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Tourist trails have proved to be a popular way to get to know a destination. One of the oldest and best known is right here in New England, the Boston Freedom Trail, which makes it easy for visitors to follow a red stripe along the sidewalks to find all kinds of historic sites. Also well known are the Appalachian and Pacific Crest scenic hiking trails. National Historic Trails follow the route of the Pony Express, the Trail of Tears, the Iditarod, and more. All together, the U.S. has about 15 scenic or historic routes. (For links to all the trails on the list, click here.) I like the whole concept, it’s a fun and easy way to help travellers get to know a place.

Now the first on-the-water tourist trail is in the works for Chesapeake Bay, the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Water Trail. Just last week, Congress passed a bill to establish the trail, which is set to open officially next year, in time for the 400th anniversary of the settlement of Jamestown. Boaters will be able to follow the route, and tour operators will likely offer tours for the boatless.

Printed maps and guides will provide navigational, historical, cultural and environmental information, but boaters will also be guided by interpretative buoys at key points. The buoys act as “trail markers” and also provide information about Smith’s journey, cultural and natural history, and real-time monitoring of weather and environmental conditions. The buoy information can be accessed via cellphone and the Internet. At the Chesapeake Bay Foundation Web site, you can take a virtual tour via Google Earth, or go to the National Geographic site for a 13-minute video about the project.

In the 1608 voyage by Capt. Smith, a crew of about a dozen explored and charted more than 2,500 miles of the Chesapeake Bay in a small open boat called a shallop, about 30 feet long. Next summer, a crew will set out in a replica of that boat to re-trace the original voyage. The reenactment will take 121 days, and if it sounds like fun to you, they are still looking for crew to sign on. You’ll be expected to row for up to six hours a day, sleep overnight in the boat or a tent, face heat, cold, rain, mosquitoes, and other environmental challenges, and be nice to your crew mates and the public while doing it. “Food, while ample and nutritious, will be basic and often served cold,” the organizers warn. If you have previous experience in extended outdoor/wilderness expeditioning, a background in sailing/rowing/kayaking, and a college degree, you could be the crew they’re looking for.

If the four-month voyage is not for you, other less-grueling events are in the works to celebrate the opening of the trail. Click here for the calendar posted by Friends of the John Smith Trail.

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If you’re looking for green travel gear for yourself or a favorite eco-traveller on your shopping list, the folks at Sustainable Travel International have put together just the guide for you. And it’s free, and just a click away.

The products in the guide are produced using resource-efficient, recycled, renewable, and/or recyclable materials, says STI, and in many cases, are offered by distributors that gain fair prices for the local producers of their goods.

A few highlights….

For hikers, STI suggests solar-powered backpacks, which will keep your electronics gear powered up while you walk. Voltaic Systems has a cool assortment, mainly around $200 and up. Backpacks made from recycled materials, but without the solar array, are cheaper — $39 and up at Earthpak.

Vulcana Inc. uses recycled tires and recycled rubber as a leather alternative. They also use hemp, which needs no pesticides or chemicals to grow. Their little rubber envelope bag is only $15, and if it’s true that that the dreaded fanny pack is back… you can find one here, called a “waist pack,” for $39.

For hungry travlers, Mary Janes Farm offers packable organic meals, from soup to bread and beans to chocolate mousse.

The Gear Guide also features bikes and electric scooters, camp stoves and ovens, cooking and cleaning products, canoeing and kayaking, a long list of clothing suppliers, plus snowboards, skateboards, surfboards, and sunblock. That seems to be just about everything you could possibly need to spend the rest of your life outdoors and travelling.

And one more thing — for the pet, or pet-lover, on your list, the Good Dog Company offers earth-friendly hemp collars and leashes and more.

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How’s this for the perfect way to sight-see… drifting above the treetops, in a quiet and maneuverable aircraft, that’s easy and fun to fly? Dan Nachbar, an aviator in Amherst, Mass., has built just the ship for eco-touring.

