Are you a "Responsible" Traveller?

Are you a respons­ible trav­el­ler? Believe in trav­el­ling green?
When trav­el­ling in South Africa, you can travel respons­ibly, travel green and give back to com­munit­ies, by choos­ing pro­viders who sub­scribe to the ethos of eco-tourism (see: What is Eco-Tourism?).

How to Travel Green:

• book eco-friendly accom­mod­a­tions
• get around responsibly
  • trains offer eco­nom­ical travel with a lower car­bon foot­print than a plane or car ...
  • share the foot­print by using pub­lic trans­port when pos­sible (and safe) or "share-ride" with com­pan­ies like The Green Cab
  • if you need wheels of your own, con­sider a bicycle if dis­tances (and safety) per­mit, or hire a hybrid car (look for the Toyota Prius Hybrid — avail­able from select Avis loc­a­tions in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban).
• choose tour organ­isers with envir­on­ment­ally respons­ible practices
• sup­port sus­tain­able tour­ism — there are hun­dreds of eco-friendly activ­it­ies in South Africa
  try wind surf­ing instead of jet-skiing, hire a bicycle instead of a har­ley, hike to the top of Table Mountain for a birds-eye-view instead of doing a heli­copter flip, hire a canoe instead of a power boat ...
• add a "volun­teer day" onto your hol­i­day — help out and give back to local com­munit­ies
  we'll be bring­ing you ideas on where to volun­teer in the weeks to come
• reduce your own indi­vidual car­bon foot­print — trav­el­ling on a plane? Select an air­line with the latest, more fuel-efficient jets as this will reduce your indi­vidual car­bon foot­print, as trav­el­ling by air is simply not friendly to the envir­on­ment. So what to do? South Africa beck­ons to be explored and pad­dling the ocean to get here by boat is not an option, so hop on a plane and then off­set your car­bon foot­print by join­ing a scheme that "pays back" what you "spent" in terms of emis­sions by plant­ing trees in an equi­val­ent amount to the car­bon foot­print of your flight — this assists local com­munit­ies too (see the Wikipedia entry on car­bon off­set­ting at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_offset).

Eco-friendly activ­it­ies in South Africa by Province

In keep­ing with August's theme of Eco-Tourism, over the next four weeks we will be be pub­lish­ing art­icles on volun­teer­ing and eco-friendly activ­it­ies in South Africa by Province, so that wherever you are headed in South Africa, you can make informed decisions on what to do that will not only make your hol­i­day enjoy­able but will also give back to local com­munit­ies and not impact det­ri­ment­ally on the envir­on­ment. Happy Travelling!

Useful Links:

• Urban Sprout
• Fair Trade in Tourism
• Cape Town Green Map