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Articles: 1, 2, 3

100 Best Travel Blogs...
2008-05-14 13:01:00
Well, I'm mighty proud to have been included in this here list of the Best 100 Travel Blogs ...someone has clearly been busy googling...; )My only slight concern is the name of the host domain 'www.airlinecreditcards.com' (I'm not going to give them the satisfaction of a live link) which is a site entirely dedicated to giving people free air miles on their credit cards...the fact that they list www.lowcarbontravel.com on the top 100 just goes to show these folk have no sense of irony. Spend your way to climate oblivion with us!www.lowcarbontravel.com

Paint my plane green...
2008-04-28 12:24:00
After almost a month back at work I am now fully back in the swing of things and today Futerra launches our first report since my return - The Green wash Guide. The last couple of years have seen a dramatic upsurge in corporations falling over each other to try and 'outgreen' the competition and convince increasingly enlightened and environmentally discerning green consumers to part with their hard earned 'green pounds'. The trouble is, a lot of this 'green' marketing, usually by carelessness and/or over enthusiasm by underqualified marketers, is full of porky pies and exaggerations. So what we all cry! Surely that's what marketing does, embellish the claim , manipulate desire and flog more product! True, but the danger here lies in the potential for creating a cynical reaction amongst consumers who then shun eco-products and undermine the entire green business case...The battle is on for trust and credibility around green claims and just for fun we mocked up some fake ads for...
More About: Plane , Paint

I love the smell of London in the morning...
2008-04-07 11:36:00
Ah, London in springtime. A heavy fall of April snow (April snow?!) causes further disruption at Heathrow (you don't get many cargo ships waylaid or diverted by a flurry of white stuff now do you?) and the good old British sense of justice and fairplay is manifested in the plucky protests against the parading of the Olympic torch through the streets, keeping the terror in Tibet on the world agenda despite Chinese attempts to sweep it back under the carpet. It's good to be home...I'll still be using and updating this blog now that we're back and will shortly be giving it a complete revamp. In the meantime there's a few more relevant odds and sods to keep you distracted...The Penultimate Observer columnThe (now almost complete) Photo ArchiveA blog on 'How to travel slowly (without going round the world for a year!)' I wrote for the Guardian Online this weekendMy list of the top 10 hostels we stayed in around the worldAnd, finally, here is the concluding Observer column (the 29...
More About: Love , Morning , Smell , In The Morning

About that trip...
2008-03-27 18:42:00
...OK, back one week and already the bloody cliches are ringing true and 'the trip' is metamorphosising (schpelling?) into a soft focus dream sequence in our memories. But I'm keeping the mental fires burning with a flurry of interviews organised by my Futerra colleague Amjad whilst we rolled across the Atlantic - to spread the word about slow travel. So, here's a few links to the latest babble about the trip that has been recently unleashed from my mac or my trap...28th Observer column - Life in Lago NicaraguaInterview on National Public Radio USA (listen to webcast)Feature piece in the Independent newspaperwww.lowcarbontravel.com
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Brixton bump...
2008-03-21 09:17:00
We're back! 381 days and 45,000+ miles later we are finally home and back in the warm bosom of family and friends after the adventures of the last twelve and a half months. More updates to follow but for now here's a link to a feature piece the Independent ran this morning: 'Globetrotters with a conscience'. And for those who like their 'meejah' in multiple formats here's the final instalment of film for the trip...www.lowcarbontravel.com
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Last leg...
2008-03-06 13:51:00
Well, today we board our final ship home back to the UK from Costa Rica. We've spent the last few days enjoying the country's Caribbean fringe...where a largely black, english-speaking Creole population has reminded us strangely of home back in Brixton, South London. Hopefully our journey back across the Atlantic will be a little smoother than that of our ship's sister vessel in January when a huge wave all but capsized it in a storm off the Scilly Isles - BBC Report. The ship lost 90 containers over the side and the Captain and several passengers suffered serious injuries and had to be air-lifted off by Navy helicopter in 25foot seas...not my idea of fun.Fingers crossed the sea will be a little gentler with us, and you can monitor the conditions and empathise with our fate by clicking here on Ocean Weather Data, which has up to the minute information on average wave heights so you can see exactly how much we are tossing.In the meantime, here's a sneaky preview of this week's ...

