Hitching is eco-friendly and fascinating
My Romanian sister in law was rather horrified to hear that I wanted to take her 12-year old daughter hitching. But she’s open-minded enough to realise that the chances of robbery, rape or abduction -- or any of the horrors that the media feed us -- are negligible in...
I use Time Travel to Cut my Emissions
When I was in Romania last month I discovered time travel. I know this sounds ridiculous -- isn’t time travel a futuristic, high-tech impossibility used by the likes of Doctor Who and the crazy professor in Back to the Future? Well yes, time travel is a popular device...
Near Miss in Romania
I was cycling down the hill so fast I thought I might fly, like those kids in ET – Steven Spielberg’s classic film – when the alien enables the kids to fly their bikes through the night sky. It’s incredible what speed you can reach when going downhill on a good bike,...
Do Romanians understand tourism?
Since I first came to Romania in 1986, it's been clear to me that Romanians don’t understand the full potential of the tourism business. Over the 17 years I lived in Romania I’ve had countless conversations with people who own pensions, hotels and restaurants; village...
Greenhouse Gases: Romanian Burgers Give me Hope
It’s easy to feel despair about global warming. The IPCC tells us we have less than 12 years to cut CO2 in half -- or face devastating consequences. But wherever you look people are driving more, consuming more and those who say we must change our ways are often...