7-Tips To Greener Rafting Vacation
Posted: Friday, May 01, 2009
by Christopher Pyle
Action Whitewater Adventures
I, like you, have been inundated with the word, Green. For me, I'm not tired of it, in fact, I find it interesting how many 'main-stream' companies are embracing the concept but I worry many will tire of the barrage. Some tuned out long before this recent surge began and they're probably untouchable when it comes to converting them to Green champions. Others are in the wait and see mode of learning and then there are those of us who are interested and dabble in Green exploration and of course, the complete Green geeks.
1. As an outfitter I cannot count the number of times I see friends, driving from the same location/neighborhood arrive in a caravan of vehicles. There are a variety of valid reasons to drive separately but on more than one occasion carpooling would have been an eco-friendly option. If you have a big group of folks coming rafting, looking into busing. Some of the rafting companies can get you great rates with a bus company. For example, last year, for groups of 44 or less, I had a luxury bus line ready to provide round trip passage from Southern California for as little as $36 per person. This is a great option. You're traveling with friends, there are DVD players on the bus, a bathroom and someone else is doing the driving. This is a nice carbon footprint reducing measure.
2. Cook with propane. If you have the ability to use a propane barbecue rather than charcoal, do so. Propane burns cleaner. This is a tough one, the taste of charred cooking is so good... There's talk of the stuff coming off the charcoal not being good for your health either, so, you now have two reasons to reconsidered charcoal.
3. Sunblock is a must when you're out on the river or out in the sun. There are some debates as to what's good for your skin and what isn't; however, there is less and less debate about the damaging effects of sunblock on the ocean's coral reefs. While rafting isn't in the ocean, we figure it might be good for you to look for organic/all natural sunblocks avoiding the following: PABA, octinoxate, oxybenzone, 4-methylbenzylidene camphor and the preservative butylparaben. I just heard upwards of 6-million gallons of sunblock is being washed off our bodies and into the oceans annually!!
4. If you love water and all the recreation water can bring, you may want to invest in your own vest. Apparently we can't call them "life"-vests any longer because there is no guarantee they can save a life and someone somewhere sued. So we in the industry call them, Personal Flotation Devices or PFDs for short. Nonetheless, whatever you call that think that buckles around your mid section and provides you with flotation, there are some choices to be made. If you want to go as green as you can, you might want to check into Astral , they use a completely recyclable foam, easier on the earth, easier to process. Plus, their vests have a good reputation as well.
5. Shop locally, shop organically. Have you gone organic yet? We have at my home. When you do, here's something you'll learn very quickly, food spoils far faster. For us, we paused, scratched our heads and asked, what the heck is in the other food that lets it last so darn long? Buying organic for the most part means your foods have traveled less distance to get to you and thus have a smaller carbon footprint. In many cases the products used to grow the foods is far better for the earth, the animals are treated better, raised more closely to life in the wild, etc.
6. Just by whitewater rafting you're Greener! Getting down a river requires human power, not electric or fuel run engines.
7. One of the biggest changes we can make, whether on vacation or not, is to dump this habit of buying plastic bottled water. Look for reusable water containers. It's very important to hydrate, especially when active, like whitewater rafting. My favorite container is glass, the breakage factor often makes me chose something else but when the benefit outweighs the chance of breakage, I opt for glass. Switching to metal or even glass bottles is an excellent positive move. Here's a link from actress Rachel McAdams' website, Green Is Sexy, that sells semi-designer glass bottles, Love Bottle.
Hopefully these 7-tips help make your whitewater rafting vacation Greener. Hopefully being Greener makes you feel better about yourself, empowers you to realize how little an effort makes a huge difference. I'm enjoying the battle between the big corporations as they come out with better cars, better cleaners and better foods. Ultimately, the benefit is all of ours as we save our planet and reverse the negatives now in place.
Enjoy your rafting experience!
Christopher Pyle has more than 20-years experience in the outdoors and whitewater rafting. He holds a BA degree in Humanities with an emphasis on Child Literature & coming of age tales He's authored ART, a customer service training program. His passion and focus is on youth and aims at building better people through better experience.
This Article has been viewed 32 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)This was one fantastic article, Christopher! You made it lively, interesting and fun to read--all that and chocked full of good helpful hints for the 'green' groopy. I loved it. Thanks for a great peice.SandraThat was so kind of you to say. Thank you kindly. I try to make them worth reading. I'm glad this one worked for you! Christopher
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.