Americans may be frantically trying to shed gas-guzzling SUVs, but over in Iceland, they've already got the alternative fuel thing figured out. With eighty percent of the nation's energy supplied by pollution-free hydrothermal power, Iceland may be he easiest place on earth to plan a carbon-neutral vacation. (Just don't think about the flight there.)
In 2003, the world's first hydrogen fuel station opened in Reykjavik, and Iceland has set an ambitious goal of converting the country's entire transportation fleet to hydrogen power by 2050. Now, Hertz Iceland is the world's first company to offer hydrogen-fueled rental cars. You'll have to be lucky to nab one of the converted Toyota Priuses--Hertz only has three, though more are on the way.
There's no reason to start burning fossil fuels when you head out to sea, either. Just catch a whale watching tour on the good ship Elding, the very first hydrogen powered commercial vessel, which started sailing in April. Whale watchers say the €43 ($66) trip is among the best going, as the crew can shut the hydrogen engine down so passengers can easily hear the whales swim and blow--hard to do over the roar of a diesel engine.
Those Scandinavians are smart people, and at the moment they've got a much better strategy for dealing with rising fuel costs than the ol' add-a-new-fee system being wholeheartedly embraced by a bunch of airlines.
At SAS they've just published the results of their "slow flying" strategy, where they reduced the cruising speeds on their flights by about 80 kilometers per hour. In the last year and a half, this simple idea has saved them $12 million in fuel costs--and barely a single passenger noticed. A domestic flight up Norway at the slower speed takes just three minutes longer; it's a ten minute difference if you fly from the top of Norway all the way to Paris.
Going a tiny bit slower sounds a whole lot nicer than getting charged $15 for your suitcase, doesn't it? Problem is you have to be flying in or out of Scandinavia to take advantage of this trick.
In the tradition of curious Scandinavian airline marketing--we're thinking of Finnair's creepy panda--SAS Scandinavian Airlines is launching a new, multilingual marketing campaign.
The whole thing centers on using local languages in English-language advertising. The reasoning is, according to one of SAS's general managers, that
the Scandinavian languages, like the region's sleek, stylish designs, reflect the real essence of what makes this vast northern region so unique.
Yeah. Unique--or really difficult to understand. The meant-to-be-eye-catching ads use words like Bättre (it means better) and Störst (which, of course, means largest). We're not sure if these words are sleek and stylish or just unusual. Would you really buy a ticket on SAS just for the umlauts?
There are all kinds of odd reasons to visit Sweden. We're quite keen on the nuclear power plant tours for a start. But come April, we have one more excellent reason to head there: April 19 brings us the annual Oyster Opening Championships, held in Grebbestad.
The aim of a champion oyster opener is simple:
To open 30 oysters in the shortest possible time, without bloodshed, and present them in an attractive way on a tray.
So obviously you've gotta be into oysters to get a kick out of this particular event. Locals recommend washing down an oyster meal with some of the local beer, Grebbestads Bryggeri. Sounds like the kind of beer whose name only gets easier to say when you've had quite a few.
Liverpool has really captured the early headlines as the 2008 Capital of Culture, but we shouldn't forget that there are two. Little-known Stavanger in Norway deserves some attention this year, too.
There are lots of reasons to visit Stavanger: It's full of wooden houses (and they're cute, too), it's rich (as a center for the oil industry--there's even an oil museum), there are lakes and fjords nearby and it's home to the oldest cathedral in Norway.
This year as part of the Capital of Culture reign, Stavanger is focusing on getting its citizens involved in cultural activities. This means that rather than the flashy Beatles-inspired shows of Liverpool, Stavanger has chosen the theme of an "Open Port" and will promote artist residencies that give opportunities for visitors and locals alike to connect personally with the arts. But they still had a big fireworks extravaganza to open the celebrations.
Interestingly, this might be the last Norwegian city that achieves the European Capital of Culture status: From now on, the capitals will be selected from European Union members. Norway's gone it alone and created a northern non-EU outpost, which will mean its cities are outcast from cultural capital chances. Oops.
Now this is extreme tourism. We've discovered that tours to a nuclear plant in Sweden are all the rage for travelers in Scandinavia. Every year about 15,000 visitors stroll through the Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant on the remote Baltic coast of Sweden.
Yes, this is the same place that has had a couple emergency shut-down scares in the past few years, but the tourists don't care. They traipse around the site with a dosimeter to measure radiation exposure. If your device fails to pick up any radiation readings while you're there (and that's what normally happens), an electronic voice announces "You're clean" as you leave.
When you think about all the tourists who swing by Chernobyl in Ukraine (there are heaps of them), perhaps visiting a place like Forsmark is actually a sensible kind of trip to make. That is, if you're into dangerous nuclear power plants.
0 Comments - Add Yours
by BS
