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A young woman I met today on the side of the I-25 freeway on ramp in Albuquerque as I was heading home to Santa Fe...I feel bad because I gave her only $4.00...she was about ...
"I used to be vegetarian… and then I went on vacation."
I've heard this travel excuse for dropping one's dietary dedications more often than any other. It's as if there ar...
One of the joys of living in Nowhere, New Mexico, is the number of UFO sightings that take place here. Apparently abductions abound, also.
Nice! One can dream, right?
A wh...
I got mothered right my first year at Burning Man. There are things a virgin Burner needs to know. There are protective items mortally necessary to bring. There are taboos tha...
You may recall learning on this site about the masses of plastic discovered fouling the world’s oceans. And you may have read further about plastic debris being ingested by ...
Islands magazine has a new agreement to publish submissions by Green Globe International about hotels and travel businesses that meet the Green Globe certification criteria (a...
As I shared in my previous two blogs, my family recently WWOOFed for three weeks in Italy. Among the farm’s products, pecorino cheese and a sweet, mild yogurt counted tow...
Here’s my final tip on how to drop tourism and really travel:
Tip 6: Give Something Back The single most important thing you can do to distinguish yourself as a traveler ...
Here are two more ways to help you drop tourism and really travel:
Tip 4: Seek Out Cultural Arts, Sites and Ritual The community theatre production I attended on Grand Baha...
As I described in my previous blog entry, my husband, daughter and I spent three weeks in Italy as WWOOFers (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms). I usually began my wor...
Last week I shared the first of six ways to help you drop tourism and really travel. Here are my second and third tips:
Tip 2: Step Away From the Rental Car I've found hitch...
In 2000, I decided that something had to change. The New Orleans heat was driving me crazy and I wanted to move closer to some mountains—any mountains. The stress of my job ...
I've understood from a very young age that I'm meant to leave footprints all over the planet before I die. I love to travel because it keeps me moving, enriches my life and nu...
For nearly two months, almost every day, a well-dressed, clean-shaven man has been standing at a busy intersection outside Santa Fe city limits. He stands several hours, usual...
Energy-efficient transportation can be easy to obtain on home turf. Drive hybrid car–check. Ride bicycle–check. Hop on bus–check. Green traveling can become habitual at ...
Been there, done that, got the T-shirt and the dengue fever… What will you bring home from vacation this summer? Now that global warming is increasing the spread of mosq...
Toss a mega loop of rope over the Four Corners where Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona meet. Now arrange the perimeter so it divides Utah diagonally northeast-southwest...
I packed us up—my car, my toddler, myself—for a 12-hour ride, intending to follow my parents all the way home, all the way to Alberta, Canada. This trip was to be the big ...
Milking goats, painting sunscreen on baby trees, tanning animal skins, bottling tomato sauce, harvesting wild greens, fermenting wine, gathering acorns, coagulating cheese, ra...
Santa Fe just celebrated its 400th birthday as North America’s oldest capital city. Yet it is also among the most forward-thinking when it comes to ecology.
A walkable, bi...
It was sometime in January this year, in Xi’an, a Chinese provincial capital. Smog hung so thick in the air that you couldn't see the smoke from the burning garbage piles th...
A wedding is one of the most important celebrations in any lifetime. Usually they are sparkling affairs filled with old friends and families, wine, dancing, dresses, cake and....
Ten people riding one bus emit less CO2 than 10 people driving 10 cars, especially when that bus is running on low-emission or carbon-free fuel. Mass transit can first help th...
In 2005, Florida had an estimated 85.5 million visitors. While the majority enjoyed rollercoaster rides and sun-drenched beaches, a few craving more adventure sought out lesse...
Japanese bullet trains used to be a nuisance for people living near rail tunnels because they produced a cacophonous sonic boom when they reemerged into the open. Then the ind...
Again, in visiting many, many other countries and cultures, for many, many years, I’ve been offended by only one thing.
I remember once, years ago, when I was engaged to m...
Yes, in visiting many, many other countries and cultures, for many, many years, I’ve been offended by only one thing.
'Oh, but we’re French! So forcefully stuffing a loa...
In visiting many, many other countries and cultures, over many, many years, I’ve been offended by only one thing.
I don’t care about the ‘wiping with the left hand and...
Turning back the tide of ecological destruction may seem a daunting task, especially when viewed from the perspective of one individual up against multinational corporate gree...
Last summer my family took a road trip through northern California. We slept under coastal redwoods and hopscotched across manifold landscape to visit seldom-seen friends. Our...
For the eighth year in a row, the quais and canals of Paris play something of a magic trick—a selected few transform into beaches now that summer has hit.
Sure, ‘beach...
Soybeans, baseball and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That’s Ohio to most. And to some degree, it is to me, too. But it’s also the place I was born and raised. A plac...
A century ago this month, on July 18, 1909, a fresh-faced young forester, the ink barely dry on his Yale diploma, arrived in Springerville, Arizona. Aldo Leopold, who would be...
Looking back is often a good way to learn how to move forward. Looking back is especially relevant when trying to figure out how to live in the present real world and not caus...
As my favorite two foods are pizza and ice cream, I walked around Italy drooling like a dog. Every two meters I’d find a gelaterie selling countless flavors of ice cream, so...
I’ve journeyed into the rainforests of Costa Rica, where generators powering eco-lodges shut off at 9 p.m. and the sound of insects feverishly attempting to penetrate mosqui...
“Mom, I want a leather jacket for Christmas,” I proclaimed early into the school year, in order to give her and my dad plenty of time to process the request and take appro...
Out like a lamb, March heralds spring and its dewy, warm air. It’s just begging me to unearth my musty tent from its winter quarters in the basement—along with the relat...
It is a banana. It's not a banana. It is a banana. It's not a banana.
Warning to all my fellow raw-fooders: tropical travel with ruin you forever. For after three weeks on...
To escape urban life, my family enjoys car camping in one of many gorgeous state and national parks in the intermountain West. I prefer a tent to a hotel room, where noisy ven...
As quickly as the beer entered his hand, Manuel tipped the drink, dropping a few drops of the precious gold fluid onto the earth. I gasped. “For Pachamama,” he smiled.
A...
So you fly a lot, as I do, and have successfully navigated 11 countries, all 50 states and the realization that "just because it's free does not mean I'm hungry," saving your ...
We usually think about how we live in the real world and how we take care of it in terms of protection--setting aside special places--and pollution--being more careful with th...
For those of us who live a more natural lifestyle, interacting with our relatives who do not can be challenging. We want to stick with our homemade, natural lives without look...
Vacations come in all shapes and sizes—from sipping cocktails on the beach to scaling an icy mountain precipice. No matter how you picture yours, have you considered its env...
The American Medical Association estimates that there are 45 million US citizens without health insurance. Families USA, a nonprofit that works for affordable healthcare, esti...
I walk a lot. I have a dog. He likes to walk a lot, too. Every day, and for hours, if I would agree. I often do. Still, in the winter, going outside at all takes a serious com...
Meet a grizzly bear in the wild and, whatever you do, remain still; don’t run. Have a close encounter with a black bear and you should actively stay—and fight like hell. T...
Since this is my first column for EcoHearth.com, I thought I’d start by introducing myself. And one of the best ways to do that is to tell you about a trip I took to the Gal...
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