While in Asheville, I spent a few hours wandering the trails at the Botanical Gardens. According to a sign posted there, the Southern Appalachians have the richest diversity of native plants anywhere outside of the tropics. Who knew?

The Botanical Gardens, which abut the UNC campus, were filled with people enjoying the shaded glens and free admission. Students played frisbee on the grass; young girls scampered along the creekbed; a flock of tourists followed a guide along the trails. Me, I just walked and looked. Here’s some of what I saw.

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1. Hear live music on a streetcorner.

On a sunny day, the downtown area is always populated with buskers. Sometimes it’s your basic guy-with-a-guitar setup; sometimes there are a few dudes in overalls or tweed; sometimes it’s a full band with amplification. One sure thing is that you won’t have to walk far to find a street performer to tickle your ears for free (donations appreciated).

2. Feed your head at Malaprop’s Bookstore.

Granted, Malaprop’s is a business, so they also appreciate monetary contributions. But if you’re broke, spend a buck on coffee and peruse their incredible selection of literature.

This store is one of the places that convinced me so utterly of Asheville’s uniqueness. In fact, Malaprop’s seems to assume that its clientele is highly intelligent, educated in self-sufficiency, and actively committed to social/environmental change.

And there’s the proof: a book on Cattle Health in the Green Living section? We’re not in San Francisco any more.

3. Take a nature walk.

While exploring downtown, I picked up a map that indicated there was a botanical garden next to the UNC campus. Heading out that way, I stumbled across the Reed Creek “interpretive trail”, which was a hugely educational resource. It guides you through an area that was once occupied by buildings; along the trail, a series of signs informs you of what was here, what’s here now and why. In the space of a city block or two, I learned a ton about local history and botany.

The Reed Creek trail lets out near the Asheville Botanical Gardens, a huge and beautifully-managed set of trails, greens and buildings. It’s an easy walk, and just like at Reed Creek, the Botanical Gardens are full of information on native species. Make sure you stop at the creek, an excellent spot for a wee nosh and/or nap in the dappled sunlight.

Click for more photos of Reed Creek and the Botanical Gardens.

4. Go on a self-guided art tour.

As I mentioned recently, Asheville is full of art both strange and beautiful. From the underpass mural, to political graffiti, to statuary both commissioned and independent, there’s art all over the place. And that’s just on the sidewalk—but there are also tons of art galleries for your browsing pleasure.

Don’t miss Chicken Alley, a strange little street that looks straight out of New Orleans or Oakland. It’s haunted by living artists and one dead doctor: Dr. Jamie Smith was killed in a 1902 barfight and still hangs around the place.

If you’re more into modern-age ephemera, guess what? Chicken Alley’s got free wifi. Yippee!

5a. (for hippies) Hippie out at the Drum Circle.

photo by BillRhodesPhoto

Apparently this is a big deal, but I am somewhat opposed to drum circles. If they’re your thing, that’s super! There’s a giant one here every Friday night, on Patton Avenue. Just follow the smell of patchouli and sounds of wild djembe.

5b. (for nerds and queers) Get your summer Shakespeare fix.

photo by Zen

What self-respecting town doesn’t have a free Shakespeare-in-the-park series these days? Asheville is right on point, offering free performances all summer (Friday, Saturday & Sunday nights only). The address is #1 Gay Street, so you ought to feel right at home.

Want more, more, more free stuff? I know right? Cheapskate your heart out at Asheville’s official Free Things to Do page.

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The word “Asheville” followed me across America. I first heard it uttered while picking dandelions in Paonia; after that, I heard it spoken of in nearly every city I visited. “Asheville,” people would say. “You gotta go to Asheville.”

So I went. They were right.

How to describe it? Well, it’s like taking all the best parts of Nevada City, Portland and Berkeley, and sticking the whole thing in the middle of beautiful mountains with gorgeous weather.

I almost feel like I shouldn’t tell you about it, because it’s a secret that wants to be kept. Locals and tourists alike recognize the yuppie wolf at Asheville’s door: moneyed do-gooders in Priuses and SUVs, ready to move in and pour their Starbucks all over this fiercely independent town.

