Top ethical destinations to visit

The original press release for this article can be found here: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/worlds-top-10-ethical-destinations,1075337.shtml

Are you the kind of traveler who wants to have a great time AND feel good about where your travel budget is going?

Ethical Traveler's new report, "The World's Best Ethical Destinations," identifies the 10 countries in the developing world that are best protecting their natural environments, promoting responsible travel, and building a tourism industry which provides real benefits to local communities.

"There's no doubt that worldwide interest in mindful, responsible travel is growing - not only among travelers, but within the countries that host us," says Jeff Greenwald, executive director of Ethical Traveler and co-author of the report. "Now is the perfect time for savvy travelers and well-intentioned governments to evolve together, each encouraging the other. This is especially true in the developing world, where travel and tourism can be developed as lucrative, low-impact alternatives to forestry, mining, and the destruction of ocean habitats."

In alphabetical order, the best ethical travel destinations for 2010 are:

Argentina

Belize

Chile

Ghana

Lithuania

Namibia

Poland

Seychelles

South Africa

Suriname

"In drafting our report, we use scores of information sources -- including publicly available data -- to rate each country's genuine commitment to environmental protection, social welfare and human rights," says Christy Hoover, co-author of the report. "Data sources include the United Nations Development Program, Human Rights Watch, Columbia University, Reporters Without Borders, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, and many others. Private interviews with NGO leaders are part of the process, as well." The full report can be viewed at http://www.ethicaltraveler.org/destinations

TRIPBOD FOUNDER, SALLY BROOM, SAYS::

‘It's great to see this report being published. Increasing numbers of travellers want to spend their time and money in the right places, and these sorts of guides really help them turn those intentions into action.’

However Broom added ‘It is still important to remember those wonderful destinations not mentioned but working very hard in all the areas mentioned in the report: environmental, social, economic and human. So it’s always worth checking that when planning a trip. But we need more of this kind of information and we thank Ethical Traveller for publishing this list...

... and hurray for South Africa and their World Cup Football games in 2010!

Welcoming Rwanda into the Commonwealth

This week Rwanda was the 54th country to be welcomed into the commonwealth, in recognition of the progress made since the genocide of 1994.

It is right and proper that this progress is being celebrated; the commitment and dedication of each Rwandan citizen to re-building their society and protecting unique biodiversity is truly astounding.

Appropriately this is also the UN Year of the Gorilla, a focus on the wonderful work being done across East Africa and beyond in primate conservation. Rwanda is a focal point in this work, as a relatively small country boasting a unique wealth in biodiversity.

So Rwanda and its people are now being recognised for the role they are playing on a global scale to preserve and promote conservation and sustainable development.

Tripbod is proud to work with Edwin Sabuhoro, founder of Rwanda Ecotours, who is playing a leading role in this work.

Sally, founder of Tripbod, enjoyed a visit to a community tourism project with Rwanda Ecotours in June 2008

Top five festive days in Cumbria

It's dry (at last), snow-capped and as beautiful as ever. Even better, it's also much quieter than normal! People, it's the best time to visit Cumbria so come on up, the weather's lovely

Despite the terrible recent flooding in Cumbria there are still plenty of wonderful places that are accessible and very much still available to enjoy. Most of South Lakes is perfectly passable and the flooding is easily avoidable. Now just as the festive sparkle starts to gather, so do the snowflakes on the peaks. So to help you make the most, here’s our Top Five festive days in the Lakes:

1. Kirkby Lonsdale, 10 mins off the M6

If you're in the mood for something festive why not turn off at junction 36 on the M6 and head east for 10 minutes. You'll arrive in Kirkby Lonsdale which is arguably one of the prettiest villages in Cumbria and perfect for finding that festive feeling.

Shop: Look out for the Christmas fair over the weekend of 5th and 6th December.

Eat: The Sun Inn is perfect for a mulled wine by the fire. We also love Avanti for a spot of lunch or Sublime cafe by the market square for a scone.

Wander: through the church yard and down to the river to feel as though you've stepped back in time

2. Ulverston, 35 mins off the M6

Ulverston is a larger market town but just as traditional and a great Christmas destination.

Clearing cobwebs: Walk up the Hoad (currently being restored) for fantastic views

Eats and drinks: warm up in Gillam's tea room over some lovely organic tea and cakes by a traditional stove complete with roasting chestnuts. It's all one rather lovely cliché. Also try the World Peace cafe for really tasty veggie food.

