Fabriken Furillen epitomizes industrial chic: it’s a converted factory on an old quarry in Gotland, Sweden.

We know that the Swedes are decades ahead of everyone in terms of green living. So you won’t be surprised to hear that one of the Nordic country’s hippest hotels is in a converted factory. Fabriken Furillen is a former limestone refinery located on the windswept shores of Gotland, Sweden’s largest island.

This industrial-chic retreat consists of a tall, grey square building in the bare, lunar landscape of the old limestone quarry, with rocks running down to a slate-coloured sea. The hotel’s interior is minimalist, with machinery still hanging down from the ceiling in a part-sinister, part-art-installation way. The owner is a fashion photographer, so the visual impact is clearly well thought-out. The hotel has plenty of natural light thanks to huge windows, looking out over the Baltic Sea.

Rooms in the main building have Wi-Fi, Bang & Olufsen TVs and CD players, while small white “hermit cabins” with decks have wood-burning stoves and locally-sourced sheepskin rugs for cool summer evenings, and outdoor toilets, for that glamping feel. Bicycles are provided for navigating the gravel paths around the grounds dotted with pine trees. It’s not luxurious, certainly not as indicated by its prices, but it’s a one-off and the setting is unbeatable, if at the monochrome end of the color spectrum. Fabriken Furillen is often used as a location for photo shoots.

The food served in the restaurant is all sourced within the area, with an accent on fresh fish, vegetables and herbs.

Rates from $281 including tax.

Gotland is famous for its superb cuisine, and being an island, fish features heavily, such as gutte (turbot); other produce – and dishes – are more unusual. Many farms sell produce direct to the public – look out for the “Gårdsbutik” sign.

Top food and drinks to try in Gotland:

Ransoms (wild garlic) and sand leeks (wild onions).

Burgundy truffles; lammskalle (lamb’s head); pickled pears; baby carrots;

dricke (juniper and hop beer); sugar-beet rum; grappa.

Image: nowness.com, wayfaring.info, faistoilabelle.wordpress.com, bishopthorpe.net,  naturspaziergang.de, WikimediaCommons, spisa.nu

Places & Spaces is a travel guide that will inspire you to carve out a vacation on your calendar. All of the gorgeous locations and accommodations in our guide share our concern for the environment. From tent glamping to lavish built environments, fair warning, you’ll feel compelled to pack your suitcase.

The post Places & Spaces: Gotland’s Industrial Hotel & Curious Vegetables appeared first on EcoSalon.

Camper-vanning: the best way to see New Zealand’s huge landscapes at your own pace.

Slow travel is a growing phenomenon/mindset, along with slow food and slow fashion, the idea being to take your time, enjoy the journey, spend more time visiting fewer places: the opposite of 20-cities-in-10-days.

In a country like New Zealand, you need time to absorb the mind-blowing landscapes around you: “dramatic” isn’t even the word. Go tramping (New Zealand speak for hiking) in these phenomenal outdoors to spot the cinematic locations used for the Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Piano. And what better way to appreciate these wide open spaces, where you can easily avoid seeing other humans for days, than by hiring a camper van and  around at your own pace, stopping when you want, sleeping at campsites in the most beautiful spots imaginable?

Not to mention waking up to views like these – all are locations of campsites with motorhome access run by New Zealand’s Department of Conservation. You’ll forget what cities even look like.

Maitai Bay, Karikari Peninsula (North Island)

Tapotupotu, Kaitaia (North Island)

Lake Tarawara, Rotorua  (North Island)

Otamure Bay, Whananaki (North Island)

Waikaremoana Lake, Te Urewera National Park  (North Island)

Te Iringa, Kainmanewa Forest Park (North Island)

Nelson Lakes (South Island)

White Horse Hill, Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park (South Island)

Lake Gunn, Fiordland, (South Island)

Ahuriri Valley, Canterbury (South Island)

Photos: Darren W, fourcorners.co.nz, New Zealand Department of Conservation, Oliver Ross, rankers, honeheke, snailtrail

Places & Spaces is a travel guide that will inspire you to carve out a vacation on your calendar. All of the gorgeous locations and accommodations in our guide share our concern for the environment. From tent glamping to lavish built environments, fair warning, you’ll feel compelled to pack your suitcase.

