Our favourite websites, ideas and inspiration for greener holidays around the world.


BEST GLOBAL TIPS

If you’re not a cyclist then the leanest, meanest, greenest thing you can do on your next holiday is this – Choose the train. Or the bus. Even just taking an airport shuttle can help offset the effects of a taxi ride. Here’s a good Paris shuttle bus option which comes highly recommended. English is spoken. Say Holiday Goddess sent you.

NEW ZEALAND AND AUSTRALIA SKI SEASON CAR POOLING. Use Snowpool and car-pool your rides to the snow. Register on the website for a cheap – and sometimes free – ride. Bring along your chocolate and a mix-tape. Thanks to our snowman, Holiday Goddess Editor James Williams, for the tip.

OTHER GREEN BASICS

Re-use your towels. And walk it! As every Londoner will tell you, it’s often faster to walk from Covent Garden train station to Leicester Square. And experienced locals stride from Primrose Hill to Soho.

LONDON

  • Riding in Hyde Park – or more specifically Rotten Row, Hyde Park – is a wonderful way to spend a free hour, as Hyde Park Stables offers five miles of bridleways along the Serpentine Lake. Adults and children are welcome and riders of all abilities (including absolute beginners, looking for lessons) are encouraged. Visit www.hydeparkstables.com.
  • Are you a fan of Spooks (BBC-TV)? If so you’ll love the fact that Spooks actor Stephen Noonan has been known to host a London Walks tour. Choose from walks based around The Beatles, Literary Bloomsbury, Occult London and The Da Vinci Code, and Oscar Wilde’s London. Visit www.walks.com.
  • We love Urban Gentry walking tours. Their fashion walking tour menu includes East End Hip, Fashion Forward and Sartorial Spy (for chaps). One of their guides was a stylist for The Face and The Guardian in another life. Visit www.urbangentry.com.

NEW YORK

  • The Archaeology of Manhattan walking tour is a three-hour jaunt with an archaeologist as part of Context Travel’s walks-for-your-brain series. Their guides are academics – so if you want more from New York than schlepping, this is your call. Visit www.contexttravel.com.
  • Cycling is New York’s new chic mode of transport. Don’t believe it? Agyness Deyn and David Byrne both showed up to a recent Narciso Rodriguez fashion show on their bikes. It’s worth joining the New York Cycle Club (around $17) just to get involved on their absolute beginner rides. They have 2000 members. And do we have to say, if you’re wondering where all the fit guys in NY are…well, this is it.
  • Gay and Lesbian History Walking Tours of Manhattan are available at the award-winning and rave-reviewed Big Onion Walking Tours. Visit www.bigonion.com.
  • Free walking tours of Greenwich Village are at www.villagealliance.org and

AUSTRALIA

  • See Australia from an Aboriginal point of view. Try the award-winning Wula Guda Nyinda Aboriginal Cultural Tours in Monkey Mia, Shark Bay, Western Australia with Darren Capewell, of the Nhanda and Malgana people. Discover bush tucker, animal tracking and medicinal plants. See first-hand why the area has been registered for World Heritage Status. Visit www.wulaguda.com.au.
  • The best free guide to bushwalking, hiking and city walks in Australia, from Melbourne Art Walks to Hobart History Trails, is at http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/walks/

VOLUNTEER VACATIONS AROUND THE WORLD

Global Volunteers, founded in 1984, is the oldest and best-known of US-based volunteer vacation programmes. Recommended in Travel and Leisure Magazine and USA Today. It’s a revolutionary way of experiencing places like Vietnam and the Cook Islands and those who go, tend to go back. Visit www.globalvolunteers.org.

RESPONSIBLE TRAVEL

This should be your main stop for a green holiday almost anywhere on the planet. Stay in a sweet, affordable cottage in Cornwall, England or go on an ambitious wildlife holiday in Costa Rica. Their Responsible Travel Awards are supported by Michael Palin. Responsible Travel is “The first place to look for environmentally friendly holidays” according to The Guardian. A carbon offset service is part of the site. Visit www.responsibletravel.com

TRAINSPOTTING ACROSS THE PLANET

Travel by train and ship and cut back on global warming. The last word on this is the multi-award-winning website The Man in Seat Sixty-One, which is so inspiring you may never fly again. The Canada and New Zealand coverage is excellent. Then there’s an amazing piece of advice on how to go from London to Australia without flying. Or how about London to India overland? The Man in Seat Sixty-One even has advice for trainspotting across Africa and the Middle East. Visit www.seat61.com.

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