Richard Hammond

Presenter of HOW TO HOLIDAY GREENER

When we first started researching the series, Richard Hammond was a goldmine of information and story ideas. Over the past ten years he’s visited and reported on hundreds of greener holidays, some of which made it into our series. If you’re interested in reading his reports click on the links below -

Cottage Lodge, Brockenhurst
Knoydart, Scotland
Loch Ossian Youth Hostel, Scotland
TYF Eco Hotel, Wales

My first ecotourism trip was a voluntary conservation holiday where I spent 10 weeks working on community and conservation projects for the youth development charity Raleigh International in Mauritius. I have fond memories of the trip – the people I met, the thrill of visiting a different culture, and also because the experience gave me my first taste of how travel can put something back into holiday destinations.

That was over a decade ago, and things have moved on a lot since then. Nowadays, green holidays are no longer limited to weekend working holidays or going on conservation holidays to far-flung places; the green agenda now applies to all kinds of holidays – from city breaks to long summer holidays. It’s a change that has come about in response to the nation’s acceptance that climate change is happening and that we all have to do something about it. Just as there’s been a clarion call for our daily tasks to become more energy efficient – from home heating to the food we eat and how we travel to work – so there has been realisation that the way we holiday has to change. The average annual carbon footprint per person in the UK is about 12 tonnes, yet just one return flight to Australia is equivalent to half this. Compare this with a return trip from London to Fort William, Scotland by train, which emits just 0.07 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

‘How to Holiday Greener’ shows that even small changes can make a difference. Choosing low-impact ways to travel, turning a dripping tap off, taking a shower instead of a bath, turning off your hotel room’s air conditioning when you leave the room – they might seem inconsequential, but when you consider tourism on a global scale – last year there were over 800 million tourist trips worldwide – every trip counts.

The series also shows that going green doesn’t mean you have to compromise on having a good time. It’s about going on normal holidays and choosing to stay at those places that are making a commitment to lessening their impact on the environment through more efficient use of energy and better waste management. And there are plenty of places to choose that are doing this. The Green Tourism Business Scheme has certified over 1,000 properties in England and Scotland for their green credentials, from B&Bs to five-star hotels.

This scheme is just one of the many inspirational organisations featured in ‘How to Holiday Greener’. It’s a groundbreaking new series, and yet it really only provides a snapshot of the huge number of green choices that are now available. The trick is knowing where to look and what you can do to make a difference. ‘How to Holiday Greener’ shows you how.

If you’re wanting to make your next holiday a greener one, the below websites have some great green ideas and useful travel tips.

Ecoescape
A directory of green places to stay and visit in the UK.
www.ecoescape.org

Natural Discovery
A website that promotes a range of places to stay in the UK that are committed to environmental improvement.
www.naturaldiscovery.co.uk

Organic Places to Stay
A directory of places to stay in the UK where at least 50% of the meals are organic.
www.organicholidays.co.uk

Sustrans
The UK’s leading sustainable transport charity whose vision is “a world in which people can choose to travel in ways that benefit their health and the environment.” It co-ordinates the National Cycle Network, which provides over 8,000 miles of signed cycle routes in the UK.
www.sustrans.org.uk

Traveline
The UK’s national portal for bus, coach and train information.
www.traveline.org.uk

Seat61.com
The best place on the net for finding information about travelling by train to the continent.
www.seat61.com

Waterscape
For attractions and places to go along Britain's 4,000 miles of canals, rivers and lakes.
www.waterscape.com

Green Tourism Business Scheme
The UK’s leading certification scheme that rates tourism-related businesses, such as hotels, travel companies and conference venues, on their green credentials.
www.green-business.co.uk

National Parks
Government website that provides details on the UK’s 14 national parks and links to each park’s National Park Authority.
www.nationalparks.gov.uk

The Travel Foundation
A UK-based charity set up to manage tourism more sustainably. It is supported by leading tour operators, such as First Choice, Sunvil and Keycamp.
www.thetravelfoundation.org.uk