Sunny San Salvador...
2008-02-28 22:50:00
‘Fly to El Salvador , I don’t know why and I don’t know what for’ flow the lyrics of the song by Athlete and arriving in San Salvador (by bus obviously) we were inclined to agree. Home to a notorious gang culture that leads to the highest murder rate in the world (58 deaths per 100,000…to put this in context in the UK it’s 2 deaths per 100,000*), a cruel wealth disparity between rich and poor, gated communities, a simmering civil war legacy and frequent earthquakes we felt it was the perfect place to kick-back and relax for a couple of days.So it was with some degree of wary trepidation that we hopped on a bus into the centre of town, a definite ‘no-go’ zone for foreigners after dark. We left the secure, locked-down suburb of our hostel, where the heavy presence of uniformed guards toting pump-action shotguns was both reassuring and worrying at the same time, and entered the thrumming central market. We kept our eyes and wits about us and left all our valuables safe...
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Bedbugs & Volcanoes...
2008-02-24 16:11:00
The countdown continues...only 11 days to go till ´B' day when we hop aboard our banana boat in Costa Rica. We're currently in Granada on the shores of the vast inland sea that is Lago Nicaragua, though we're heading south to the world's biggest lake island - Omotepe today to stay on a co-operative finca for a few days as the journey draws to a close. Another bonus has been an additional ´Slow Traveller´column for the Observer which this week covers our seat-of-the-pants adventures on the crater of a live volcano and an unfortunate few nights wrestling with voracious bedbugs. No me gusta.26th Observer columnOne of the constant challenges of travelling is finding a place to stay. We've had to do this over 120 times during the last twelve months. The task is made harder by the fact that you are invariably tired, ratty and hypoglycaemic when you’re doing it. After passing through 31 countries we’ve learnt that ignoring the guidebook and going with a local tout is not always...
More About: Volcanoes

Fowl transport...
2008-02-18 19:42:00
Well with less than two and half weeks to go our slow travel odyssey is almost coming to an end...but we still have two weeks at sea and the small body of salty water known as 'The Atlantic' to cross before we hit Blighty and the White Cliffs of Dover on March 20th (if there ain't bluebirds above I am going to be severly disappointed). We've just arrived in Granada, Nicaragua after some adventures that I'll share shortly in transit through the somewhat less than salubrious cities of San Salvador and Managua. Suffice to say we are relieved to have them behind us. Anyway, latest Observer missive was published yesterday, about the joys of Guatemalan chicken buses, and as usual the unexpurgated version is pasted below, or for those of a shorter attention span or more sensitive demeanour the formal edit is on the Guardian website here.25th Observer columnSlow travel in Guatemala is all about ‘chicken’ buses. Whether this name comes from the typical driver’s proclivity for play...
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Mine´s a Tepuzcuintle (no ice)
2008-02-12 18:36:00
Ok, been a week or so since I last posted and in the meantime I've loaded up some more photos from Mexico and Guatemala onto the archive which you can see here. We´re now in Antigua about to climb a live volcano (safe, allegedly) having just spent a week on gorgeous Lake Atitlan on an intensive Spanish course (muy bien, por supuesto!). This blog is about Flores however where we did a three day jungle trek into Tikal, the huge ancient city of Mayan skyscrapers jutting up through the rainforest canopy. Assembling an intrepid band of fellow explorers from the drinking partners we’d acquired crossing the border into Guatemala, a lively time was assured. ‘Botz’ was a British guy who’d been a chef in Amsterdam for 15 years and now ran a hostel (www.elrefugiohostel.com) in the mountains of southern Spain. A veritable treasure trove of gags and anecdotes, every story he told seemed to begin with a bottle of vodka and a handful of E’s and end in suitably lubricious fashion in a r...