The post Places & Spaces: New Zealand At a Snail’s Pace appeared first on EcoSalon.

All over the world, bike powered energy is being used to burn calories and produce clean wattage.

Cycling is a massively popular pastime, means of transport, and sporting activity. Millions of people use two wheels to get around, have fun, and get a carbon-neutral adrenalin rush. Now, in places and spaces all the world, energy generated by pedaling is being turned into electricity to power leisure and entertainment equipment.

In the UK, pop-up carbon-free movie theaters are being powered by the audience. Open-air cycle-in cinemas are appearing at British festivals and art spaces promoting a “celluloid kills cellulite” type experience. One of the organizers of these cycle-led events is Magnificent Revolution, a collective of artists, musicians, designers, engineers and ecologists that run workshops about renewable technology and micro-power generation.

We all love to relax in front of the TV, but some places want you to pedal to earn your entertainment. The Cottage Lodge in New Forest, England, has introduced a bike-powered television for guests. Built from a reclaimed ship from the 17th century, the Cottage Lodge fuses sustainability and media very creatively.

At the other end of the “leisure time” scale, a prison in Phoenix, Arizona uses Pedal Vision, which is also a pedal-powered TV system. But there’s no choice for these guests: to watch their favorite shows, inmates have to cycle while positioned in front of the TV set. Some see it as unfair making the inmates cycle to watch the box, but the box-watching prisoners are undeniably fitter and healthier. If they slack off, the TV shuts down.

So, thinking logically, when you’re cycling for the sake of it, can’t that energy be harnessed too? Of course it can. While you’re pedalling at the gym – or running, or on the cross-trainer – the kinetic energy that was used can be re-used for a constructive, emission-cutting purpose. Florida company ReRev retro-fits workout equipment to generate electricity: 30 minutes’ exercise produces 50 watt-hours of clean electricity. The Universities of Arkansas, Florida, Montana, North Texas, and Oregon all use its system.

The trailblazer for pedal-powered exercise systems was the super-environmentally-friendly Green Microgym in Portland, Oregon, which was the U.S.’s first human-powered gym. The gym offers further incentives for using its electricity-generating machines, some of which are fitted with iPads: each half-hour workout earns you a voucher to use at local businesses. Encouraging support for neighborhood stores, as well as being carbon-neutral (they also use solar power): we like.

Photos: Mon Labiaga Ferrer, Magnificent Revolution, Cottage Lodge, Green Microgym

Places & Spaces is a travel guide that will inspire you to carve out a vacation on your calendar. All of the gorgeous locations and accommodations in our guide share our concern for the environment. From tent glamping to lavish built environments, fair warning, you’ll feel compelled to pack your suitcase.

The post Places & Spaces: Where Pedal Power Is The HVAC appeared first on EcoSalon.

Brody House: a rough-luxe aesthetic in the bohemian city of Budapest.

At Brody House, hospitality, design, art and music come together in a stylishly refurbished period building at budget prices. Still under the radar, this hip but homely hotel on the Pest side of the river is a favorite for low-key showbiz and media types. A multi-talented space, it has places to sleep for one night or one month, showcases work from international artists and musicians, whose pieces can be seen, heard (and bought) in the rooms and apartments as well as holds live events.

The hotel is a refurbished historic 19th century building – what could be more eco than reusing an existing period gem? But it’s not just a museum/gallery; thanks to its tireless owners, Brody House has become a social and artistic hub of the Hungarian capital. It’s also a private members club, with a stream of varied events from workshops, tastings, debates and readings to gigs, film screenings and magic shows – and guests can join in on the life of this regenerated boho mecca.