Dan says his aim in building his one-of-a-kind hot-air blimp was to create the perfect vehicle for experiencing “the restorative value that comes from just being in the sky.” He’s thinking of fun flights, often made in the evenings, after work, that don’t go anywhere in particular. “The ‘mission’ here is not transportation. The mission is joy,” he says.

The blimp is unique in that it has a rigid internal frame that can be folded up for storage. The blimp itself also folds up, so it doesn’t require a hangar like a helium-filled blimp would. Unlike a hot-air balloon, which can only drift with the wind, the blimp is maneuverable, so the pilot can fly where he wants and return to land at the launch site, if that’s the goal. The engine is mounted near the tail, which Dan says provides nimble maneuverability.

The blimp first flew in October and has accumulated about 10 hours in the air since then. Dan says he is at work on version 2, which will have a quieter engine and hot-air system, to enhance the serenity of flight. Eco-tourism and research are two possible uses he envisions for the final version of the ship.

The project has won high accolades from my friends in the lighter-than-air community who’ve seen it. I’ve spent a few daydreaming hours myself, trying to imagine something like the aerial equivalent of a sailboat. Dan has come pretty close to that vision.

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There’s plenty of nature to see up here on the continents… forests, and tundra, and moutains, and deserts, and all that. So it’s easy to forget that most of the planet surface is covered by the ocean, and there is just as much diversity down there, and most of it nobody’s ever seen.

So to try to remedy that, the worldwide Census of Marine Life is now in Year 6, trying to coordinate efforts to get out there and take a look. This week, the Census announced its results from 20 expeditions this year, comprising “a host of record-breaking discoveries and revelations that stretch the extreme frontiers of marine knowledge.”

They include finding life adapted to brutal conditions around a spewing seafloor vent (the hottest ever discovered), a mighty microbe 1 cm in diameter, mysterious four-pound lobsters off the Madagascar coast, a school of 20 million fish off the coast of New Jersey, and new species living beneath Antarctic ice more than 2,000 feet thick. The pix above show three of the new critters they found.

So how do you, the eager eco-traveller, get out there to take a look for yourself?

If you’re an educator working in the U.S., you may be eligible for NOAA’s Teacher at Sea program. NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, coordinates research aboard a fleet of ships it operates around the world. The goal is to give teachers a clearer insight into our ocean planet, a greater understanding of maritime work and studies, and to increase their level of environmental literacy by fostering an interdisciplinary research experience. Deadline for next year’s season is January 31, so if this interests you, get going!

Another option is to sign on with a Tall Ship. The American Sail Training Association lists help-wanteds in its online “billet bank.” Most jobs prefer that you have some sailing experience, but otherwise an excellent work ethic, public relations skills, flexibility and a desire to learn might be enough to get you signed on as a deckhand or apprentice. Many of the ships also offer public programs, where you can pay to join the crew for a voyage. They tell me they’re redesigning their Web site to make that info more accessible, but for now, your best bet is to contact ASTA directly if you want that info. Also, you can find similar organizations around the world, listed here.

I’ve been involved in both of these programs… in 2004, I sailed on a NOAA ship to explore a seamount chain off the New England coast. And for many years I sailed in ASTA ships, first the brigantine Black Pearl, and later aboard the full-rigged ship Rose. I sailed with the Black Pearl from Newport to Virginia and back one summer, it was my first time on a sailboat. I later sailed many times with the Rose, once taking a group of students for a week-long voyage, and another time a group of geography teachers. The ship went on to movie stardom in Master & Commander, and now lives at a maritime museum in San Diego.

So, if I can do it, so can you! It’s great to be at sea as the member of a crew, though being a paying passenger is the next-best thing, and much lazier. There are lots of ships out there offering various kinds of eco-tours around the world’s oceans, that will be the subject of another post.

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The fast-growing market in “carbon offsets” has raised more than a few questions about the usefulness of these products. Do they really do anything to clean up excess carbon dioxide? Or are they just a way to ease consumer guilt?

This week, the nonprofit group Clean Air Cool Planet has released a report that analyzes and ranks these products. “The Consumers’ Guide to Retail Carbon Offset Providers is designed to help those trying to achieve carbon neutrality choose appropriate offset options,” says CACP. “It evaluates 30 providers selling offsets in the US market.” You can read the 44-page report online.