Jungle sex, froggy-style...
2008-02-03 17:29:00
Latest Observer column published today, seems I have managed to smarten up my act a little so there was little editing of this effort compared to the immasculation of my previous missive. All they did was crop my gag about amphibious carnal activity (no great loss to literature it has to be said). As always you can read the 'offical' version on the Guardian website here. The original text is cut and pasted below along with some relevant pics and a nice little video clip of thousands of Monacrch butterflies taking to the air. Sweet. 24th Observer columnWe were sat in the bus station at Zihuatanejo on Mexico’s Pacific coast when a guy selling tiny handmade artificial roses approached us. ‘Hello honeymooners!’ he grinned as we groaned. ‘You know how I know?’ he continued unabashed ‘because she looks happy and you look tired!’. It was not the first time we’d heard this line in the touristy town. I smiled agonizingly, Fi just looked weary.A series of buses of ever dimin...
More About: Style , Jungle , Froggy

Adios Mexico mi amor...
2008-01-30 00:32:00
So, all good things have to come to an end and finally after almost exactly two months we were going to leave Mexico . We’d never expected to spend so long there, nearly twice the length of time we’ve spent in any other country during the trip. Nor was it one of the places we’d been wildly excited about beforehand. It had been a bit like popping out for a reluctant beer of an evening as a social obligation with someone you vaguely know. Then finding yourself staggering home blind drunk at 5am with an inane grin on your face having had ‘the besht night out ever’ with your new best friend in the whole world. Two glorious months of cacti, culture, cowboy hats, cervezas and enough frijoles to sculpt a convincing scale model of Popocatepetl. Mexico, te amo!We were faced with a dilemma however in regard to the different choices of overland routes from our base in Palenque into Guatemala. All of which involved some form of river crossing. For perverted masochistic travellers there...
More About: Amor

Fat as a ship...
2008-01-23 19:27:00
As well as my Freighter Travel witterings the Observer also published my latest column last Sunday, which seems to have lost a little of it's edge in the editing due to my slightly flippant observations and criticisms of American tourists we encountered in Zihuatanejo. Judge for yourself by reading the unexpurgated version below and the online version on the Guardian website here.23rd Observer columnWe spent the festive season in Veracruz on the brown sand, crab-patrolled beaches of Mexico’s Caribbean coast. Our first journey of the New Year was a cross-country bus mission over to Zihuatanejo on the Pacific, a couple of hundred kilometres north of the tourist hordes undoubtedly ‘going loco’ down in Acapulco. In typical style we completely misjudged the duration of the first night-bus leg of the trip, arriving in Mexico City at 4.30am. Which was nice.‘Zihua’ was our first real taste of a mass-market holiday resort in Mexico. It’s a former fishing village on a beautiful h...
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A freight way to travel...
2008-01-21 21:09:00
The Observer published a feature article I wrote for them yesterday about our cargo ship travel experiences, under the toe-curlingly cringe-worthy pun title of 'A freight way to travel...'. The piece was written whilst we were still gliding gracefully across the Pacific, so it´s a case of 'let´s do the time-warp again!' in terms of blog content, as we´re currently in steamy, jungly Palenque and crossing the border into Guatemala tomorrow! You can read the whole article here, and it also includes lots of useful tips and links on ´How to travel by cargo ship'. Disgracefully however the Observer managed to omit a link to our fantastic shipping agent extraordinaire Hamish Jamieson of www.freightertravel.co.nz who has helped us secure all the maritime passages of our trip and provided a wonderful, personal and efficient service (he even picked us up at the port and gave us a tour of his hometown of Napier when we arrived in New Zealand!). If you fancy a bit of freighter action t...
More About: Travel

Better (slower) world...
2008-01-18 19:54:00
BT's 'Better World ' E-zine has just published a piece I wrote from them about our trip, you can read the piece 'Slowly does it' (paraphrasing the Stranglers 'Nice and sleazy does it'!) by clicking this link. They didn't tell me they were going to use the 'lobster fetish' immersion suit photo of me! The Better World E-zine also has loads of other good news stories about positive change, including Futerra's clothes swapping, or 'Swishing' parties! Worth checking out...www.lowcarbontravel.com

