Cost vs Environment

It's been over two months now since I left the UK with my backpack, bound for New Zealand. Last time I took a trip of this length my camera would only take 24 photos before it needed a new film, everyone travelled on round-the-world tickets, internet cafes used dial-up connections and carbon offsetting didn't exist. How things have changed. Now I can take a virtually limitless amount of photos, book one-way tickets on low-cost airlines whenever I decide on a date, wireless internet connections are everywhere, and the environment is everyone's concern.

This trip was always going to be made on a tight budget, but I had the best of intentions to minimise my carbon footprint as I travel. It turns out that the best intentions just aren't enough when faced with cheap air travel with proliferant low-cost operators. The UK has Easyjet and Ryan Air. Australia and New Zealand have Virgin Blue, Tiger Airways and Jetstar. Malaysia has Air Asia. My next flight will be from Jakarta, Indonesia to Kota Kinabalau, Malaysia and will cost less than US$30.

Along with reducing the number of flights I take, Carbon Offsetting was also high on my priority list when I left the UK, but as my funds have dwindled it seems less and less likely that I will voluntarily pay money to do this. When I booked my flight from Sydney to Bali with Jetstar last week I even opted not to pay the extra $7 to offset my emissions. That's 2 hrs of internet time in my new cost-conscious world. I've found it remarkably easy over the last year or so to write about our need to offset carbon emissions, travel slowly and shun short-haul air travel, but in reality budget travel decisons are much more driven by cost than environmental concerns. It takes a very hard headed individual to reject travel opportunities in favour of 'doing their bit' for the environment. It is on this basis that environmental concerns must be addressed by corporate and government bodies and not left open to consumer choice.

Carbon offsetting fees should not be optional, they should be included in the cost of a ticket.

How To Feel Like A Kid Again

It's almost time to leave the comforts of a home behind and head off on our travels. I actually left home two weeks ago but my girlfriend's house here in the U.S. is a home from home these days, and the surrounding area is pleasantly familiar.

I love that 'novelty' feeling of arriving into a new country, all your senses are heightened and your awareness is raised to new levels. It's like being a kid again. Your mind works frantically to absorb everything about your surroundings, even the most mundane objects like road signs and pricing labels in supermarkets command your attention and become fascinating.

How often have you laughed as a tourist takes a photo of the sights you see everyday on your way to work? If travel teaches you nothing else it can certainly remind you to open yourself up again to your surroundings at home. The longer you spend somewhere the harder you have to work in order to really appreciate it and really see things. Over the years that i've been travelling here i've felt my familiarity with the U.S. grow. Each time I visit, something else falls off my radar and becomes just another part of the scenery.

I'm not sad that my 'childhood days' in this part of the U.S. are over, I'm lucky to have the opportunity to feel so at home here but I cannot wait to see new places next week and be a kid again - San Francisco, The Cook Islands, New Zealand... - i'll be snapping away with my camera like any other tourist.

TV Ones-To-Watch: Monday 28 January 2008

You can watch these programmes around the world anytime in the next 7 days on BBC i-player.

Panorama
Alex James in Colombia
8.30-9.00pm BBC ONE
www.bbc.co.uk/panorama

Alex James, bassist of hugely successful Britpop band Blur, goes to Colombia to report on the effect the cocaine industry is having on the country that supplies 80 per cent of the world's cocaine.

Paradise or Bust
Episode Two
9.00pm-10.00pm BBC TWO
http://www.tribewanted.com/blogs/tribal_gatherings/1056

The Island of Vorovoro is open for business, and the first 13 members of this 21st century internet tribe are living and working alongside an ancient Fijian tribe. Led by 26 year old Ben Keene they are now working together to tackle their first major construction project - building a traditional Fijian house, which will be one of the biggest in Fiji.

The Convenience Of USB

We won't be travelling with a laptop on our travels so pay-per-use internet will be our connection whilst we're away. There are steps you can take to minimize the security risk to your personal information. If you have a USB Memory Stick (it doesn't need to have a huge capacity) plug it into your computer before you go, download the Mozilla Firefox Portable Edition and the free anti-virus software ClamWin, and install them onto your memory stick.

Every time you use a public computer whilst you're away simply plug in your USB stick, open the Portable Firefox Browser from your folder, and all of your personal data will be confined to your USB stick. There are lots of different tools that you can download from PortableApps including the popular Thunderbird email client. You can also easily customize your portable firefox browser with your favorite links and add-ons, saving you valuable time when you log on.

Recommended add-ons: Gmail Manager, Facebook Toolbar, New Tab button, Meebo Toolbar, PicLens.

An SD or CompactFlash memory card reader is also a great idea to save carrying computer cables and fumbling around with your camera. You can pick one of these up for about £10.

