Eurostar tips for green travel

We went to see Stelios of easyJet fame speak the other night, and while it's good to hear that not all cheap flight operators think environmentalists are 'nutters' (thanks Ryanair and Mr O'Leary - how's your share price by the way?), we're unconvinced by some of his chat. If caring is really what easyJet are all about, why don't they offset flights at no cost to travellers, given Stelios himself said 'it's only a couple of pounds'...?

With that in mind, it feels like a good time to give a bit of a plug to Eurostar. Not only do Eurostar journeys create 10 times fewer emissions than the equivalent flights, they offset all remaining emissions as well, at no cost to you. They also have a great little selection of ideas on their website for green travel in most of the destinations they offer access to - it's hidden away, so follow this link and peruse at leisure. There's some great stuff even in London. Just to pick one out, scroll down to the bottom and check out Les Orangeries. It's pretty much France's first real eco-hotel by the looks of things, with electric bikes, energy-saving lightbulbs, and even special low-toxin paint on the walls. Plus, with a return from London to Poitiers taking about 5h40 and costing from £79, and luxury double rooms at Les Orangeries starting at 75 euros, it's sounding a pretty good option.

The best way to see polar bears

Traditionally, there's not a great variety of options for seeing these magnificent creatures (and if things carry on as they are, there'll be even fewer fairly soon, some would say). And the fact remains that if you're going to do, it's going to cost you. A lot. But there's one or two special options about for making the most of the opportunity.

There are really two places where the bears come close enough to civilisation to be accessible to you and me. One is Spitsbergen, off the very far northern coast of Norway, for which the best season is summer when the bears are foraging for food; the other Churchill, in the remote north of Canada, where they gather in huge numbers in October and November each year.

The default option for this sort of thing is a cruise, which is great, but really expensive. A 6-day Spitsbergen cruise in the lowest available class of cabin starts at £1195 with Hurtigruten, based on two sharing, and that's only once you've got to Longyearbyen, which isn't the cheapest place in the world to reach... Hurtigruten's Spitsbergen cruises are the cheapest we've found of the sort, and they've good, if not outstanding, environmental credentials.

One better is to travel round Spitsbergen under your own power. Hurtigruten offer two trips of this sort - a 9-day kayaking trip (covering much the same territory as the 6-day cruise) at £1365, or a 13-day trekking holiday costing £1755. These trips both sound incredible, though the idea of going on polar bear watch during the night while your fellow holidaymakers snooze in their tents around you is mildly unnerving!

Getting to Spitsbergen - Hurtigruten will book it for you if you ask them to, quoting a price of £670 return at the moment (including offsetting), which includes an overnight in Oslo. The most environmentally friendly way we could find takes you from Newcastle to Bergen by overnight ferry (from £43 return, and offering a chance to take in the fjordlands on your way), followed by a flight from there which will cost about £250 with SAS, though will involve changing planes in Tromso.

Perhaps the ultimate polar bear greenhike, though, actually takes you to North America. This isn't something we'd normally go in for, but then, there aren't any other places where you've actually got the opportunity to help study the environment at the same time as having a dream encounter with polar bears.

Earthwatch have an expedition in October from Churchill which they call 'Climate Change at the Arctic's Edge'. You spend 11 days staying at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre, helping scientists from the University of Alberta monitor ecosystem responses to global warming - in the middle of the highest concentration of polar bears in the world. Once in Churchill, the trip comes in at £1395, though it should be said this is a true 'offset yourself' trip - you will be working!

Again, it's getting to Churchill that spirals the cost, and of course the environmental impact. Flying there from London will cost something in the region of £800. But again there is an incremental improvement you can make, and boost the scope of your trip at the same time. Fly to Toronto, which costs from £250 return, then take the train up to Churchill via Winnipeg. This will take you through some of the most spectacular scenery in the world, and cost in the region of £250 return. That saves you £300, which could happily fund a few days looking around Toronto and Winnipeg on the way.

Covert Cabin: Simple breaks in SW France

Wow. We've just found the best holiday location.


If you want peace, quiet and simplicity, check out the Covert Cabin website. They've got the Woodsman's Cabin that's been open for business since 2005, and are currently building Undershot Cabin to open in June this year. The theory behind both is the same - an entirely self-sufficient little holiday house on the shores of a lake. Both are off-grid, but have all the facilities you'll need. Simple, quiet luxury, at a great price - in the high season, the 2-person Woodsman's Cabin is £300 for the week. Outside that, it's £200. A series of lovely authentic French villages are within a short cycle (bikes are available for hire for the princely sum of £25 for two bikes for the week). Return trips from London to Angouleme available from £99 through eurostar.

Luxury accommodation. Budget prices. Proper local flavour. This is what green travel's all about.

Update to January Green-hike 1: another way to the slopes

We've just found an even better way...