Guns and arse!
2008-01-12 16:46:00
Ciudad Mexico, less a city than a medium-sized European nation of 20 million souls jammed into a place built almost entirely on a drained out lake-bed. These uncertain boggy foundations cause a structural engineers nightmare of wonky, squint buildings with highly questionable perpendicularity. Throw in the odd earthquake to rearrange the substrata and it makes for a quirky, somewhat irregular skyline. In the Centro historico a grid of grubby avenues stretches hazily to the distant mountainous horizon through the claggy air. Whilst the cobbled streets reverberate to hordes of cute green VW Beatle taxis of untrustworthy and now unlicensed origin – a sure-fire route to a rip-off apparently (still cheaper than a London black cab I’ll wager). Big, noisy and dirty – we loved it. Where else is your metro station built around a restored Aztec temple?Staying next to the Zocalo, the famous central square, our hostel’s roof terrace bar had impossibly good views over the cathedral. The ...
More About: Guns , Arse

Sickness & Dogging...
2008-01-06 21:32:00
We left Guanajuato and headed towards the great gathering of the Monarch butterflies in El Rosario, supposedly one of the most incredible natural spectacles on the planet. Millions of Monarchs arrive to over winter in Mexican sanctuaries each year having migrated from as far north as their summering haunts in the Rocky Mountains. The weirdest thing is these migrations take longer than the average lifespan of a typical Monarch - about two months. So the butterflies that return to the over-wintering grounds are the great, great grandchildren of those that left the previous year. Think about this navigational feat next time you’re lost returning from the pub. And blame a distant ancestor for not telling you the way home.Alas, we never quite made it to El Rosario. En route in Morelia we enjoyed a fortifying breakfast of ‘huevos revueltos con chorizo verde’, which for any Dr Seuss fans out there was the living incarnation of ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ (no sign of ‘Sam I Am’ howev...
More About: Sickness

Let me put you in the picture...
2008-01-02 19:59:00
Happy New Year! We celebrated the start of 2008 on the beach in Mexico with new friends who seemed like old buddies, entertaining ourselves by making this little film. Enjoy!www.lowcarbontravel.com
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Big Daddy Splat!
2008-01-02 19:23:00
Following the ‘Museo de las Momias’ our experiments in activities of questionable taste continued with a night out at the ‘Lucha Libre’ (literally ‘free fight’) that is Mexican wrestling. Very much a family affair we sat in the ‘Parque Beis-Bol’ amongst groups comprising several generations of locals as the first bouts of the night began. We’d arrived ridiculously early so sat on our concrete bench behind the chicken wire fence separating us from the ring (in ‘The Pen’), our sense of anticipation increasing in direct proportion to the loss of feeling in our buttocks.The wrestlers in the first part of the bill looked like your Dad had decided to have a go. With podgy bodies clad in string vests, ‘budgie-smuggling’ Speedo swimming trunks and old tights they grappled with each other in amateurish style. One even looked like he was about to go fishing, wearing camouflage shorts and a khaki green body warmer. More J.R.Hartley than Giant Haystacks. In between bou...
More About: Daddy , Big Daddy

Mexican Yummy Mummies...
2007-12-30 22:02:00
Latest Observer column is published today so here's the text below, we're still enjoying the earthy charms of the Costa Esmeralda over Christmas and New Year, before heading to the Pacific Coast to meet friends from Spain on January 3rd. Wishing everyone a gorgeously slow, low carbon Hogmanay!22nd Observer ColumnThe generally reliable Mexican bus system conveyed us efficiently south through the sun-bleached dusty highlands and plains of the ‘Wild West’ country. The only discomfort we experienced was on a bus to Durango on which our seats were stuck in ‘full recline’ position. The sensation was not dissimilar to travelling along in a speeding dentist’s chair as we entered the colonial heartlands. We were certainly in the right place to pick up a few cheap fillings.The extraordinary architectural wealth of the Mexican ‘silver towns’ is based on the rich seams of precious metal-bearing rock that have been mined for almost half a millennium. In Zacatecas we visited ‘El...
More About: Yummy

