Category Archives: Travel

Soon we leave for a weeklong family vacation, and I wondered about what ways we might green our summer getaway. TRANSPORTATION First, we’re not flying. That saves huge carbon emissions right there, especially for a shorter trip like Rhode Island to Maryland. Airplane take-offs and landings guzzle extra energy, which makes short flights particularly eco-damaging… although there are some cases where flying might be better than driving. Taking the train or bus would be the greenest mode of transportation, however our 32-mpg Scion xB remains a pretty good car option. On the road, better fuel economy equals fewer dollars and fewer polluting emissions. Here are some tips for getting the best mileage on a trip: Check the tire pressure, as my dad never fails to remind me. Under-inflated tires require you to burn more gas to keep the car moving. Slow down. As speed increases, fuel economy decreases. According to … Continue reading →

I’m beginning to ease back into “normal” life after a ten-day anniversary trip to Italy. Ease being the key word. It’s the Italian way. It’s also the Sofie way. La dolce vita (the sweet life) is alive and well in the land of my ancestors. For my husband and I, eating, drinking and relaxing was the point of our vacation. For the locals, that is the point. Period. Shops and businesses (even banks and post offices) really do close between 1:00 and 3:00…and many don’t even open until after 9:00. As a tourist, I felt frustrated by this inconvenience—seeing a chiuso sign on the door of an interesting shop, knowing I wouldn’t be in the area when they returned. However, that frustration merely shielded jealousy over a country-wide, sanctioned two-hour midday break. How nice that would be in America! Weekday afternoons in Italy saw men and women leaving offices to … Continue reading →

Happy new year everyone! Sorry I’ve been away so long. (Save The Bay’s communications world keeps me very busy.) But I am attempting to commit to blogging weekly in 2011. And I’ll begin by confessing that my family has just returned from a holiday trip to Disney World. It’s like the anti-green vacation, but I felt obligated to go — my in-laws were paying and Sofie’s princess-obsessed eyes lit up at the notion of seeing Cinderella’s Castle. How could I refuse? There’s nothing quite like the Magic Kingdom in the week between Christmas and New Year’s when hordes of families descend upon the resort and your day is marked by how many two-hour-long lines you’ve waited in just to enjoy a 60-second ride. I’m typically not a fan of crowds, and it definitely makes me grumpy when the crowds are composed of tired, whiny children and parents with glazed expressions, … Continue reading →

We’ve just returned from back-to-back road trips: one celebrating my husband’s 40th birthday in New Hampshire’s White Mountains; the other a family reunion in southern New Jersey. Were the trips eco-friendly? Let’s find out. We certainly emitted less carbon by driving instead of flying – and our Scion xB (with adequately inflated tires) averaged a wallet-friendly 34 mpg on the highway. Traveling in the shoulder season, we didn’t require air conditioning or heat in either location. And we constantly toted along our reusable aluminum water bottles. But it was my husband’s family that took the eco-prize. My Filipino in-laws tend toward green practices naturally, and for them, it’s not part of the current eco-movement, it’s cultural. They have never owned a dryer – clothes hang on a line year-round. They keep the thermostat low (often mid-winter, I’ve wondered if it was even on) and just pile on the sweaters. In … Continue reading →