost had an aneurism when one of the guesthouses had a spider on the wall. Trust me, I enjoy a spider-free room and toilet-paper stocked bathroom as much as the next person, but sometimes these differences in place and culture are what make the trip interesting.

The Anti-American

Being from the United States, I know the hardships of being stereotyped as an “ugly American.” While traveling, I’m constantly forced to listen to people talk smack about U.S. travelers and how ignorant, annoying and rude they are. In reality, I think it’s pretty ignorant, rude and annoying to have people talk badly about Americans when there’s one sitting at the table. It’s bad enough having to hear this from strangers, but when it’s your own travel partner, it’s downright infuriating. I’ve actually experienced this while traveling with other Americans. On a local tour in Peru, as the guide talked about the culture, every reply from my companions seemed to be how Americans contrasted negatively with Peruvians. When the guide talked about how in Peru corn and potatoes were staples, the retort was that Americans were fat and ate nothing but processed foods. When the guide talked about how hard the Incas worked to build temples by hauling large boulders up mountains, the reply was that Americans were lazy. I couldn’t help but be offended, and also feel they were missing the point completely. Make sure your travel companion is both open to learning about a new culture, but also proud of their own.

The Complainer

Similar to the Clean Freak, the complainer will make you wonder why they bothered leaving their home country. The food isn’t good, the accommodation is subpar, the public transportation is unreliable and the culture is “weird.” In Prague, I traveled with someone who was a vegetarian. Not only did she whine about how the city didn’t have good food the entire time, she actually screamed at a waitress for bringing the wrong salad in a restaurant. “She should learn to speak English!” she huffed to me, annoyed. Needless to say, I was mortified.

The Cling-On

There are some people who never want to be alone, others who thoroughly enjoy their own company and those who fall somewhere in between. In my opinion, this is the most important thing to discuss with your potential travel mate before booking your plane ticket. While backpacking in Australia, I traveled with a girl who wanted to do absolutely everything together. If I ever tried to do something on my own, or opted not to signup for a tour she was doing, she accused me of ditching her. I once went outside to read a book, and she barked at me for not telling her. It felt like a stifling relationship, and really put a strain on the trip.

The Lazy Backpacker

Of course, it’s important to relax to prevent travel fatigue, but there are some travelers who will make you wonder why they bothered to buy a plane ticket. When backpacking in Italy, I traveled with someone who would sleep until noon, nap at 3:00 p.m., and spend a majority of the day on Facebook and watching TV in the common room. When I’d ask her if she wanted to cook dinner, she’d reply, “Sure, if you get the groceries.” I guess typing was exhausting, because she barely saw any sites in one of the world’s most beautiful countries. Before traveling with someone, try to gauge their excitement level to make sure they’ll actually get out of bed and get dressed.

The Space Obsessor

When backpacking, belongings in the hostel dorms tend to get jumbled together. Be prepared to not always have your things perfectly organized, and for other peoples’ things to sometimes be touching yours. In Chile, I traveled with someone who was definitely not okay with this. Not only was I verbally scolded for hanging my towel on the hook next to hers – the edges touched – my pants were thrown in a ball on the floor when I hung them on the same chair as her shirt. After awhile, her behavior made me feel like I was walking on egg shells, and led me to book separate rooms to avoid the unnecessary conflict.

The Ultra Planner

While it’s good to have some sort of plan in mind when embarking on a trip, there comes a point when too much planning takes the spontaneity and adventure out of travel. When traveling in Spain, I was with a girl who needed to have everything planned out days in advance, from what sites we would see, what time we would wake up and go to bed and where we would eat dinner. Not only that, but veering from any discussed plan would set her into a frenzy. While I wanted to meet other backpackers and locals and explore together, she had an itinerary that was apparently set in stone. Make sure you’re potential travel partner is okay with going with the flow sometimes during the trip.

Have you ever had an unpleasant travel partner?

Himalayan Stove Project Looks To Improve Lives, Environment

by Kraig Becker on

The Himalayan Stove Project is a non-profit organization that has a very clearly defined message and goal. The group looks to improve the lives of those living in the Himalaya Mountains while simultaneously preserving the environment there as well. To accomplish this lofty goal, the HSP intends to deliver 10,000 clean cooking stoves to families living in the region over the next five years.