Sparkle: we tweeted recently about the rather lovely Italian platters on offer in Avanti Capitola Wine Bar - goes nicely with a glass of Prosecco over lunch. Hic!

Shop: I was enjoying Two by Two at the weekend, a lovely independent clothes shop that is part of the famous Tinner's Rabbit shop, an art gallery, gift shop and local book store all in one. Ulverston also boasts fantastic charity shops - check out St Mary's Hospice shop for some real high quality bargains.

3. Darkest Muncaster – a real day out amidst stunning scenery

Muncaster Castle is a delight at any time of the year but not least during the dark nights, when something magical happens... Muncaster is currently hosting a spectacular during the evenings called 'Darkest Muncaster' where there is a show of lights and sounds after dark, illuminating the grounds and surroundings. With a rum hot chocolate you can cosy up and enjoy the feast for eyes and ears.

4. Windermere

Given that Tripbod is about getting off the beaten track we wouldn't normally suggest dropping into Windermere as it's very much the honey pot of the area. But due to the flooding and national assumptions that the whole county is underwater, the town is not so crowded and this might be just the time to visit.

Start the day: Jump on the train and arrive into Windermere right next door to the flagship Lakeland Limited store. If you don't lose hours in here among the aisles of kitchenware you never realise you needed until now, then we'll be amazed.

Drinks and eats: From the station tottle down into the main part of town where you could do no better than checking out Francines bistro for lovely seafood, or drop into The Lighthouse for a mulled wine while people watching. Fish and chips just over the road is pretty good too

Shops: some independent gift shops and a lingerie shop that was recently praised in a national retail awards ceremony. You might just find the perfect Christmas gift in there for the lovely lady in your life...

5. Cartmel and a New Year's Eve to remember

The Faure Requiem will be performed in the hauntingly beautiful Cartmel Priory at 11pm on New Year's Eve. Have supper before hand in one of the lovely local pubs and then wander to the priory for an enchanting night and start of the new year.

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If you want a few personalised tips to add to your visit to Cumbria then please do get in touch. We are your Tripbods in Cumbria, waiting to hear from you and share our local knowledge.

The other Rome

Mass tourism leads fluxes of thousands of people a day through areas and monuments that are supposed to show you an image of grandeur and make you "feel the weight of History" (as Michelle Obama told my boss a few weeks ago!).

The other Rome is much less glamorous, but it has History too! You just can't appreciate the "rione" (neighborhood) Monti if you don't know that it was the center of the main business that supported this city throughout centuries: prostitution!
But the areas that still bear surprises even for me, are the ones that still live in what we call History. As if time had never gone by.

When my sister moved to a neighborhood called Pigneto, I started exploring and discovering areas of Rome that seemed to come right out of a Pasolini movie: Two enormous ancient aqueducts stripe the area, and people, ever since World War II, just "nest" in their cavities. That shows you the thin line between considering a bunch of two-thousand-year-old ruins, monuments or half-built half-price solid houses...
Its worth going to have a pizza between the two aqueducts: everyone around you chats lively and doesn't seem to mind the two "dinosaurs" of History looking into your plate...

Close by there is a park, the largest one in Rome, were locals like to go jogging. A friend of mine lives near it and took me once (although jogging is the equivalent of torture for me...). She talked and talked as I struggled to survive. From time to time we'd stumble on a Renaissance farm, or an imperial nympheum, or e medieval chapel: isolated dots in a vastness of green hills. There was no one around, just a few panels that explained a story. Sometimes school field trips go discover these places, but that's it. These are places that belong to the kids that play in them, making their imaginations run wild!

That night we went to a "trattoria" (a restaurant with paper tablecloths, wooden plates and waiters that speak "Roman" and not Italian at a very high volume), one of those places where the traditional cuisine is still served: tripes and brains and other succulent cuts that over the decades the poor have turned from discard to masterpieces.

Rome is not that big: about 1200 km2. With a half-hour car ride you can visit the villages that surround it, where time has stopped at the middle ages. Just last week I went to a jazz concert (talk about contrasts!) in one of these minuscule villages that occupy the tip of a pointy mount, with defensive stone walls around it, cobble stone streets and a castle at the top. Very pictoresque... When the concert was over my friends and I headed towards the door of the village and as we were going down we noticed a little old lady washing her dishes at the public fountain, she had emptied the scraps of her casserole onto the floor. She was dressed in black and told us that she only went down to the local market once every 6 months, because her husband had died 7 years ago. Very... retrò.

