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In this update: Holidaying with a thought for our aching Earth! Anyone for rehab?Holidaying on your doorstep.Cruising Holiday of a lifetime!

Soaring fuel prices and a dwindling economy are beginning to change the way South Africans are considering how, where and when to take that much needed escape. Your orthodox annual two-week holiday seldom happens these days, it is the long weekend, mid-week 5 nighter or possibly stretching it to a 7-night getaway that most leisure travellers get round to doing. The globe trotting businessperson very often incorporates a short vacation with a business trip, cutting down on the travel cost as it is at the company’s expense that one has arrived at one’s destination. There are other important factors which contribute to the choice of destination, with the prohibitive fuel prices is it not time to start thinking seriously about how carbon neutral you are and looking at the ‘green’ travel highway. Here are some tips:

1. Travel by coach or train rather than in your own car, you get to see lots more of the countryside during the journey to your destination.
2. Travel by train domestically. It will add to your holiday fun and you avoid the queues and contingencies at crowded airports.
3. If traveling overseas use trains to traverse the terrain you are visiting, train travel is also much more fun.
4. When on holiday hire a bicycle to explore locally.
5. Request that the hotel only washes your room towels every other day.

Click on the following link to read about what the eco – tourist pioneer Dr Donald Hawkins has to say about eco-tourism and beyond to geo-tourism. It makes for interesting and responsible reading:

http://www.changemakers.net/en-us/node/7069