Mexican Yummy Mummies...
2007-12-30 22:02:00
Latest Observer column is published today so here's the text below, we're still enjoying the earthy charms of the Costa Esmeralda over Christmas and New Year, before heading to the Pacific Coast to meet friends from Spain on January 3rd. Wishing everyone a gorgeously slow, low carbon Hogmanay!22nd Observer ColumnThe generally reliable Mexican bus system conveyed us efficiently south through the sun-bleached dusty highlands and plains of the ‘Wild West’ country. The only discomfort we experienced was on a bus to Durango on which our seats were stuck in ‘full recline’ position. The sensation was not dissimilar to travelling along in a speeding dentist’s chair as we entered the colonial heartlands. We were certainly in the right place to pick up a few cheap fillings.The extraordinary architectural wealth of the Mexican ‘silver towns’ is based on the rich seams of precious metal-bearing rock that have been mined for almost half a millennium. In Zacatecas we visited ‘El...
More About: Yummy

Feliz Navidad!
2007-12-23 15:50:00
We're off to the Caribbean coast today for Christmas and New Year so there'll be a few quiet days on the blog no doubt as we enjoy the undeveloped coastline of Veracruz (staying with friends of friends who are in the process of, sensitively no doubt, developing it and sleeping in their half-built hotel), where stray dogs rule and the oil industry lurks offshore...So, Feliz Navidad to everyone and here's a pic of the Christmas tree in Durango at sunset...www.lowcarbontravel.com

Masks & Missiles...
2007-12-22 00:32:00
As we left Durango on the bus we were amused to see huge signs saying ‘Liverpool’, the brand of a rather swanky and upmarket Mexican department store. At risk of ‘doing a Boris’ I’d suggest that this lent a hitherto well-hidden sheen of glamour to the city that those of us who’ve actually been there might not be so familiar with. (Unless you count Coleen McLoughlin as 'glamorous'. I don't. It's hard to look glamorous with an expensively dressed potato on your arm.)In the gorgeous city of Zacatecas we visited the Museo Rafael Coronel where they had a mind-blowing display of over 3000 masks (from a collection of 11,000!). Housed in a rabbit warren of rooms amongst the atmospheric ruins of an old convent, the masks ranged from bestial and ceremonial types, to a whole room full of red-lit devilish ‘Diabolo’ disguises, to grinning skull-like death masks and almost comical carnival headgear with long blonde straw wigs and ‘Carlos Valderrama’ afros. The cumulative e...
More About: Missiles , Masks , Missi

El Sol de Durango...
2007-12-20 01:43:00
After our ‘Sleepless in Los Mochis’ experience we caught the famous ‘Copper Canyon’ train to Creel. It was an eleven hour journey over 37 bridges and through 86 tunnels, the astonishing track winding its way up and through a seemingly impossible landscape of narrow dead-end valleys, pointed pinnacles and up onto a cool, piny mountain plateau. We stood between the carriages sticking our heads out of the window and playing ‘chicken’ with the approaching tunnel walls. Mindless, but thankfully not headless, fun.It was so cold in Creel we were glad of the carbon monoxide spewing ‘Death Machine’ gas heater in the corner of our room. A slow, lingering gaseous demise seemed preferable to being frozen into unconsciousness. As the heater warmed up it performed a passable impression of Rolf Harris on a wobble-board, it’s casing buckling and boinging with the heat. To warm ourselves up we hired bikes and set off to see some of the local weird, wind eroded rock formations. The ...

Latest Observer column...
2007-12-16 16:16:00
Just woken this morning in the fantastic Mexican silver town of Guanajuato, where they have buried most of the roads in old tunnels beneath the city leaving the narrow lanes above free for the people and a vibrant street culture - bloody marvellous! But more about that later...If you're looking to catch up on our latest Mexican news click here for 'Loud in Los Mochis'. My latest (twenty-first!) Observer column is also published today which looks at our journey across the Pacific and Mexican arrival. Click here to go directly to the Observer website or read on below for the text with some appropriate pictures.21st Observer Column We spent the night before departure onboard our New Zealand to Mexico cargo ship in Auckland harbour. After breakfast I realised with horror I’d left all the cables for my laptop in an internet café the previous day. Facing the prospect of sixteen days at sea with a useless computer I ran downstairs to Les the Captain’s cabin. ‘What time are we sail...
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Loud in Los Mochis...
2007-12-15 02:36:00
We left La Paz on a ferry across the Sea of Cortez to the Mexican mainland. True to form the lounge on the ship continued the trend of Mexican buses for showing hideously inappropriate films, treating us to a helping of tasteless splattergore involving reality TV show contestants being hunted down in grisly fashion by inbred cannibalistic hill-billies. Fun for all the family. The ship was also patrolled by a phalanx of armed security guards causing me to nervously ponder exactly what sort of trouble they might be expecting at sea. Passengers rioting in disgust at the choice of films perhaps?In Los Mochis we made the unfortunate choice of the Hotel Los Arcos as our place to stay. Our room was clean enough but the window had been taped and boarded up so there was no natural light and it reeked of cheap Brut-like aftershave so was a bit like sleeping in Henry Cooper’s armpit. The shower head had a built in heating element to warm the water which was wired to the mains in suitably qui...
More About: Loud