The report has already sparked reaction in the blogosphere. Joel Makower at Worldchanging.com provides some analysis. He notes that some providers who ranked lower have already started to question the techniques used to create the rankings.

The report lists eight offset providers as “top performing” (in alphabetical order):

AgCert/Drive Green (Ireland)
AtmosFair (Germany)
Carbon Neutral Company (UK)
Climate Care (UK)
Climate Trust (US)
CO2 Balance (UK)
Native Energy (US)
Sustainable Travel/My Climate (US)

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Not to sound *tooo* smug, but I’ve been at this eco thing for a while now, and it’s been a bumpy ride. Every now and then green goes mainstream, a bandwagon rumbles past, and well-meaning but under-informed hordes jump aboard.

Prompting this reaction is a recent post at hugg.com, linking to a story in The Mail that reveals (gasp!) that a factory in Canada that provides some parts for Toyota’s Prius hybrid is a wicked notorious polluter. “So many plants and trees around the factory at Sudbury in Ontario, Canada, have died that astronauts from Nasa practised driving moon buggies on the outskirts of the city because it was considered the closest thing on earth to the rocky lunar landscape,” says The Mail.

This follows the release this weekend of “Blood Diamond,” which also reveals (gasp!) that the mining of diamonds wreaks havoc on the lives of people in poor countries. To his credit, in an interview on TV, star Leo DeCaprio noted that the film is a reminder not just that our luxury goods come at a price, but that everything we consume comes from somewhere — often from far away, in places that are not well-regulated, and with destructive effects on the planet.

Too often the drive to “go green” turns into just another consumer buying spree. Can we buy our way into a greener world? Well, we can make better choices for the things we need to buy. But we can also just say no to buying things we don’t need. Eat less meat, buy less stuff, occupy less space. Pretty simple, really, and rewarding in so many ways.

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This time of year, Heifer International is one of the groups I often recommend to folks looking for alternative gift ideas. They’ll use your donation to help poor families become more self-sufficient, a strategy that’s been shown to be incredibly effective at reducing poverty. But for you, the traveller, HI also offers alternative travel experiences, via their Study Tours.

HI’s tours are small, specialized expeditions through spectacular geography and unique ecosystems to visit remote villages and isolated peoples. But a Heifer Study Tour goes beyond sightseeing… it’s a glimpse into the daily lives of farmers and families who are working with HI to improve their lot and protect the earth.

A Study Tour takes you beyond your ideas about poverty, and shows you what the human spirit is capable of overcoming, says HI.

Coming up in 2007: tours to Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Thailand, and China, plus Poland, Lithuania, Russia, Mexico, Bolivia, and Honduras.

Check out the HI Web site for more details.

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As winter sets in here in New England, the days grow shorter, the sun sinks lower in the sky, and it’s easier to imagine what life must be like in the northern extremes of the planet. One spectacle of nature that you can see there, the Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis, attracts nature travellers willing to brave the cold and dark to marvel at what our planet can do.

Here in Rhode Island, we’re at about 45 degrees north of the equator. I’ve never seen the Northern Lights here, but occasionally, when there’s a big solar flare or something, you hear they might be spotted this far south.

As you head north from here toward the Pole, the winter days get shorter and shorter, till you hit the Arctic Circle at 66 degrees. This time of year, the sun there barely rises above the horizon, and on Dec. 21, it won’t rise at all. At the North Pole itself, at 90 degrees north, once the sun sets on the Autumnal Equinox in September, you won’t see it above the horizon again until the Spring Equinox in March.

So, the farther north you travel in winter, the more night hours you have for viewing the Aurora. Plus the solar wind and magnetic storms that cause the effects tend to focus on the polar regions, as the particles are attracted toward the magnetic poles. The optimal zone for seeing the lights is about 67 degrees. You can also see them in the Southern Hemisphere, but those regions are much less populated and harder to reach.

So for you eco-travellers who want to add a viewing of the Northern Lights to your life list, sites in Alaska, Canada, Iceland, and Northern Europe offer your best opportunities.

