The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Finally, I’ve found a guilt-free, glamorous family hotel in Britain
On a mission to trample the planet less, Hattie Garlick discovers greener ways to get her travel kicks
My family and I have been on something of a journey this past year, which is ironic, really, given all the travel restrictions in place. And travel is, to me, what “medicinal compound” was for Lily the Pink – most efficacious in every way. Feeling glum? Nine times out of 10, the minibreak cure proves cheaper and faster than therapy. I even champion its less self-involved benefits – it being tricky to learn or care about a planet you have never explored.
Yet stuck at home, glaring at the walls and occasionally each other, my husband, two kids and I had ample time to fantasise about escapes. So here’s what we’ve realised. We want to see more of this amazing planet, but trample it less. Revel in it, while respecting it more.
Around 80 per cent of the population now agree that they would like their holidays to be more sustainable. Travel, after all, is a prime territory for eco-revolution. It creates eight per cent of the world’s emissions. A return ticket between London and New York generates 986kg of carbon dioxide, more than the average resident of Paraguay – or 55 other developing countries – emits in an entire year. If you’re a frequent flyer – even a vegan, hybriddriving, keep-cup carrying one – your personal carbon footprint will be clown-sized as a consequence.
All of which sounds bleak, but bear with. The travel industry is also one of the world’s largest employers, by some counts supporting one in ten jobs globally. That’s a huge amount of power that could be put to good use. And the shift seems to be starting. Valued at $181 billion in 2019, the ecotourism industry is predicted to top $333 billion by 2027. That’s… a sizeable rise. So much so that the International Monetary Fund (who can do maths) recently identified it as a key recovery mechanism for those developing countries whose economies have been crippled by the pandemic. Fresh green
iHattie and family, above; Fritton Lake’s Koto cabin, above right initiatives are shooting up all the time. Only this July, for example, Ryanair launched a carbon calculator, which they say allows customers to fully offset their emissions, crowning itself “Europe’s greenest major airline”. And yet… I can’t be the only one struggling to get my head round Michael O’Leary’s metamorphosis into Captain Planet.
The travel industry is hardly the only perpetrator of greenwashing (talking the woke talk, instead of walking it). What it is is the original. The term “greenwash” was first used in a 1968 essay in which environmentalist Jay Westerveld called out the hotel industry’s “reuse your towel” campaign as pretend piousness – sold as an environmental move, in reality a cost-saving one.
Is carbon offsetting the magic pill, or more smoke and mirrors? Does volunteering abroad really benefit the planet,
The trouble with the “eco” tag, of course, is the whiff of “hair-shirt holiday” it carries – the suspicion that piousness has to come at the expense of comfort and fun. My own family’s walk on the wild side took place at Fritton Lake. As unofficial, underage roadies to my hotel reviews, my 10- and seven-year olds have taken a frankly grotesque number of short breaks. Yet asked to pick a favourite they would, without delay, answer: “Butlin’s, Bognor Regis”. Until now.
Fritton Lake is a new holiday club or just your social-media profile? Must I let go of luxuries like flushing loos? These are all challenges my family and I will grapple with as we figure out how to be better, greener travellers. Sorting the jargon from the genuine, if you will.
BIODIVERSITY BREAKS
These can cause a bit of headache. For example, what the heck are “naturepositive” holidays? The Government’s recently published Nature Handbook for Business highlights some of the ways businesses can – and are – becoming better at protecting flora and fauna.
“There are two sides to addressing the climate crisis,” writes Justin Francis, CEO of holiday company Responsible Travel in his introduction to its section on tourism. “The first: reducing the carbon we emit, and the second: restoring
FRITTON LAKE, NORFOLK
Yarmouth and Lowestoft. Butlin’s, however, it is not.
For one thing, it sits inside the grand Somerleyton estate, home to one of England’s finest Victorian homes. More Range Rover than Redcoat. It is the flagship component of a rewilding project with ambitions to extend right across East Anglia.
A thousand acres of heath, woodland, wetland and former arable land are being returned to an unmanaged, self-sufficient state, funded in part through tourism. Horticulturalist Matthew Stevenson takes foraging tours, rewilding safaris and hands-on eco-restoration sessions. When he took us out, he pointed animatedly to the water buffaloes, cattle, ponies and pigs that now graze and browse freely, breaking up bracken so that grasses, heather, saplings and more can stage a comeback. Dalmatian pelicans and beavers are moving in soon. Percolated through Stevenson’s encyclopaedic knowledge of the landscape, it is inspiring stuff. Lord Somerleyton’s WildEast campaign aims to get all East
Anglians to
the planet’s ability to absorb it – which we contribute to by becoming nature positive.”
