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Most people love holidays and I am no exception. Indeed, I am a holiday junkie. No sooner is one finished than I am looking for my next fix.
Early in 2007, having just returned from Malaga, my thoughts turned to the proposition of the next holiday. That fateful evening coincided with my 10 year old, for a school project, wanting information on the family's carbon footprint.
Having looked at the carpet I could instantly see that we did not have coal dust al over the floor and so I received some tuition from the prodigy.
After some explanation, Sam took me on a tour of the BP.com carbon calculator (now there is a case of the poacher turning gamekeeper!).
Did you know, and not a lot of people know this, that the average family pumps out around 10 tonnes of carbon a year. No I didn't either. My puritan son then went on to calculate our carbon output during our trip from London to Malaga. With the flights and the hotel room air conditioning it came to around 2.13 tonnes.
I am not an eco warrior but I dutifully separate my cans and plastics, though it must be admitted that the wrong boxes are put out for collection on the wrong day. However, these figures did bring me up with a jolt, especially when that web site gave the useful information that 10 tonnes is enough to fill 2 Olympic sized swimming pools. So our holiday alone 20% of the volume of an Olympic sized swimming pool into the atmosphere.
Now whether it is an Olympic sized or just your local public pool. That is a big lump of pollution.
So, under the puritanical eye of my son I then decided that we would holiday in the UK. Sam dropped the huge hint that camping would be fun. Well he is 10 so what does he know. My recollections of camping were discomfort and missing the vital necessities of life.
However, we considered buying a tent. But then the list of what I considered vital items to take grew ever longer. It soon became clear that my choices were, buy a larger car or abandon the ideas of camping. The first idea was not viable and the latter option would cause domestic civil war. What to do? The answer came from finding www.funintent.com
The caravanandcanvas.com idea is simple: we pick out and book the campsite that suits us and they have all the equipment delivered and erected by the time we arrive at the site. This solution killed a flock of birds with one stone. No expensive kit to buy; a raft of equipment (such as full sized BBQ and furniture) which we could not possibly get into our car.
Rubbish weather first day followed by 6 glorious days. And yes it was fun.
On our return we worked out that our carbon emissions were around .17 of a tonne. Less than 8% of what we would have produced during our flight to Malaga.
I realised that I had visited 19 countries in my life but I had never been to Dorset. In fact, most of the UK is a foreign land to me. This, our family will start to remedy.
But what of the shortcomings of camping?
What deters many people is the thought of the erection and disassembly of the tent. The privations such as poor cooking facilities and lack of furniture. Most camping sites are equipped to a high standard. Modern tents are very comfortable, well ventilated and spacious.
For those who might wish to try our camping without the high expense of the right kit hire it from www.funintent.com .
So here are my holiday statistics:
Carbon footprint .17 tonnes as opposed to 2.13 for the Malaga trip.
Cost of travel and accommodation for the three of us:
£220.00 for the camping holiday split between my family of three and another family who came along working out at an astonishing £5.23 per head!
The Malaga trip the cost was £1890!
Sure, if weather had been bad in Dorset the fun might have worn thin, however, when planning your holiday make up a wet weather itinerary and there is an awful lot to do under cover in the this country.
Saved money; the family loved the experience and to my youngsters I was an eco-hero having saved the world from accelerating toward doom.
Worried about the hassles of camping? Most of these are eliminated by companies such as funintent.com who hire, deliver, erect and remove the tent. Plus they supply a wide range of items to make your camping holiday comfortable.
My name is Mike Pelss founder of www.funintent.com. Through us you can rent tents, furniture, bike, barbecues, in fact anything to make your camping holiday a fun and comfortable experience.
It is my belief that the "green" lobby has made anything environmentally friendly seem worthy, but dull as ditch water. Drop the worthy stuff and just think of the fun you and your family will have.
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