Blue Flag
An exclusive eco-label that identifies environmentally sound beaches and marinas. This year, more than 3,200 beaches and marinas in 37 countries were awarded the Blue Flag. It is run by the independent non-profit organisation Foundation for Environmental Education.
www.blueflag.org

Green Traveller
For tips on how to have a greener holiday.
www.greentraveller.co.uk

Cottage Lodge, Brockenhurst

* Richard Hammond
* The Guardian
* Saturday March 17 2007

Cottage Lodge, Brockenhurst

New you ... Cottage Lodge in Brockenhurst, the New Forest

The New Forest's status as a national park is helping to pull in over seven million visitors a year, yet many arrive by car and add to the pollution and congestion in and around the ancient woodland. The Cottage Lodge is a restored 16th-century B&B five minutes' walk from Brockenhurst train station in the heart of the park.

The lodge's ample car park must have impressed the AA's inspectors who have rated the lodge the best B&B in the New Forest, yet there's free tea and scones if you arrive by train and if you do come by car you're encouraged to leave it in the car park while you explore the forest on foot, by bike or on horseback. The snug sitting room is supported by beams from an old boat, there's thick insulation throughout the rooms and kitchen waste is recycled.

I stayed in one of the large, en suite modern rooms on the ground floor; though the low-ceiling rooms in the old part of the cottage have more character. In the morning I was served a "New Forest breakfast" with all ingredients sourced from within 10 miles of the lodge, including free range eggs from Ashley, mushrooms from Cowsfield, and sausages from pigs reared in the forest.

Maps and detailed instructions are provided on the many circular walks from the lodge and there's cycle hire in the village from where you can explore over 100 miles of off-road cycle tracks.

cottagelodge.co.uk, rooms from £50 B&B.

Knoydart, Scotland

* Richard Hammond
* The Guardian
* Saturday August 4 2007

Knoydart, Scotland

Go wild ... pitch up in remote Knoydart in Scotland. Photograph: Roger Antrobus/Corbis

Few places on the British mainland are as remote as Inverie on the Knoydart peninsula on the north-west coast of Scotland. Though it's off limits to cars, you can reach it by public transport so it's a great place to go with a tent on your back. There are plenty of places to pitch in the wild, one of the best is a level area just behind the "long beach", a short stroll round the bay from where the ferry drops you off at Inverie harbour. Other than a bird hide at the end of the beach, you'll be alone beneath a Munro at the edge of the sandy shore. The Knoydart Foundation has an office in the village where you can arrange to hire a boat for fishing or to explore the sea lochs and bays around the islands before returning for a platter of freshly caught scallops at The Old Forge. If you climb up the hills you're likely to find deer roaming and you can see across to the Isle of Skye and the Outer Hebrides.

knoydart-foundation.com. Sleeper Euston-Mallaig via Glasgow from £155 return (scotrail.com, 0845 6015929), ferry Mallaig-Knoydart £10 return, based on a group of more than six (bluebadgercruises.co.uk)

Loch Ossian_Wilderness Scotland

Yours for £13 a night

Feeling skint? Don't worry - getting away from it all needn't take a toll on your wallet, or the environment

* Richard Hammond
* The Guardian
* Saturday December 30 2006

Loch Ossian Youth Hostel

Youth gone wild ... Loch Ossian Youth Hostel is in one of Scotland's remotest areas.

The Highlands provide a much more stirring and dramatic scene on a dark, forbidding day than they do in bright sunshine. Standing at the top of Carn Dearg, a 3,394ft Munro on Rannoch Moor in the southern Highlands, dark clouds threatened a downpour, yet shafts of brilliant sunlight fell across the shadowy mountains. I'd spent the morning squelching peat underfoot and sucking in lungfulls of crisp air to get some height and my reward was a glimpse of wild Scotland in all its age-old glory.