Despite the fact that the Himalaya are a remote and rugged mountain range, thousands of people call them home. Numerous tiny villages, populated with energetic, hearty people, dot the landscape, even at high altitudes. Most of those people live very simple lives with few amenities and often they are forced to heat their homes and cook their meals over old, inefficient stoves or open fires. Those stoves generate copious amounts of noxious fumes and smoke, which is detrimental to the long-term health of the villagers and leave pollutants behind in the environment.

Earlier this spring the HSP launched its first campaign to deliver clean cooking stoves to the people of the Himalaya, and judging from the updates posted to the organization’s blog, it has been a highly successful endeavor thus far. Over the course of three months the organization will hand out upwards of 1,500 clean-burning, fuel-efficient stoves that will have a radical effect on the lives of those who are using them. One recent blog post even told the tale of a family who was able to have dinner together in their kitchen for the first time. Up until then they were forced out of their home due to the overwhelming smoke.

Here in the western world we take things like fuel-efficient stoves for granted, but the work of the HSP is a reminder of just how challenging life can be in the developing world. This is a great grass-roots, philanthropic project that is doing wonderful things at this very moment and it must be an amazing experience for them to witness how they are changing lives on a daily basis.

How To Travel Plastic-Free

by Jessica Festa on

While we’ve written about how to have a more eco-friendly vacation, there is a growing travel trend of vacationing plastic-free. For example, backpackers Polythene Pam and Village Boy, who write for the site Plastic is Rubbish, focus on eliminating plastic from their lives completely.

“Plastic lasts forever and we are using it to make one use, throwaway items,” the duo say on their site. “We have created everlasting rubbish and plastic pollution is increasing exponentially. It is destroying the landscape, killing wildlife, poisoning the seas, and may well be poisoning us.”

In fact, there are many animals that die everyday from accidentally ingesting plastic, like camels, turtles, elephants, birds, whales and many more. The problem is that instead of biodegrading, plastic simply degrades without changing its structure. What’s also scary is that sometimes these fragmented pieces of plastic are so tiny, we can’t see them with the naked eye – although they can still be harmful. In humans, plastics have been found to lead to cancers and other health problems over time.When traveling, the backpackers recommend using natural toothbrushes and homemade tooth powder to clean your teeth, as well as making your own natural beauty products for your skin, hair and nails. When buying street food, they use tiffin boxes, which allow you to carry home your cuisine in a plastic-free, reusable box and string bags for carrying groceries and produce from the markets.

For travelers who like to document their trips, there are various alternatives to the usual pen and notebook. For instance, using a laptop can eliminate plastic pens, paper and constant waste completely. If you like keeping a journal the old-fashioned way, there are biodegradable pens, wooden pencils and sustainably sourced, wooden, pencil sharpeners.

Blogger Beth Terry of My Plastic-Free Life also writes about how to go sans plastic on the road. For example, she advises using travel mugs instead of plastic water bottles, especially since they are easier to get through airport security. Reusable utensils, homemade food and snacks in metal tins, stainless-steel drinking straws, using solid shampoo bars and putting personal care products like toothpaste in reusable containers are other recommendations. For tea drinkers, packing bulk tea in a tea ball or using eco-friendly Twinings teas are safe alternatives to the usual plastic-heavy tea packaging.

Taina Uitto, a Canadian blogging about living a plastic-free life at Plastic Manners, also shares tips on traveling without plastic. She makes a good point on her website, asking the rhetorical question, “Why is it that the second people leave their home, they become completely helpless and immediately cling to the crutch of convenience?”

If you’re going to be doing laundry on the road, Uitto suggests using soap nuts by dropping a few in a sock and putting them in with your dirty clothes. For personal care, using products like natural hairbrushes, a bulk deodorant bar and metal razors is a great way to reduce plastic use. And for booze nights, try to find beers with corks or reusable beer bottles and wines that don’t use plastics.

