Travel Junkies Take Flight in 2012!
Right in time for those planning their next year of travel, Lonely Planet announces… the release of Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel 2012!
We’re a big fan of LP since our good friend contributes to some of their South American editions and he really knows his stuff.
So, a bit about the guide: Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel 2012 is an annual volume of the best travel experiences and destinations for the year ahead. It includes a diverse range of ideas appealing to all kinds of travelers and draws upon the expertise of Lonely Planet’s staff, authors and, get this, the online community!
It starts with hundreds of ideas from everyone at Lonely Planet, including their extended family of travelers, bloggers, and tweeters. Once they’re confident that they have the best of 2012′s travel choices, the final selection is made by a panel of in-house travel experts, based on topicality, excitement, value, and that special “X-factor”. Everywhere they’ve chosen has something special that stands out for 2012. Perhaps it’s something specific to this year, such as London celebrating the Olympics or Mexico’s La Ruta Maya‘s calendar at the center of 2012′s end-of-the-world prophecies. Other destinations may have a buzz about them that they picked up on the road and couldn’t keep to themselves, like Croatia’s Hvar Island and Santiago de Chile. And some places are worth visiting before the crowds set in – for example, Darwin and Bhutan.
The book also includes “17 Top Travel Lists” — a topical run-down of the best experiences for 2012 including their ever-popular “Best Value Destinations for 2012” and “The 10 Best Things to do in 2012” along with “Best Places for Intrepid Romantics”, “Top Spots to Glamp” (glamorous camping), and “Slurping Soup Across the Globe”.
So what are you waiting for? The end of the world as we know it?
Get Glamping!
We’ve known about Anna Getty’s work for quite some time. We’re proud to say that we interviewed her in Los Angeles Confidential Magazine when she first launched PAM (Pregnancy Awareness Month), a holistic and informative approach to pregnancy and birth. A leading green living expert, she works with Organic Center, Global Green, NRDC, and Seventh Generation (among others) and is the author of the upcoming, Easy Green Organic. In light of the approaching holidays, she decided to share with Eco-Adventurer her favorite eco-vacation spot and her new book, I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas
As the website explains, “Assembling a 197,000-square-foot rooftop to accommodate a living tapestry of native plant species is challenging enough. Add to that the technical problems posed by the roof’s extreme slopes. Rana Creek, who worked with Renzo Piano to design the roof, developed and patented a solution called the BioTray®, so that plants and soil wouldn’t fall off. They used 50,000 porous, biodegradable trays made from tree sap and coconut husks as containers for the vegetation. These trays line the rooftop like tile, yet enable the roots to grow and interlock, binding the trays together like patchwork. To give you an idea: a standard black tar-and-asphalt building rooftop leads to a phenomenon called the “Urban Heat Island” effect. The endless swath of black rooftops and pavement trap heat, causing cities to be 6 to 10 degrees warmer than outlying greenbelt areas. One-sixth of all electricity consumed in the U.S. goes to cool buildings. The Academy’s green rooftop keeps the building’s interior an average of 10 degrees cooler than a standard roof would! The plants also transform carbon dioxide into oxygen, capture rainwater, and reduce energy needs for heating and cooling.”
This holiday season, pick up her new book, I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas, where Getty, organic living expert extraordinaire, helps families reduce their 
