Wise Travel Though tourism has become a major element in many economies, its costs are causing many second thoughts and a search for better alternatives. The United Nations Environment Program is now studying the impact and costs of tourism in developing countries, and several cost-benefit studies have been completed by other agencies and academic institutions. Environmental damage from tourism is often major-Spain has converted the most beautiful parts of its coast to a tawdry vacationland with monumental pollution problems. Freeroaming Land Rovers in East African wildlife parks have destroyed large areas of the savanna. Extremely limited agricultural land in Hawaii and other areas has been converted to golf courses, parking lots and hotels, forcing local dependency upon costly imported food. The influx of tourist money is obvious, but it is highly fluctuating according to season and the world-wide economic climate. Even in the best of times little of the income from tourism ever reaches the local populace. From half to two-thirds of it is re-exported to metropolitan areas or countries for petroleum, materials and supplies and as profits for large corporations controlling resorts, transportation, entertainment and financing. Much of the remaining money is retained by a limited number of local developers, while expenditures of local tax money on roads, water supply, telecommunications, airports, sewage systems and police are often designed with tourism primarily in mind and amount to direct subsidies of tourism by the local population. Increased local employment is frequently promised by the tourist industry, yet the employment provided by tourist services often fails to offset the loss of previous self-support by local people or the higher prices caused by dependence on imported goods, land speculation or inflation of the local economy by tourist dollars. Cultural impacts are even greater. The yearly influx of 30 million tourists to Spain outnumbers the entire population of the country-so many that Spaniards often feel like strangers in their own country. Catering to the demands of pleasure seekers rather than the needs of the indigenous people creates communities unable to fulfill their own needs-whether Aspen, Colorado, Waikiki Beach or Tahiti. Destruction of indigenous values and culture has brought resentment, anger and violence from both sides, loss of autonomy, dignity and social cohesion among host people as well as their prostitution (in both the direct and general sense of the word). Impacts on tourists themselves include dependence upon commercialized merchandising of mechanized "enjoyment" and substitution of superficial visual experience for deep, intimate interaction with places and people. More people and fewer resources ensure that the economic surplus that supports our tourism patterns will soon be a thing of the past. Dependence upon tourism-already a relatively unsteady economic base-as a mainstay of any economy is increasingly foolhardy. New patterns of travel and of dealing with the real needs and desires underlying tourism are needed and are possible. The Premier of Prince Edward Island, Canada, has instituted a re-evaluation of tourism there. Write to: See also: Keith Worncll, Secretary Treasury Board Box 2000 Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island Canada "Tourism and Development: The East African Cause," John S. Marsh, Vol. 5, No. 1, December, 1975 of Alternatives ($4/yr, quarterly) Traill College, Trent University Peterborough, Ontario Canada Tourism & Socialist Development, I. G. Shivji, 1973 Tanzania Publishing House Dar Es Salaam Tanzania BED AND BREAKFAST Motels are becoming less and less desirable solutions to travel accommodations. Although they provide low hassle, easy access and predictable places to stay, that same predictability means no experience worth traveling for- if you've tried one you've tried them all! • Guest houses or "bed and breakfasts" provide the varied experience and the human contact that standardized motels lack. Whereas an investment of $7,000 to $13,000 per room is required for motels, it requires almost no capital investment for people to rent out one or two extra rooms in their homes. At the same time, such accommodations cost travelers less and spread out the income within the community. Guest houses allow better off-season use of the facilities, more individualized accommodations and entail much less risk and impact where tourism levels are likely to decline or fluctuate. In almost every European city travelers arriving at the railroad station will find an information booth that directs them to the kind of accommodation they want in the part of town they . wish. Guest house switchboards operated successfully at Expo in Montreal and Spokane. The small town of Inverness, California, at the edge of the new Point Reyes National Seashore, has proposed a bed and breakfast switchboard as an alternative to ugly and expensive commercialized accommodations that couldn't be supported by local water and sewage conditions. Guest house guidebooks are another way to give people access to what is available in an area. Present ones, such as Europe on $5 a Day, have been very profitable as well as useful to thousands of people. Another long-lost joy of traveling is staying at inns rather than hotels. Inns are not quick stop-overs for hurrying travelers but are to be enjoyed themselves! Often in beautiful settings, always with unique, cozy, personal rooms, fine home cooking and personalized hospitality, small inns treat guests as guests. Distractions such as TV and telephones are usually absent, but you may