So, Rome is History, ancient mostly, but recent History gives it its charm too. Many areas of Rome that until no more than ten years ago, were simple, inhabited by the working class, are gradually being transformed by the youth that can no longer afford to live close to the center and that are investing in restyling their neighborhood. So, areas with a rather sad abandoned industrial taste, become popular, with caffes with poetry readings or photography expos, and gain a new charm, sometimes just by illuminating differently that same old building. And that is were students gather, those piazzas and alleys become lively hot-spots of the roman "movida". (Of course, usually the consequence is that after a few years, the prices to rent appartments in those same old crumbled buildings, rise up to infinity, and students have to find some other place)

About Industrial Archeology, as they call it, we picked up the idea from England and France, and by now we've made a few attempts at transforming ex-factories into museums or posh restaurants, that in my opinion are glorious results that tourists often miss. The thing is that because we have this very italian (especially roman) mania that keeps us from throwing anything away, these structures are never completely emptied. For example, the Gare d'Orsay in Paris is a magnificent building, voided, made neutral, to contain an art museum. Well, we just didn't have the heart... you'll find an ex-power plant turned into a museum, with white greco-roman statues next to turbines and alternators. Fascinating!

Yes, we like contrasts, and most of us have never been inside the Colosseum.

Elena is your Tripbod in Rome.
Connect with her now on Tripbod and start planning your perfect trip!

Hip Hip Hooray, for the Settle-Carlisle Railway!

I was delighted to read in the Westmorland Gazette (a great regional newspaper in Cumbria) this morning that the wonderful Settle-Carlisle Railway was voted No2 in the ABC American News 'World's 10 Greatest Railways', second only to The Blue Train in South Africa

Settle is in North Yorkshire and Carlisle is the county town of Cumbria where I am a Tripbod.

This railway is very special and I am delighted that it is now appreciated across the globe, despite not being particularly grand. Yet apparently grandness does not matter, because the Settle-Carlisle line beats the Orient Express and the 'Palace on Wheels' in India!


Then again, with views like this, who needs luxury?!

It is difficult to express the breath-taking beauty the feeling of 'getting back to nature' that runs through you when you trundle along this route.

For me train journeys are often about being able to read or catch up on work, but this route leaves your eyes unable to move from the scenery. Even on a wet day the landscape is stunning.

The wonderful little stations through which you pass have barely changed for a century. It feels as though you are being transported, physically, back through time.

So pack a picnic, jump on the train (costing a whopping £10) and as the ABC article promises, 'your eyes will find plenty to feast on'.

Other individual railway lines we love include:

Lakeside and Haverthwaite Steam Railway

The West Highland Line

Photos courtesy of:

• http://www.settle-carlisle.co.uk
• www.ramblersholidays.co.uk

Please watch this film

This moving film was played during the launch of World Responsible Tourism Day. Please take a moment to watch it...

Thanks
Sally



Courtesy of Ben Keene's Tribewanted blog

Tripbod at WTM 2009

Thanks goodness it's Friday.... what a week it has been!

The 30th World Travel Market (WTM) took place in Excel, London and saw many thousands of travel folk from across the globe come together to talk travel, business and innovation.

One of the most rewarding experiences of this massive week was the amount of attention given to niche/local/responsible/positive (whatever you want to call it!) tourism. When I first started going to WTM and talked about connecting travellers to the grass roots and great local people, I was treated as an outsider, except by those wonderful people who have since become friends and a few of whom are now Tripbods.

But this year everyone was extolling the virtues of niche, grass root travel and I was inspired by the number of like-minded entrepreneurs who were in attendance, vying for their piece of an ever-fragmented marketplace.

The highlight of the whole week, however, had to be the Fringe event on Monday evening hosted in central London by Tripbod and friends. The Fringe is a global network of like-minded travel entrepreneurs and organisations, passionate about 'good' travel, the kind that benefits everyone and so-called because they are so often on the Fringe of big travel events. Well, not any longer - the Fringe WTM event was the place to be!

Sponsored generously by Intrepid, Rough Guides, The Blue Yonder and Travel To Care we saw 75 guests from 40 countries 'speed' networking away and enjoying a cosy evening in the basement bar of the Pavilion End pub, just next to St Paul's Cathedral. Lots of new friendships and business ideas were forged and it made for the perfect start to what turned out to be quite a crazy week.

Anyway, thank goodness it's Friday....