The eight guest rooms, named after the artists whose work hangs on their walls, are decorated to respect the original character (parquet floors, distressed walls, freestanding bathtubs), while adding an individual, contemporary-without-being-cold vibe. Home-designed and made furniture use recycled materials – headboards are made from old doors, and beams turned into beds.

If you want to hang out and meet the other guests, the club rooms have sofas, an honesty bar, and musical instruments for jamming sessions: a grand piano, a violin and a guitar. There’s no restaurant, but the in-house chef can rustle up simple meals and special dinners, as well as all-day breakfast, brunch at weekends, and afternoon tea.

When in Budapest:

You must immerse yourself in one of the world-famous public baths, which use the waters from natural thermal springs. Here are our top 5:

Szechenyi: Outdoor Neo-Baroque wonder; one of Europe’s largest bathing complexes.

Gellert: Art Nouveau furnishings, mosaics and stained glass windows.

Kiraly: Dates from the 16th century, during the Ottoman rule.

Rudas: Features octagonal pool dating from Turkish times.

Lukacs: Medicinal bath, swimming pool and park.

Rooms from $76 including tax, breakfast, and a free pass into the city’s artistic scene.

Images: Money Week; This Charming Home; Swoon Worthy; Hermes College

Places & Spaces is a travel guide that will inspire you to carve out a vacation on your calendar. All of the gorgeous locations and accommodations in our guide share our concern for the environment. From tent glamping to lavish built environments, fair warning, you’ll feel compelled to pack your suitcase.

The post Places & Spaces: Brody House, Budapest appeared first on EcoSalon.

At Aqua Wellness in the coastal Nicaraguan jungle, the focus is on healthy living: organic food, yoga, meditation – and surfing.

The safest country in Central America, Nicaragua is now starting to challenge neighbouring Costa Rica as the region’s leading ecotourism destination.

An excellent example of this new trend is Aqua Wellness, a luxury ecoresort in an off-the-beaten-path setting: the jungle which fringes the Pacific Coast. This place has serious eco credentials: the low-impact treetop villas, built from sustainably-grown hardwoods by Nicaraguan craftsmen, are integrated within the existing forest; in fact, the resort was carefully designed so that minimal trees had to be removed.

The resort offers a number of retreats and courses themed around yoga, meditation, raw food – and surfing. The yoga pavilion is stunningly located above the forest canopy with views to the sea.

Rooms are stylish, either treetop or beachfront villas (one, two or three-bedroom), with sea or rainforest views, based around wood and decorated in soothing colors. Suites have their own kitchens, some with decks and plunge pools; treehouses have outdoor Balinese showers.

The restaurant serves organic food – some home-grown on their own farm, the rest from the surrounding area (ceviche, fresh fruit, fish and beef curries), and they bake all their own bread. The yoga teacher, Grace, also gives raw vegan and chocolate-making classes. In the spa you can get a papaya and pineapple body polish or a coconut, honey and yogurt exfoliation.

The hotel has set up a foundation to help the local community (most employees are Nicaraguan) with education, transport and other facilities, and also offers volunteer programmes on sustainable development projects, from monitoring native species such as birds, sea turtles and howler monkeys, to organizing the organic farm.

Those wanting to experience the latest adrenalin sport will not want to miss climbing a volcano and then sandboarding back down its slopes. (That’s like snowboarding, except on sand.)

Rates from $155; surf and yoga retreats from $1700 (seven nights including all meals, two yoga practices a day, a class on Ayurvedic nutrition, surfing classes, and a sunset jungle hike; surfboard hire not included).

Photos: Aqua Wellness Resort

Places & Spaces is a travel guide that will inspire you to carve out a vacation on your calendar. All of the gorgeous locations and accommodations in our guide share our concern for the environment. From tent glamping to lavish built environments, fair warning, you’ll feel compelled to pack your suitcase.

The post Places & Spaces: Aqua Wellness, Nicaragua appeared first on EcoSalon.