Trees, soil and other wonders of the nature. After all, the WWF ranks the UK among the most nature-depleted countries on the planet. Restoring natural ecosystems could mitigate more than a tenth of our greenhouse gas emissions.
Still. Should your vibe be more Soho Farmhouse than Swampy, you can support all this without muddying your manicure. Back at the main holiday club, a rather more cultivated aesthetic pervades. Self-catering, family-sized “Koto cabins” are slowly going up between the trees, to buy or hire.
Each is super sustainable and energy efficient, but also – crucially – open-plan and Instagram-ready. Koto also designed the floating, sedum-roofed sauna that bobs atop the two-mile-long lake. While others practised natural landscape are currently soaking up and storing almost 30 per cent of the carbon emissions created by us humans.
And while travel increases carbon emissions, it can also help preserve these vital natural landscapes or “carbon sink”. People are typically more keen to holiday in virgin rainforests than around the intensive farms and ugly factories for which they are currently being destroyed at a rate of 200,000 acres a day. These tourists also bring wallets, so that poor communities living in these landscapes actually have a choice and can earn a living without joining the dark side of deforestation.
Nor is it just about carbon. According to a House of Commons Committee report on biodiversity published this summer, around one million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction. Since 1970, there has been a their wild swimming, we untied the free paddle boards and wooden canoes and splashed about.
Back on land, woodfired pizzas and craft beers are served from the boathouse. The children roamed as freely as the rewilded pigs between the giant woodland adventure playground, landscaped tennis courts, volleyball pitch and outdoor pool – eco-heated and bookended by open fires. They got enough outdoor exercise for four while my husband and I spent most of our time rooted in the festoon-lit, lavenderbordered pub garden. The resulting bill was testament to our true commitment to funding nature.
Officially, the Fritton
Arms is a clubhouse, but the “c” word conjures corpsegrey carveries and golf widows. In reality, it is a classic country pub, albeit highly pimped and private. It’s also recently welcomed chef Chris Bartlett, from Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck. Eventually, the menu will be 80 per cent plantbased. But, as Hugh Somerleyton told me: “you’ve got to take the people with you.”
And magically, Fritton Lake does. Whether you are seven and now admit to misspeaking about Butlin’s being the apotheosis of cool, or are 37 and love the planet while also still being quite attached to Aperol spritz and antipasti.
Koto cabin breaks at Fritton Lake start at £1,170 for four nights (01493 484 008; frittonlake.co.uk). 68 per cent decrease in population sizes of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish. Protecting their natural habitats seems a wise plan, tourism a plausible tool through which to do so. So how do you book a biodiversity break?
TRAVEL COMPANIES WITH
NATURE CREDENTIALS
All of Responsible Travel’s (responsibletravel.com) 6,000 holidays are screened for environmental impacts. In other words, the company asks each of their suppliers to list the biggest challenges facing both nature and the local economy in the places they offer holidays. Next, they have to explain what they’re doing to address these difficulties. The answers are published alongside every holiday Responsible Travel offers.
Meanwhile, Exodus Travel (exodus. co.uk) has joined forces with Rewilding Europe so that 100sqm of currently barren farming land in the Italian Apennines is rewilded (or restored to its natural, uncultivated state) for every passenger who travels with them. The aim is to rewild 5,000 hectares in five years, capable of capturing an estimated 85,000 tonnes of carbon every half decade.
Heartening developments are underway in the UK too. Steppes Travel (steppestravel.com) is planting 40 acres of trees in order to help mitigate the carbon emissions generated through the holidays it sells. The new forest is near Scunthorpe, which has some of the UK’s worst air pollution.
BRITISH BREAKS WITH
BIODIVERSE BENEFITS
Since 2006, Wheatland Farm in Devon (wheatlandfarm.co.uk) has been offering rural staycations resembling “Center Parcs without the numbers… Featherdown Farms without contrived marketing hype” (their words, not mine). Their cottage and lodges fund a rewilding programme that now supports dormice, barn owls, at least nine species of bats, 13 types of dragonfly and over 200 wildflower species.
In the Scottish Highlands, meanwhile, the Alladale Wilderness Reserve (alladale.com) has planted almost a million native trees since 2003, restored peatland and reintroduced red squirrels. You can stay in four lodges ranging from the resplendent Alladale Lodge (refurbished by Laura Ashley, equipped with a gym and sauna and serviced by a private chef) to Deanich Lodge – arguably the most remote rental in Britain.
Once intensively farmed, the rewilded 3,5000 acre Knepp Estate (knepp. co.uk) in Sussex is now home to turtle doves, nightingales, peregrine falcons… and glampers. Wild accommodation choices range from treehouses to bell tents via shepherds’ huts.