Logs and salty sea dogs...
2007-12-12 00:55:00
We arrived in La Paz in the rain. La Paz, Baja California that is, NOT Bolivia as one of our travelling mates thought. They accused us of flying in the process as they’d (probably correctly!) concluded there’s no way we could have got there overland in a week from northern Baja. Me? On a plane? On this trip? With my reputation?To enhance the damp ambience La Paz’s main street was being resurfaced creating an obstacle course of wet cement, open man-holes and drains, piles of new metal street furniture and the odd dangling electrical cable to add to the excitement. Ravenous we ate a spicy ‘sopas mariscos’ in a very local cantina, complete with obligatory blind guitar player strumming away in the corner. The soup later repeated slightly on us and our Spanish travelling companions but it wasn’t as odd as the meal the following night - ‘Pollo Perchuga’. Which consisted of half a deboned chicken, stuffed with spinach and goats cheese then liberally smeared with what looked...
More About: Dogs , Logs

Slideshow Bob...
2007-12-07 01:22:00
Having finally managed to get the files to upload on a creaking Mexican connection, here are the slideshows that I pulled together whilst tossing about in the Pacific on the Hansa Rensburg. I´ve set the images to vaguely appropriate music so the Chinese shots bounce along to Don Drummond´s reggae classic 'Eastern Standard Time', the Australia pics move to The Cat Empire's 'Hello' (which you either love or you hate) and the New Zealand photos shuffle along with Katchafire´s excellent 'This world'. Turn up your speakers or pop on some headphones and enjoy...The Chinese Way:Getting down, Down Under:In the Land of the Rings:www.lowcarbontravel.com
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Wrestling gimps...
2007-12-05 16:12:00
Long Mexican bus journeys are at least partially leavened by movie screenings of the often highly inappropriately violent or horrific variety (it’s good to toughen up the kids from a tender age). Boarding one bus we were tantalised by a Mexican wrestling DVD flickering on the screen. Paused at a critical moment in the bout one gimp-masked meathead held another in a complicated, enfolding embrace that wouldn’t look out of place in the Karma Sutra. We never did find out what happened next, though I’ll assume it wasn’t penetrative.Military checkpoints are also a regular feature of travel down the Baja. Bored recruits in sandy desert fatigues hunch disinterestedly over sand-bagged machine gun nests, long, live cartridge belts hanging menacingly beneath. Strangely, despite being stopped around half a dozen times they never shook down the bus for drugs – Mexican ‘narcos’ clearly travel in classier fashion.In Mulege, a small town sleepier and dustier than a sloth in a flour-s...
More About: Wrestling

What's for desert?
2007-12-03 18:44:00
After the depressing desolation of Ensenadan suburbia and a couple of hundred miles further south on the bus we arrived in Catavina at dusk. Not quite qualifying for the dizzyingly aspirational status of a ‘one horse town’ (the best they could probably rustle up would be a few mangy dogs) the Spaghetti Western style hamlet sprawled along either side of Highway One in dusty dribs and drabs of aged and mostly abandoned buildings. The setting was magnificent however. A rugged plateau of massive broken boulders, some house-sized and squatting threateningly in precarious teetering piles beside the road, stretched to a horizon of dark, venerable and long extinct volcanic cones and distant rocky ridges. Amongst the fragmented rocks grew a variety of enormous cacti. Their sparse but crudely even distribution lent a curiously ‘hairy’ texture to the landscape, like the bum fluff an acned teenager is unable to shave for fear of removing the peaks of his pimples with the razor.Besides t...
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