The Postcard Inn is a hip and lively budget hangout for surfers with style.

St. Pete beach: even the name smacks of a chilled-out biblical dude. At the Postcard Inn in Florida, near Tampa, the vibe is budget boho, 196 rooms in a revamped Travelodge with a huge pool at a price that allows you to fill your suitcase with new bathing suits, or save up for a new surfboard.

Decor is retro surfer, with wave-themed murals and photographs by local artists. Splashes of blue and green hues are provided by cushions and chairs in retro 1950s turquoise. Doors are also painted in the same vibrant seaside shade. Not only was the building itself upcycled (the original plan was to demolish the old motel and build a new one), reducing waste and removing the need for new building materials, it is also furnished with many vintage finds.

These surfers aren’t hippy layabouts: guest rooms have flat-screen TVs and free WIFI, as well as reconditioned surf gear.

For the full beach vibe, get a poolside cabana or beach bungalow, complete with a hammock in a private mini-yard. Be dazzled by on-trend canary-yellow loungers around the Junior Olympic-sized pool surrounded by palm trees.

Food has an accent on fun rather than haute cuisine with a BBQ and burger restaurant serving seafood as well as meatier dishes (the baby back ribs come highly recommended by the New York Times; the inn’s founder was New York restaurateur Stephen Hanson); and an all-day beachfront snack shack for a hot-breakfast carb dose after your early morning surf session. Quench your sea-salt-thirst with a Cold Ass beer or Frozen Tampa Tea (bourbon, peach tea and lemon). The dress code, obviously, is informal: flip flops, beach cover-ups and a skimpy pair of cut-offs.

Rates from $79 excluding tax, but including a 24-hour gym, to keep those surf muscles toned up night and day.

Photos: Postcard Inn, Hotel Chatter, the Coolist

Places & Spaces is a travel guide that will inspire you to carve out a vacation on your calendar. All of the gorgeous locations and accommodations in our guide share our concern for the environment. From tent glamping to lavish built environments, fair warning, you’ll feel compelled to pack your suitcase.

The post Places & Spaces: The Postcard Inn, Florida appeared first on EcoSalon.

Willows Inn offers the freshest seafood imaginable…from right outside the door.

Organic dining from a chef trained at the world’s best restaurant: Willows Inn is sheer heaven for foodies. It’s also the antidote to the hustle and bustle of city life, where you’d expect to find such summa cum laude gastronomy. Culinary star-in-the-making Blaine Witzel (age 25) trained at Noma in Copenhagen, where Rene Rezdepi has taken on Ferran Adria’s mantle as today’s most garlanded restaurateur. Now Witzel (pictured below) wows the crowds at this idyllic slow food haven on a tiny island off the coast of Washington State.

The Pacific Northwest is famous for its fabulous shellfish, especially razor clams, but also crabs, oysters and scallops, and fish such as salmon and halibut. They don’t have far to travel to reach your plate. Local organic vegetables provide the supporting roles in Witzel’s starry menus – don’t be surprised to see beach-foraged seaweed make an appearance. “Fished, foraged and farmed,” as they say since many ingredients as possible come from the island itself, and the water around it.

The seven onsite guest rooms in this wood-built inn are a stylish mix of traditional and contemporary featuring organic bathroom goodies, free WIFI and some rooms even have radiant heating, for toasty toes. Two rooms in the detached guest house have their own private decks and bath tubs; you can also stay on the farm where much of the food served at the restaurant is produced, including the eggs, or in stunning beachfront houses and apartments around the island.

If you’re all gourmeted out, have a massage (in your room, if you prefer) or a hot stone treatment in the spa. Then roll down to the nearby beach or venture out into slow-paced Lummi Island, with its thriving community of artists and artisans and respect for the environment; the island is renowned for its sustainable fisheries and eco-farms.

The more adventurous (and die-hard foodies) can take a kayak out to visit the other San Juan islands, minding any Orca whales or seals en route, to forage for sea lettuce, Saragassum, and beach plantain.

