-
What’s Your Carbon Footprint?
We often suggest determining the carbon footprint of any travel plans you have or plan on and arrive at some type of offsets acceptable to you. For an online carbon footprint calculator, check out calculator.carbonfootprint.com. Carbon offsets can be purchased online for each trip you take, but for my recent European trip, I calculated a footprint of about 6 tons CO2. To offset that carbon footprint and any other trips in our future, Kathey and I had installed on our home a 9,000-watt solar system. It produces an 8-10 ton CO2 offset each year. We don’t own the system, opting for a power purchase agreement (PPA) with the company that installed and…
-
Air & Train Fare Price Checking
Here are a few lessons learned while planning my 2015 trip to Europe to walk the Camino de Santiago to research my upcoming book, SU CAMINO… and then to Ireland where Kathey and I would work on an article on traveling the B&B circuit. The plan included, a flight to Paris, train to Bayonne and bus to St. Jean Pied de Port, France, and then (following completion of the Camino) train from Santiago to Barcelona Spain for a flight to Dublin. This was all easily arranged over the Internet using various travel companies to price check then going to the respective transport company to secure our fares. I use Expedia.com, Kathey likes Kayak.com and…
-
Safety Pins
Good advice for the long distance backpacker: A small assortment of safety pins weighs less than one nappy pin, and great for many other uses: draining blisters, mending broken pack straps and hanging damp clothes to dry from your pack or on a clothesline. In recent years I’ve witnessed the use of clothespins by young people from Asia. Not sure the connection, simply an observation. Clothespins are cute and retro. But, safety pins work much better: They come in different sizes, when closed they stay put on your pack, and are much lighter, if not adorned by animals. (Good thing I watch BBC America or I wouldn’t know what a…