Finland, Iceland, Alaska, and Norway have Web sites devoted to seeing the Lights. The Arctic Academy, in Finland, offers programs devoted to learning about and watching for the Lights. Operators in Canada’s Yukon offer Aurora Tours. Budget Travel suggests some places to stay for aurora viewing, in a story in March.

I’ve been above the Arctic Circle just once, and it was in the summertime. We traveled through Norway to North Cape, the farthest north you can go on the mainland of Europe. It’s a pretty empty place, or at least it was back then, with a high cliff overlooking a wide gray sea. You could look North though, and think, right up there is the Pole….! The sun never set, but it never climbed too high in the sky, and the weather was damp and chilly.

More info about the Northern Lights:
For a glimpse of the aurora experience, check out this YouTube video, for a time-lapse show, location unknown.
The aurora is not just a spectacular sight, but sounds also are associated with the activity. Sound recorder Steve McGreevy explains it all in an NPR podcast. Or go straight to the recordings captured from the low-frequency radio spectrum.
SpaceWeather.com has an aurora watch to alert you when conditions look good for viewing.
A gorgeous photo gallery by Finnish artist Sigudur H. Steffnisson.
More images, from NASA’s gallery.
Michigan Tech’s site includes info on how to build an aurora detector.
Norway’s Northern Lights site has lots of FAQs.

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In December, as you wonder about what gifts to buy for folks — or maybe for yourself! — those interested in the world outside might think about tools for exploring the heavens. Many astronomers recommend that beginners start out not with a telescope, but binoculars.

Binoculars are easier to use for the novice because they provide a wide field of view, they’re simple to transport and use, and they’ll be useful even after you graduate to a telescope. They’re great for exploring the surface of the Moon (download a Moon map, or check out Google Moon, to identify the features you discover). You can look at planets and constellations. You can find galactic clouds and star clusters. You might even spot the moons of Jupiter.

Binoculars help to spark your curiousity and interest, without getting too bogged down in details and equipment. They come in many different price ranges, sizes, and quality. And they can also be used for spotting birds and wildlife, or just exploring the world, outside your back door on the far side of the planet.

Here’s a technical buying guide from Sky & Telescope magazine.
Here’s an overview of getting started with binoculars.
And here’s a book on binocular stargazing, if your giftee already has binoculars, or to go along with a new pair.

Still prefer a real telescope? Look for an observatory near you. Many astronomical facilities have open houses year round, and in December offer programs geared to finding the right telescope for the prospective buyer.

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Looking for a great gift for a fellow traveller, or maybe to put on your own wish list? Planeta.com, the global journal of practical ecotourism, has released its list of nominees for Book of the Year.

Any of these recommended guides is worth a read. You can also go to Planeta’s site and vote for your favorite.

Some of Planta’s nominees are scholarly works, others are general about-the-environment books. Here’s a few of the travel-guide selections that I think are most likely of interest to you Eco-TravelLogue readers:

“The New Key to Costa Rica” sets the standard for environmentally and socially responsible tourism guides, says The Nature Conservancy. The book offers complete coverage of sights, lodging, dining, and outdoor adventures, including wildlife viewing, parks and reserves, surfing, fishing, horseback riding, and diving. Lodgings are rated for their efforts in protecting an environmental, economic, and cultural balance.

“Living Abroad in Nicaraugua” provides a special focus on how and where to volunteer and participate in sustainable community work. Other guidebook nominees are the “Footprint South American Handbook 2007,” “Costa Rica, The Bradt Travel Guide,” and “Argentina, The Bradt Travel Guide.”

Also nominated in the general travel category are two books that focus on sustainable travel around the world — Tourism Concern’s “Ethical Travel Guide” and Lonely Planet’s “Code Green.” I have copies of both of these books and find them both well worthwhile. Both have introductions and sidebars that explain what sustainable tourism is all about and why it matters. The Ethical Guide has lots of brief listings, on black and white pages. Code Green gives each entry a two-page spread with color pictures and a discussion of responsible travel credentials. My advice… get ‘em both!

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