Carbon Offsetting

A growing number of us find it difficult these days not to look at the bigger picture that surrounds our lifestyles, and the internet ensures that there is no excuse for ignorance or 'gaps' in our knowledge. Information on anything that interests you is at your finger tips. Environmental issues can be notoriusly difficult to relate to, but in the Cook Islands global warming has hit home in a big way. In 2005 five devastating cyclones ripped through the islands in the space of five weeks - traditionally the Cooks could expect one such cyclone every 20 years. Coral bleaching, changing seasons and rising sea levels are all evident - many of the Northern Group barely rise 5m above sea level.

Blue Ventures is an award winning, not-for-profit organisation dedicated to marine conservation, education and sustainable development in tropical coastal communities. Their research and observations on the changing environment around Andavadoaka, Madagascar inspired them to setup their own carbon offset projects to address anthropogenic effects on the environment.

BV Carbon Offset is currently running an energy efficient and solar stove programme in Andavadoaka, Madagascar, and hoping to replicate it in other rural villages in the region. Their projects are sustainable, independent, verified, not for profit, and benefit communities in the following ways:

• Economic improvement - job provision and reduced fuel costs.
• Health improvements - reduced smoke related illnesses.
• Environmental improvements - reduced deforestation and reduced carbon emissions.

We will be using Blue Ventures to offset our own carbon emissions generated by our travels this year. The journey from London to Auckland will emit a total of 2765.312kg of carbon.

• Equivalent to 92 Televisions being left on standby for a whole year (Rainforest Concern).
• A 25 year old forest of 405 pine trees would need a whole year to absorb our total emissions.

Blue Ventures Carbon Offset

Auckland > Cook Islands
3010.4 Km using 0.125 Kg of Carbon per Km.
A total of 376.300 Kg of Carbon
At £12 per 1000Kg that will cost £4.52 per flight

Cook Islands > San Francisco
7647.3 Km using 0.14 Kg of Carbon per Km
A total of 1070.622 Kg of Carbon
At £12 per 1000Kg that will cost £12.85 per flight

San Francisco > Washington D.C.
3926.8 Km using 0.125 Kg of Carbon per Km
A total of 490.850 Kg of Carbon
At £12 per 1000Kg that will cost £5.89 per flight

Washington D.C. > London
5911.0 Km using 0.14 Kg of Carbon per Km
A total of 827.540 Kg of Carbon
At £12 per 1000Kg that will cost £9.93 per flight

Away From The Humdrum Life

I've read a couple of fantastic articles lately that really inspire feelings of what the personal experience of travel is all about, and just how good a period of wandering is for the soul. The descriptive tag of Spiritual Travel is a fair association but is by no means a reference to hippy, hemp-wearing, flower-waving, soft, fuzzy experiences. It's about a philosophical approach to adventure and taking the time to discover what you want for yourself away from the material trappings, media bombardment, peer pressures, and prescribed achievements of everyday life. It's only when we know what we want for ourselves that we can set goals and begin to achieve, allowing good fortune to follow. A period of travel isn't just about the immediate experience, its endurance can provide you with focus and stability for the rest of your life.

• 11 Jan 2008 - Finding Yourself Is Your True Destination - Brave New Traveller
• 11 Jan 2008 - How Do I Bring Vagabonding Home - Vagablogging
• 5 Dec 2008 - Forget The Destination, Focus On The Journey - Brave New Traveller

CREATING A BLOG

Last week I started to think about how we would document our trip so that friends and family could stay in touch with us and vice-versa. There are countless sites that offer 'travel journals' or 'travel blogs' online, and upon joining you become a member of their community/archive of travellers and have a very user friendly template to record your trip in.

Personally I prefer to have greater control over the layout and tools I use which is why I have setup a blog. I've used blogger in the past, and currently use it for the Make Travel Fair Blog so it was an obvious choice to use it to record our travels. WordPress is another of the more popular platforms and I had intended giving it a go until I discovered that you cannot edit the standard templates without paying a small fee, and it is only a small fee but enough to send me back to Blogger where I can customise appearances for free.

I used the 'minima' template and just customised a few elements of it. Once the structure is established it is extremely easy to alter the layout using the widget functionality. I found 'Recent Comments' and 'Recent Posts' widgets at Beautiful Beta. An itinerary widget is fed from my 30Boxes Calendar (Google Calendar does not have a decent widget that displays content like I wanted), photos are uploaded and stored in my Picasa Web Albums (I was going to use Flickr but Picasa works just as well and has no limit to the number of albums you can create, Flickr charges an upgrade fee for more than 3/4). A 'Where We've Been' widget makes use of Google's 'My Maps', all in all I guess it is a Google dominated setup, except for the Calendar but it works well, or atleast I hope it will.

Of course there is also Facebook and i'll probably start importing these notes to my profile once we get on the road, but truth be told i'm getting a little bored with the habit and revealing nature of it all. Back to basics for me, where nobody knows and nobody cares. Our new travel blog will be as much a record for us as it will be reading for friends and family.

I'm also using Google Docs to create a Budget Sheet and a repository of info. Creating the budget sheet has not been a happy time.