be treated by the owner's violin instead. For a listing of places in Northern California see "The Friendly Inns of the Mendocino-Sonoma Coast" in Sunset Magazine, October 1975. There is also a new book coming out on old inns and eating places of the Northeast: The Inn Book, Kathleen Neuer, Vintage Books, 1976 Random House 201 E. 50th St. New York, NY 10022 In Scandinavia dormitories at universities are frequently turned into low-cost hotels during summer tourist seasons. Hostels for all ages with simple dorm space provide extremely cheap and low-impact ways of travel. Both are beginning to appear in the U.S. Campgrounds are often even less expensive, although few exist yet in the middle of U.S. cities as they do in Europe. For membership information and guidebook to youth hostels write: American Youth Hostels National Campus Delaplone, VA 22025 TRANSPORTATION Because of extremely low fuel costs of the recent past and our resulting dependence on automobile and air transportation, we have tended to give in to the urge to spend whole vacations traveling between places rather than spending time in one place. Slower, simpler and cheaper transportation systems, such as boats, trains, buses, hitchhiking, walking and biking, put us in closer contact with the people and places we visitoften making the travelers' lives less different from their hosts. Most Americans find it difficult to imagine traveling without a car-yet it can be a blessing. We traveled all over Japan for two months by train-never planning ahead, not knowing the language or the geography well, yet always arriving at the station to find a train going where we wanted to go within ten minutes. It's simply a question of developing the systems. See Not Man Apart, October 1975, for a good article called "Let's Get the Railroads Moving Again." Slower travel also means we can find "far away," uncrowded places closer to home. Why not establish a bus system convenient for rural work and recreation? This could be done on a regular basis or as the needs arose. During the winter in many places ski buses operate on weekends taking skiers up to the major ski areas. The same could happen for fishing, hiking, apple picking or going to the beach. New systems are being tried, such as identifying arm-bands and bumper stickers, to make hitchhiking more safe, while rideboards on campuses and radio stations help people get where they want to go. For a $10/year membership (obtained by sending two valid IDs, one with picture) the People's Transit has a toll-free number to hook people up with rides all over the country. People's Transit P.O. Box 8393 Portland, OR 97207 800-547-0933 MAKE WHERE YOU ARE PARADISE PLANTING HAPPINESS 1913 in'Provence. Barren, colorless land. Most villages were abandoned, their springs gone dry. In one village, people made charcoal and it was an uphappy life: greed and rivalry among rl,eighbors, everyone trying to escape the area. Hot, dry winds blew through the treeless landscape, which was turning to desert from lack of vegetation and water. In the hills, through the valleys, walked a shepherd with his flock. In a bucket each day he carried 100 acorns soaked the night before in water. With an iron rod as thick as your thumb he would poke a hole in the earth, carefully plant the acorn, and walk on. 100 each day. Jean Giono came across the shepherd, Elezard Bouffier, when hiking in the Alps that year before WWI. In three years' time the 55-year-old man had planted 100,000 acorns. 20,000 had taken, and he expected to lose half of these. "There remained 10,000 oak trees to grow where nothing had grown before." Seven years later, Giono returned to the area and went with Bouffier for a walk amongst ten-year-old oaks," ... beech trees as high as my shoulder, spreading out as far as the eye could reach ..." and birches planted where there was moisture in the valleys. In 1945 Giono returned again: Everything was changed. Even the air. Instead of the harsh dry winds that used to attack me, a gentle breeze was blowing, laden with scents. A sound like water came from the mountains; it was the wind in the forest; most amazing of all, 1heard the actual sound of water falling into a pool. ... The old streams, fed by the rains and snows that the forest conserves, are flowing again. Their waters have been channeled. On each farm, in groves of maples, fountain pools overflow onto carpets of fresh mint. Little by little the villages have been rebuilt. People from the plains, wh•;re land is costly, have settled here, bringing youth, motion, the spirit of adventure. Along the roads you meet hearty men and women, boys and girls who understand laughter and have recovered a taste for picnics. Counting the former population, unrecognizable now that they live in comfort, more than 10,000 people owe their happiness to Elezard Bouffier. The Man Who Planted Hope and Grew Happiness, Jean Giono, 1967, 16 pp., $.75 from: Friends of Nature c/o Miss Ellen R. Riggs 92 Arlington St. Winchester, MA 01890 INSIDE Start with furniture- or maybe without! Many people would laugh at us, filling our rooms with big furniture to bang ourselves on. The Japanese live elegantly on reed-matted floors and can change the use of their rooms in seconds. Persians furnish their rooms with beautiful carpets and pillows. Plains Indians made folding backrests for floor sitting, and your local guru can show you how to sit quite comfortably on the floor. The easiest way to make a room seem spacious is to take out the furniture! If you want furniture, make it! Take a look at: Nomadic Furniture, James Hennessey and Victor Papanek, 1974, $4.95 from: Random House 201 E. 50th St. New York, NY 10022 The things in that book are easy to construct and easy to move. For fancier, more far out stuff, much of it chain saw wood carving: Creating Modem Furniture, Dona Z. Meilach, 1975, $6.95 from: Crown Publishers, 197 5 419 Park Ave. New York, NY 10016 URBAN HOMESTEADING Several cities are now experimenting with urban homesteading-selling abandoned houses for a buck to people committed to fixing them up. In most programs taxes and increased assessments are waived for up to ten years. Urban Homesteading: Process and Potential, 1974, $2.50 from: National Urban Coalition, 2100 M Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20037 How to Rehabilitate Abandoned Buildings, Donald R. Brann, $3.50 from: Easi-Bild Pattern Co., Inc. Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510 CDC's All our earth was once a paradise ... and paradise begins at home. The words and sketches of early travelers and settlers are filled with amazement at the beautiful, life-filled places -some of the same places which now stand as barren rubble and pavement. Energy and money spent traveling to good places to escape the ugliness of our cities is energy and money enjoyed once and used up, in the process often destroying these good places. Energy and money spent making where we live beautiful gives us a paradise we can enjoy every day and one which remains for the enjoyment of our children and others. BUILDING Want to turn an unsightly vacant lot Renovating an old house or building a new one can be an especially valuable learning experience- and an inexpensive way to have your own kind of paradise. The best seller, Handmade Houses, has lots of beautiful examples of places people have built to reflect their own spirits, often scavenging and recycling materials: into a playground or vest pocket park? Want to help in the planning for your neighborhood? Many communities now have community design centers who will provide architects, landscape architects and planners free of charge to people who could not otherwise afford them. Kind of like legal aid. Call the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects for the CDC nearest you or write: Community Services Department American Institute of Architects 173 5 New York Ave., N.W. Washington, DC 20036 Handmade Houses, Art Boerike and Barry Shapiro, $5.95 paperback from: The A&W Visual Library 95 Madison Ave. New York, NY 10016 Ken Kern has some valuable insights on owner-building: The Owner-Built Home, Ken Kern, 1975, from: Scribners 597 5th Avenue New York, NY 10017 Eugene Eccli's new book can get you well into energy-conserving ideas: Low-Cost Energy Efficient Shelter for the Owner-Builder, Eugene Eccli, Ed., 1976, $10.95 from: Rodale Press Emmaus, PA 19049 GARDENS If our homes themselves were more pleasant and peaceful perhaps our needs to "get away from it all" would be lessened. It has always seemed a shame that our culture didn't follow the European or Latin American tradition of building our homes around courtyards. The outside walls buffer the noise and smells of even the most urban areas so that the inner garden or court-no matter how simple- stays peaceful and private. Many old buildings can be adapted with additions or gutted to include courts. Where it is difficult now to add them high hedges, walls or bushy trees planted along the road in most suburban areas would effectively turn useless front lawn!; into secluded spots. Talk to your local nursery person or someone in the horticulture department at the community college for ideas and information on good species for your conditions and purposes. A good beginning book on landscaping is, Landscape Architecture, John Simonds, 1961, from: McGraw Hill 1221 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10036 Gardens are an important part of makany place a paradise! And as everyone knows, the Japanese are masters at feasting the eye and the soul, making the commonplace seem beautiful and turning even the tiniest of spaces into flowering gems with the merest of means. Take a look at: The World ofthe Japanese Garden, Loraine Kuck, 1968, from: Walker & Co. 720 Fifth Ave. New York, NY 10019 Vegetable gardens are taking over many tiny urban back yards and suburban vistas- fun, healthful, economical and profitable. Most varieties are beautiful enough to be considered worthy of the front lawn! Beans and peas or grapevines can climb up your south wall, shielding it from the sun- natural airconditioning that pays for itself! If you don't have any space of your own (not even a window ledge for a box of spices and lettuce?) try to find a community garden in your area. Most cities seem to have them these days. There's nothing like fresh broccoli for dinner. CITY TREES Trees and vines shade, cool and soften any environment. They help clean the air too. Here's a useful book for greening up urban environments: Plant a Tree, Michael A. Weiner, 1975, $6.95 from: Macmillan Publishing Co. 866 Third Ave. New York, NY 10022 Many communities that now enjoy beautiful, cool, tree-shaded streets owe them all to a single Arbor Day- one weekend when the whole community got out and planted trees! Those who plant trees now will have similar streets twenty years from now, leaving a lasting legacy for our grandchildren. If we plant fruit or nut trees there will always be a food source handy- as well as blossoms in the spring. For detailed information on the values and how-tos of planting and plants, see Tom Bender's "Free Tree Energy," RAIN, Nov. 1975 (Vol. 2, No. 2). e April 1976 RAIN Magazine 2270 N.W. Irving, Portland, OR 97210
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