Rates from $204 including tax and whale-watching from the comfort of your room; the kayaking is an extra activity.

Photos: Willows Inn, Celebrate Big, coffee&donuts

Places & Spaces is a travel guide that will inspire you to carve out a vacation on your calendar. All of the gorgeous locations and accommodations in our guide share our concern for the environment. From tent glamping to lavish built environments, fair warning, you’ll feel compelled to pack your suitcase.

The post Places & Spaces: Willows Inn, Lummi Island, Washington State appeared first on EcoSalon.

Bathed in the spiritual aura of Ayers Rock, Longitude 131 is an ecocamp offering comfortable but conscious tents.

Longitude 131 takes the fine art of glamping to a new level: from your luxury tent, you can watch the stunning sunrise and sunset over majestic Ayers Rock. The camp is delicately placed in the spectacular ochre-tinted landscape of the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park (Uluru is the Aboriginal name for this sacred site) in the Northern Territories of Australia.

With only 15 semi-tented rooms on stilts, which have a minimal impact on their immediate environment, the glamp ground offers a quiet, secluded spot for reflecting on the powerful forces of the rock, in tune with the outback wilderness that surrounds it.

Under their fabric canopies, the rooms have contemporary-colonial decor, showers (for reduced water consumption), Bose SoundDocks, and electrically-operated blinds. There’s a meeting house in the middle of the camp with a library stocked with maps, books, games, a wide-screen TV and DVD library, and self-service bar with deck.

Guides can show you the native floral and fauna, as well as explain the ancient culture of the Aboriginal people. For relaxation and pampering, as well as the camp’s swimming pool, its nearby sister hotel has a spa with treatments designed for couples. Other additional options include helicopter tours and camel rides.

Dinner is taken under the stars and features local wine. With no children under 12 allowed, it’s the perfect place for a grown-up break to extravagantly reconnect with your spiritual center and get your life into perspective.

Rates from $2135 (minimum two nights) including all meals, drinks and tours; airport transfers; starry nights; and the most memorable dawns and dusks of your life.

Photos: Longitude 131, Asia Rooms

Places & Spaces is a travel guide that will inspire you to carve out a vacation on your calendar. All of the gorgeous locations and accommodations in our guide share our concern for the environment. From tent glamping to lavish built environments, fair warning, you’ll feel compelled to pack your suitcase.

The post Places & Spaces: Longitude 131, Ayers Rock, Australia appeared first on EcoSalon.

A gourmet slow food paradise in the Smoky Mountains.

In the misty foothills of eastern Tennessee’s Smoky Mountains, Blackberry Farm is a delightful and unusual hotel offering a gastro-luxe farm-to-table experience, with southern hospitality.

This being Earth Month, we’ve been reflecting on various ways we’re bringing nature into our homes, for example with micro-sized sexy urban gardens. This rural hotel/farm is at the other end of that scale, a vast 4,200 acre estate with a range of animals including sheep, which produce milk (for cheese), wool and meat; pigs, for sausages and pork; and hens (free-range, naturally), for their eggs. The animals also regenerate the pasture, fertilize, control pests and consume waste products from the farm’s food production.

The gardeners produce heirloom varieties (organically developed over generations, un-genetically-modified) of fruit and vegetables, such as apples, beans and carrots, while wild mushrooms are foraged from the woodlands. They even have black truffles – perfect with fresh eggs for breakfast.

Foodies will truly find heaven, care of the artisans of the farmstead as well as the gardeners. The farm has its own bee-keeper, for instance, and cheese-maker, butcher, plus a preservationist who makes jams, pickles and preserves. There’s a cooking school with celebrity chef guests, as well as a packed program of other food and wine events.

