Whole Travel Blog

Each year, from May through October, you’re bound to find a few brave souls heading out to India for some spectacular trekking. Darjeeling is a region in the far east of India with amazing natural beauty. At an altitude of 8,500 m (28,000 ft), the Darjeelings are the highest mountains in India. Buddhist monasteries and tea plantations dot the landscape as you hike through dense alpine trees, beautiful orchids, natural lakes, and remote trails. A day’s hike up Tiger Hill provides a panoramic view of Mt Everest.

Sunrise at Tiger Hill, Darjeeling

If you’re looking for a softer adventure, you can visit the Kalmatia Sangam Himalaya Resort, a year-round tourism destination that offers low-altitude trekking in the winter and higher-level excursions during the spring, summer and autumn months.

I spend a ton of time driving to and from climbing spots, and flying to and from climbing spots. There are a few simple practices that I have adopted in my travels to help my traveling become a bit greener.

1. Keep my own coffee mug in the car. That way when I stop at Starbucks to get coffee, they can use my mug, and not use their paper cups.

2. Use Google Maps on my cell phone. Almost every cell phone has the ability to either download a Google Maps app or connect to Google Maps. Use your phone to get Google Maps directions to your destination rather that printing out all the directions and maps. It saves a ton of paper!

3. Bring an empty reusable water bottle to the airport. You can’t bring water through security, but you can bring an empty bottle! That way when you get into the terminal, you can fill your bottle up at the water fountain and save having to buy and use a plastic bottle of water at one of the airport stores!

Nothing fancy about it, but every little bit counts!

Happy Adventuring!

Brandon Hensinger

Ascent Adventure Consultants- Bringing Adventure to Life

Because the past 8 years has left public land managers and forest managers with meager funds to maintain trail management teams, search and rescue teams, and more, there has been limited access to some of the country’s most beautiful and precious outdoor recreation resources, for activities such as hiking, mountain biking, rock climbing and camping. Understandably so, since without the infrastructure to support this type of land use, the land managers have no choice but to restrict the activities. This is something that the Access Fund specifically targets and works on with these land managers, however the Federal Government has made it extremely difficult because ultimately they are the ones providing the lack of funding.

BUT NOW THE GOOD NEWS….

Barack Obama, along with promoting an excellent energy plan, and making the oil companies use their windfall profits to help consumers, is also planning on increasing appropriations for public land….and therefore will most likely help to give access to many, many areas.

Their administration needs our support to get this done. Please visit Outdoor Alliance and choose to Take Action, and send letters (via the website) to Barack Obama, to help open up access to these public lands.

Along with a better energy management and energy use system, the funds that are going to be provided to these land managers will help conservation of our natural resources, including “roadless areas” that will be protected. This country is taking a turn in the right direction!

Thank you and Happy Climbing

Brandon Hensinger

Ascent Adventure Consultants- Sustainable Rock Climbing in North Carolina

Last week, I had coffee with a fellow entrepreneur who recently launched a website that helps travelers find packaged hotel deals aggregated from hotel newsletters, exclusive special offers, rewards programs and online travel agencies. It’s called DealBase.com, and it was launched last month. New websites seems to be popping up just about every day, especially in the travel space, but this one really provides a service that I find complementary to Whole Travel’s goal. We’re bringing you access to the world’s sustainable hotels and resorts that are otherwise near impossible to find. Dealbase is doing the same thing, but for the special offers that are only found in email newsletters, rewards programs and other fragmented sources.

Hotel Terra (Jackson Hole, WY) - 23% off!!

Right after our chat, I got back to Whole Travel and checked out their website and found some great pages for the types of experiences we bring you at wholetravel.com. Check out their skiing deals, charitable donation hotels, scuba diving resorts and adventure hotels. I am especially fond of the way Dealbase makes it easy to compare these deals on an apples-to-apples basis, much better than trying to read between the lines of a newsletter and compare with a rewards program. In just a few minutes of browsing, I found that they have some great deals for some of our Whole Travel hotels - Hotel Terra in Jackson Hole and Little Cayman Beach Resort in the Cayman Islands. We’re going to find some way to work with them to promote the green deals we come across, so look for more of those to come!