A Greener Vacation

By Carolyn Rose

With gas prices skyrocketing, and in turn making everything else more expensive, most people are starting to think of what they can do to cut back. Some may be opting for a bike ride to work instead of driving their car. Others are conserving energy in their house by limiting air conditioning usage. People across the country are trying to find ways to minimize the dollars they are dishing out with rising costs, all the while helping the environment.

Summer is vacation time, there's no doubt about that. As Americans we like to stay in fancy hotels or rent huge houses on the beach or in the mountains, but I have discovered a more eco-friendly way to go about vacationing. It's called camping. New and revolutionary, right? Not. Camping has been around forever, but for some reason I haven't been a huge fan of it my whole life. The idea of sleeping in a tent with mosquitoes and the threat of grizzly bears outside my window doesn't sound too appealing.

But with things going as they are in terms of gas prices and global warming and whatnot, I've decided to give camping a try this summer. This Thursday my friends and I are heading over to Martha's Vineyard for a few nights under the summer sky. We'll be going pretty much all natural... with no electricity or air conditioning or any of the luxuries we have become so accustomed to.

And while camping will be a definite deviation from what I'm used to, I think it will be a fun and interesting experience. Who knows, I may come back and decide that's what I want to do for every vacation from here on out. However, even if I don't, I'll sleep a little easier knowing that even for just one vacation, I did my part in helping the environment.

Image by Rebecca