I also did some research myself on plastic-free backpacks and found organic hemp backpacks from Rawganique. The packs are sweatshop free from Europe, and feature metal zippers, hooks and snaps, hemp lining and hemp trims.

Does this all seem like a lot of work? It’s not easy making a quick switch from living a plastic-immersed life to completely erasing it from your day; however, you can try to make small changes to the way you travel. Little by little, everyone can make a difference, and travel in a more eco-friendly manner.

Do you have any personal tips for traveling plastic-free?

Gadling Gear Review: REI Kimtah Rain Jacket And Pants

by Kraig Becker on

Whether you’re hiking a local trail or trekking through the Andes, nothing can ruin your day more quickly than a sudden and unexpected rainstorm. Worse yet, being wet and cold on a trail, hours from shelter can be a recipe for disaster. That’s why it is so important to have a good set of rain gear in your pack at all times. The Kimtah jacket and pants from REI make a near-perfect combo for travelers facing the possibility of inclement weather where ever they go. Both offer great performance in a highly packable and lightweight package, although their price tags may be a deterrent to some.

In the world of outdoor gear, clothing that is both waterproof and breathable is somewhat akin to the Holy Grail. For years companies have tried to create fabrics that can keep the foul weather out while allowing moisture from within to easily escape as well. By their very nature waterproof fabrics tend to be on the warm side, which can cause the wearer to sweat underneath. Early attempts at waterproof fabrics managed to keep the rain out, but the person wearing them would get so hot and sweaty that it almost didn’t matter.

With that in mind, REI has employed a relatively new fabric known as eVent, which was designed to overcome the previous problems with non-breathable fabrics such as older versions of Gore-Tex. After putting the Kimtah jacket and pants through their paces in the warm Texas spring, I can say that the company has honestly made great strides in creating clothing that is comfortable to wear in a variety of weather conditions. I wore both of these pieces of gear in temperatures that ranged from around 50 degrees Fahrenheit all the way up to the upper 80’s, and while there was a noticeable difference in warmth inside, particularly when hiking a more physically demanding trail, I didn’t become nearly as hot and sweaty as I did with other rain gear in the past. That can make all the difference in your level of comfort and enjoyment while traveling.As impressed as I was initially with this rain gear, I really had the opportunity to put it to the test last week when a series of thunderstorms rolled across the Austin area on successive days. One evening it was raining so hard that some parts of town were getting as much as six inches an hour and marble sized hail was reported throughout the area. While most of my friends and neighbors smartly stayed huddled inside their homes, I donned my Kimtah jacket and pants and wandered out into the darkness to see how they would really perform. Amidst 50+ mile winds and horizontal rain, I was happy to find that I was comfortably warm and dry inside my gear. If this rain suit can manage to fend off those conditions, I had little doubt that it would perform well just about anywhere.

REI put a lot of thought into the design of the Kimtah jacket and pants. Both are generously cut, which helps to accommodate layers underneath without bulking up. They feature large, zipped pockets for keeping small items dry and close at hand, and the jacket even has an interior pocket with an earphone port, making it a great place to store a cell phone or iPod. Both are rated as windproof for up to 60 mph and both allow for unrestricted movement while on the go. The fact that these pants and jacket are also thin, lightweight and highly packable is just icing on the cake for backpackers and travelers.

All of these features and functions put the Kimtah jacket and pants squarely in the high performance outdoor gear category and as such they are priced accordingly. The jacket costs $239 while the pants will set you back an additional $189. Backpackers and other outdoor enthusiasts are likely to find that to be a reasonable price to pay for gear that can take a beating and keep on performing at a very high level, but many travelers will find the price tag a bit high for their tastes.

Personally, I feel that REI’s offerings are worth every penny, as you not only get top of the line performance, but a durable product that will last for years. Yes, there are less expensive options on the market, but you’re likely to have to replace them sooner and they probably won’t offer the same level of performance. Those cheaper options may be suitable for day hiking or organized tours that aren’t particularly demanding, but for the traveler or outdoor enthusiasts who requires something more reliable, the Kimtah jacket and pants are a fantastic option that won’t let you down.