The overnight train from Paris to Munich departs at 2245, meaning you could do a full day's work in London before you head off. You can get a return sleeper booth on that train for as little as £56, bit cheaper than a night in a hotel and the cost of a flight!

Once you get there, Munich puts you in a great place for skiing Austria. According to the extremely useful ifyouski.com, no fewer than 12 of Austria's best resorts (from St Anton to Mayrhofen) are within a 3 hour onward journey. And remember, Austria's resorts are generally much more natural than those of France, which are predominantly purpose built.

Get your skis on...

STOP PRESS - GREEN-HIKER SKI DEAL

We've just been alerted to this deal on good old lastminute.com. You can get 3 full days of skiing in Meribel, in the heart of the huge 3 valleys ski area, for only £169, or 6 full days for £379, and the trip's half-board in a 3* hotel, with three course meals every evening. Looks pretty good to us:


Living up to the real joy of green travel, this is pretty much the cheapest ski holiday you can get, and seriously time efficient as well.

So why so cheap, and why so green?

Well, mainly because you travel overnight by coach from London Victoria coach station (if the comfort factor worries you a little bit, you can stump up an extra £25 for a Club Class seat, complete with a free neck pillow for you to keep!). But also because Brides-les-Bains, where the hotel is located, is a further 10 mins by cable car from the slopes at Meribel. But if you want to ski, and want to be green, are you really going to worry about an extra cable car ride at the beginning and end of the day? Not the biggest price to pay really, is it? (You're saving about 350kg of CO2 per person, by the way). Click here, or on the picture, to skip to lastminute and the booking page.

January Green-hike 1: Green-hiker skiing

We'll start off the year with a pretty obvious one - though one that springs immediately to mind given the current weather forecasts in the UK...

Skiing is getting more and more popular in the UK, and it's a great thing. What could put you more in touch with nature than to get out there, breathing deep lungfuls of proper mountain air, and getting some serious exercise under your belt early in the year?

Of course, there are different types of skiing holiday, but here's a few principles of green-hiker skiing, together with a few places to look at next:

1 - Look beyond the obvious resorts, or at least the obvious parts of town
If you go to Tignes, Meribel, La Plagne, etc, you risk a not-particularly-authentic ski experience. A lot of these places are becoming the posh ski equivalents of egg and chips on the Costa Brava. But if you go a little further afield to find something special...

Have a think about Bulgaria, Romania, and Slovenia in particular. Sinaia in Romania has got some rave reviews, but Slovenia's Lake Bled and Kranskja Gora would take a lot of beating.

2 - Travel by train
So many skiers lose at least a full skiing day out of a week's trip through the times of their flights, not to mention spouting a load of unnecessary emissions into the atmosphere. Rail travel will be a theme of this site - with Eurostar's move to St Pancras, and Railteam coming online as we speak, a new era of travel is starting right now. And it spreads a lot further than you'd think.

Of the destinations above, only Slovenia is within a day's travel by rail, with an overnight train from Paris to Munich, followed by a short hop on towards Ljubljana. But if you prefer to stick to the French alps, rail is really the only way to go. There are two options - either go direct from London to the alps on Eurostar's snow trains (which run twice a week and take about 6 hours); a better option, though, is to hop over to Paris for dinner, and then take the sleeper to the alps, waking up refreshed and ready to hit the slopes.

3 - Share a chalet with people you don't know
It's a great way to do things. Open yourself up to new experiences, new banter, new ideas... and paying less for your holidays...

A good option if you want to 'go aussie' and meet some fun folk is to look on the Gum Tree's Travel Partners page; there's usually some like-minded folk around. But to be honest, most companies book you in to the bigger chalets bed-by-bed, so this isn't really revolutionary - but many people think they've got to get everything organised before they go for it. You don't!

The Ultimate Skiing Green-hike
This month's big combination takes you to the Italian resort of Madonna di Campiglio. Situated in the Dolomites, and until recently frequented almost exclusively by Italians, this resort has kept its authenticity to an impressive degree. It's great for beginners, but especially good for intermediate skiers (though there isn't a great off-piste offering if that's what you're after).

Getting there by train is a great option - a Friday afternoon train to Paris, a spot of Parisian dinner, and then onto the sleeper. You'll be in Brescia before 7am, and up at the resort by 10... giving you virtually the full Saturday on the slopes. Cheap fares are definitely a possibility if you book in advance, and remember the price includes two nights accommodation train-style, and getting you an extra two days skiing. See http://www.seat61.com/ for more on the journey.

http://www.lowcostbeds.com/ has some good options for accommodation, with Residence Alpes 2 looking a particularly good bet...

As will be the norm, please do send in your thoughts on the suggestions here, and any other Green-hiker tips of your own. Anyone who thinks they've got Green-hiker skiing down, we'd love to hear from you!