Conde Nast Traveler compiles their list of America's 10 best hikes.
Today's post is about bike trips because we've noticed that biking has become more popular and more people are writing about it.We were guys staying at the same hotel with our mistresses.Leah Larkin writes about her and husband Bob's bike trip through France's wine country for the military newspaper Stars and Stripes.
He looked like a Taiwanese gangster, with permed hair, black suit and pointy knockoff Italian loafers. It was 5:30 a.m. and he was renting a room for a few hours with a woman in a leather mini skirt, fishnet stockings and the longest false eyelashes I've ever seen. They had no luggage.
My mistress was my $4,000 carbon-fiber bicycle
Bicycle Bob, my cycling husband, is not like most of us on a bicycle. He loves hills, the steeper the better.And Sue Halpern writes for Conde Nast Traveler about biking in the flat country of Denmark.
On a trip last autumn in the Vaucluse region of Provence in southern France, he found a winner — a "mini Mont Ventoux" (the famous Tour de France mountain). That’s what a local called it.
"Yes, yes, Mr. Gore, of course we all want to do our part for the environment. But the inconvenient truth is that we're loath to trade in our resort's 1,000-thread-count bed sheets for rough-woven ones that feel like burlap. Perhaps we're asking for a lot, but aren't there hotels that are environmentally friendly and still sinfully sumptuous? The answer is yes... So drop into one of these green retreats—and check your guilt at the door."One of the featured green luxury resorts is this one pictured above in Egypt that was built entirely out of clay and salt and eschews electricity. It was good enough for Prince Charles and Camilla, who are by the way eco-champions themselves. So if you can shell out the $400 a night charge, it'll be all in the name of the environment.
"GreenPrint keeps track of how much ink, paper, and money you're saving -- and in addition to the trees that won't be harvested, you'll be saving energy and water that would otherwise be used in paper production and shipping."Read the full post: GreenPrint saves trees
Conde Nast Traveler's latest issue is filled with green travel advice. One of the feature articles is a so-called handbook on how to travel the eco way. G. Jeffrey MacDonald does give some insightful tips on how to counter the ethical dilemmas many travelers face, like when deciding whether travel is good/bad for the environment verses being good/bad for the local developing economy:"But experts are quick to point out that the most obvious solutions to problems such as these—reducing our flights and using less water—aren't necessarily the best way forward. If travelers quit flying, for instance, wildlife and nature preserves in developing countries would likely fail, [Martha Honey, executive director of the Center on Ecotourism and Sustainable Development, in Washington, D.C.] says. "It would be devastating to the local economies and to the national parks in those places that depend on tourism."