Accommodation is either in a beautiful private house and cottages, or guestrooms in the guesthouse: all is comfortable and classic, with four-poster beds, low-key prints or chintz in muted tones. All rooms and houses have fireplaces, high-speed internet, and integrated surround-sound systems. As well as the outdoor pool, with mountain views, there’s the spa with a wet treatment room offering the latest technology, such as various high-pressure water therapies; yoga classes are also available. Croquet, wildflower hikes and horse-and-carriage rides are other low-impact activities designed to get you in tune with nature, without harming it.

Rates from $345 excluding tax (two night minimum).

Photos: Blackberry Farm

Places & Spaces is a travel guide that will inspire you to carve out a vacation on your calendar. All of the gorgeous locations and accommodations in our guide share our concern for the environment. From tent glamping to lavish built environments, fair warning, you’ll feel compelled to pack your suitcase.

The post Places & Spaces: Blackberry Farm, Tennessee appeared first on EcoSalon.

 

Deep inside a 1,300-hectare rainforest reserve in Ecuador, mere three hours northwest of the equator, you will find Mashpi Lodge, an eco-friendly hotel bursting with activities to teach you about this unique mountain bioclimate and its wildlife – which include cycling along a high wire, listening to frogs and making chocolate.

This being Earth Month, it’s only appropriate that the lodge opened this week for the first guests to enjoy the rich flora and fauna of the bioreserve: colorful butterflies, monkeys, birds, pumas, and orchids galore.

To experience the forest first hand, you can travel along the forest canopy in the “Aerial Tram” – an open-air gondola car – giving you a monkey’s eye view of the treetops and their inhabitants. As you sit in a swiveling chair, for a 360-degree perspective, you can listen to the resident biologist make sense of it all.

Or, for those preferring solitude, climb a ladder and sit on a forest platform, or check out the hummingbird viewpoint (blink and you’ll miss them – they’re the smallest animals, and fastest birds, in the world). Adrenalin junkies can take a zipwire ride through the primeval landscape, or ride an aerial bicycle, designed for two, along a 655-foot-long cable; then cool off in a waterfall. Creatures of the night can go on a nocturnal safari (guided; you don’t want to get lost in the dark jungle). Reptile lovers can learn about frog songs and snake secrets. Or you can just sit in bed and watch it all.

The 22 guestrooms are furnished in a simple, contemporary style, with warm tones, wood and floor-to-ceiling-windows looking onto the rainforest; all have WIFI; suites and bathtubs with views (other rooms have showers). All are TV-less; it’s in a communal area – after all, you’ve got a live-action nature film going on outside your room. There are also outside terraces to tune into the jungle sounds, with secluded yoga-perfect areas; and an extensive library, where you can hear talks from experts.

In the restaurant, ingredients used are garnered from the forest – plantain and chocolate – or locally-grown organic: mandarinas, guavas, naranjillas, squeezed into freshly-made juices. You can gather your own, too – yucca, bananas, palm hearts and coffee, or make cocoa beans into their end delicacies, ripe for eating. After all that culinary excitement, you’ll need to chill out. The spa has a jacuzzi open to the outside and a massage room with treatments featuring jungle ingredients such as earth, stones, herbs and leaves. Swimming is wild, in the rivers.

Mashpi Lodge is working closely with the local community. A quarter of the staff (80% from the surrounding area) will own a stake in the project. As well as being socially responsible, hydroelectric power will be used soon.

Rates from $1,296 per person including tax, transfers from Quito with visits to archaeological sites and museum, and lunch at a volcanic crater, en route; all meals at lodge; guided daily excursions and activities within reserve; rubber boots, rain ponchos and binoculars for your jungle walkabouts (this is a rain forest, after all).

Photos: Mashpi Lodge

Places & Spaces is a travel guide that will inspire you to carve out a vacation on your calendar. All of the gorgeous locations and accommodations in our guide share our concern for the environment. From tent glamping to lavish built environments, fair warning, you’ll feel compelled to pack your suitcase.

The post Places & Spaces: Mashpi Lodge, Ecuador appeared first on EcoSalon.