My guide for the day was Neil Birnie, co-founder of Wilderness Scotland, an adventure travel company that organises holidays throughout the Highlands and islands. For walking holidays in Rannoch Moor, they use Loch Ossian Youth Hostel, which has no road access and can only be reached on foot over the mountains or from Corrour train station. Though the hostel is in one of the wildest parts of the country, Corrour is on the Caledonian sleeper from London, so you can leave Euston at 9.15pm and arrive in the heart of the Highlands just before 9am the following morning.

After bacon butties and tea at the station cafe, we walked the mile-long winding path to the hostel. It's in a stunning setting, tucked in a small clump of birch and rowan trees overlooking the spectacular Loch Ossian. The Scottish Youth Hostels Association has owned it for the past 75 years and has recently given it a green makeover. Electricity is powered by a combination of wind turbine and solar panels, there are compost toilets and a natural reed-bed filtration system cleans the waste water. There's a fully equipped kitchen with hot water and a multi-fuel stove, and two dorms for eight and 12 people. Wildlife thrives in the surrounding Corrour Estate - Nick Priest, the hostel's warden, told me he recently recorded the 100th species of bird in the area; otters live on the loch, and roe deer, red squirrels and pine martens are regularly seen on the mountainside and in the estate's forests.

The rustic setting of Loch Ossian is typical of the wild, open spaces Wilderness Scotland has sought for over 30 types of outdoor adventure holiday, including walking, sailing, mountain-biking, sea-kayaking and canoeing, as well as wildlife and photography courses. Most of its holidays begin at train stations, where the walk or cycle ride begins, or, for trips out to the Western Isles, you're met off the train and transferred by boat.

Its efforts to encourage train travel and reduce the carbon footprint of its holidays have won Wilderness Scotland a reputation as one of the leading environmentally friendly travel companies. It is the first adventure tour operator in the UK to attain the Green Tourism Business Scheme Gold Award and was highly commended in the First Choice Responsible Tourism Awards in November. In 2006, the company organised 70 trips for over 500 clients and the total mileage of all of its vehicles was just over 12,000 miles. That's the same carbon emissions as one person's return flight from London to Singapore. But it's not just the company's commitment to low emissions transport that is proving a hit. Birnie says there's a growing interest in its trips because people see Scotland as an affordable and accessible place to get back to nature.

At the top of Carn Dearg, Birnie proudly pointed out: "If you go further north or to the west, for as far as your eye can see, there are another hundred scenes just like this." And he doesn't just mean the view; there are plenty of opportunities to see a variety of wildlife. On the three-hour descent down the mountain towards Rannoch train station, we saw a herd of deer, two ptarmigan just yards away from the path, and a peregrine falcon swooping mid-flight to catch a meadow pipit. And not a car or plane in sight.

A bed at Loch Ossian Youth Hostel (0870 1 55 32 55) costs £13 per person or you can rent the entire hostel for up to 20 people from £225 a night. Sleeper train from Euston to Corrour costs from £107.20 return (firstscotrail.com, 08457 55 00 33). An eight-day guided walking holiday to Knoydart with Wilderness Scotland (0131 625 6635) costs £795pp, including accommodation, meals, guide and transport to from Mallaig train station on the West Highland Line.

TYF Eco Hotel

* Richard Hammond
* The Guardian
* Saturday June 23 2007

This converted 200-year-old windmill at the edge of St David's in the Pembrokeshire coast national park is billed as "the first organic certified hotel in Wales". The old mill stones lie at the front of the building, and, though the sails have gone, the original windmill tower still stands...

The low sofas and corner bar in the front room are more hostel than hotel, but the restaurant and rooms are smarter and you can climb up to the tower lounge for an excellent view of St David's and the coast. Nearly all the food is organic (as certified by the Welsh organic scheme), local and seasonal, and as well as veggie options there's organic wine, beer and cider. The hotel is 10 minutes from the beach and can arrange plenty of adventure activities, including kayaking, surfing and rock climbing.