Having re-read a well-photographed article from the Financial Times‘ weekend magazine How to Spend It, I was reminded that I should share. Eco-travel that makes use of good design, skiing, resting, and being environmentally responsible sounds good to me!
January’s issue of How to Spend It covers two areas that are recognized for sustainable tourism (or at least attempts towards sustainable tourism) and where you can enjoy it:
- Beaches: Thailand, Kenya, Seychelles, Namibia, Maldives, Mozambique, Argentina (pg 6-9) and
- Snow: Swiss Alps (pg 41-42).
In fact, Swiss Alps Whitepod won a Reponsible Tourism award in 2005.
After I experience it myself (hopefully in the next year) I’ll report back on my first-hand experience. In the meantime, the founder seems to be doing a peachy job of design management with the pods. Good design and a small “footprint” for a relatively reasonable price.
Another featured locale is Zurich, Switzerland. Mostly featured for good food and luxury hotels. If you’re going to check out the Whitepods outside of Geneva, might as well take a stop in Zurich before heading home (pg 23).
January 16th, 2006 at 10:31 pm
The concept behind “WhitePod” sounds amazing. Staying in those luxurious pods amidst the calm of the Swiss Alps. Any idea on how much a vacation there would cost?
January 16th, 2006 at 10:43 pm
If you check out the article (at the end, there is a feature box) it has prices for two kinds of whitepod experiences. I think the “luxury” one is 299 pounds (est. $400), which includes train from Geneva, wine, dinner, pod 1 night…
The step down from that is about $199/night or something.
Check out the website: http://www.whitepod.com for details!
January 19th, 2006 at 12:59 pm
Considering that a luxurious Vegas hotel would run about $250 (not including train ride, wine, dinner, and ambiance of the Alps), I’d say that that is quite a deal…I would love to know if there are locations in North America that offer similar things…perhaps for another post?
January 19th, 2006 at 1:02 pm
Cool! I would love to go there on my next vacation. Never have been to the Alps before and this is an excellent excuse. Nice blog too!
February 2nd, 2006 at 9:06 am
That looks so cool! I want to stay in a pod.