We spent five weeks this summer sailing to Newfoundland and back. Vacation travel is all about finding a change of place, and occasionally some solitude and serenity. Newfoundland delivered with cool weather, fog shrouded cliffs and deserted fjords — a welcome break from July in the NY motor area. And getting there by sailboat was relatively low carbon (we still burned some fuel getting in and out of harbors, and when becalmed).
But one virtue of living in the Northeast is that a change of climate is never more than a month or two away. We returned to mist-shrouded cliffs and deserted wilderness the first weekend in October without burning any fuel and without traveling more than ten miles from our house. When the fog and drizzle rolled in a week ago Saturday, instead of holding up, we sailed north from Nyack with the flooding tide and a fair wind. Black Beach is one of those hidden gems of the Hudson – a small peninsula of black sand under the cliffs at the end of the Nyack Beach State Park bike trail. Eagles soar over these cliffs, foxes and deer come down to the waters edge at sunset, and coyotes howl at night. On a foggy evening in October, the woods are deserted and we might as well be in Newfoundland except for the occasional barge traffic to remind us we are on a commercial thoroughfare at the edge of the metropolis.
Locatourism generally beats locavorism as a way to cut your personal carbon footprint. Face it, it takes more energy to move your butt a hundred miles than to move a head of lettuce a thousand miles. Seek out that local change of scene!
Live! Sustainably! Now! 