But to be honest, I don’t see how a bunch of yuppies could possibly change a town this strong in spirit.

And anyway, rich folks discovered Asheville hundreds of years ago.

photo by Exothermic

This used to be Cherokee land, but the natives were unceremoniously exterminated and Asheville slowly grew into a hillbilly township. After the Civil War, one George Washington Vanderbilt decided to construct a “little mountain escape” just outside of town: that property became the Biltmore Estate (largest house in America).

Funny thing about the Biltmore Estate, however: unlike many gilded mansions, this one was intended to be self-supporting. The United States’ first forestry school was founded here; there were farms, gardens, a dairy, and scientific programs for managing all sorts of resources.

That’s one trend that held true throughout my visit to Asheville: people here seem to be united by a true love for the land, and an active interest in understanding and managing it.

That may be due to the fact that there are mountains everywhere you look. Beautiful, rolling blue hills encircle the city, omnipresent in the background, patient, serene and enticing. It would be hard to live here and not be enchanted by the landscape—and certainly, the town attracts a very specific type of person for just that reason.

In the middle of town, there’s an underpass mural that is far and away the best I’ve ever seen. Created by the Asheville Mural Project, it features portraits of locals, chosen by nomination. There’s a woman spinning wool; a man with a shovel; a cyclist; a city planner; a gardener; musicians; dancers; and a snake-haired tattoo artist. The message is clear: this town loves the alternative, the artistic, and the sustainable.

  

  

It rained the first two days I was in Asheville, and when the sun re-emerged, so did the entire town. The streets were crawling with buskers: young dudes in old-timey clothes playing old-timey music. Sort of like a bumpkin Nashville… and in every corner without live music, there was a piece of weird art. The place was bursting with creativity, and the Carolina sun graced it all with glorious color.

Over the next couple of days, I’ll tell you about some of the specifics of my time in Asheville. If you can’t wait, check out my photos.

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It was all there, and more: North Carolina, as I experienced it, was a study in contrast.

I hopped off the train in Durham, which is right smack in the middle of North Carolina and home to Duke University. Durham’s neighbor cities, Raleigh and Chapel Hill, are each within a few miles; locals call it “the Triangle,” and commute frequently between towns.

That’s where the area’s main problem lies: commuting. These towns, built on tobacco and once connected by fields, weren’t designed for the 21st century. But as they grew in concert, more and more roads were built: now, the Triangle is almost impossible to navigate without an automobile. Vast open spaces are bordered by wide roads. No sidewalks, few central areas… just a lot of cars.

It took me about five minutes to realize that Durham was a car town—and 45 more to procure a carton of milk and a little food for the night. To find eats, I had to hike down to the strip mall; cross a massive, empty parking lot; and wander through a ridiculously huge outlet store (which, luckily, was open late and had a grocery section).

Despite the hassle, I was undeniably happy. As I left my hotel, it started raining: a warm, fragrant rain that I’d rarely experienced out West. By the time I got to that gigantic parking lot, it was transformed: a river flowed across the sealed blacktop, lit orange by the streetlights, steaming gently. Frogs croaked, and the air was heavy with the odor of flowers and grass. It was beautiful, and it was new. I was in the South!

Kirsten and CJ

I’d stopped in Durham to visit Kirsten Hausman, who (aside from being Larry’s daughter and therefore a step-cousin of some sort) is an environmental crusader in her own right. She’s a Director at Green Plus, a program of the Institute for Sustainable Development. Their mission: to set standards for sustainability in business, and help people meet them.

One of the issues the Institute for Sustainable Development cares about is the same one that confronted me: getting around the Triangle without a car.

Kirsten told me that the area is at a crossroads both literally and figuratively. People are moving around more, and populations are growing; more and more locals commute from one town to another. But the infrastructure to support all those cars hasn’t been completed.

Without careful planning, this area could become just another mass of strip malls—or, it can be guided successfully into a more sustainable future. Right now, that’s all up to the civic planners.

For now, we poor folks and carless freaks have to ride the bus.

Lucky for me, there was a bus stop next to the Target. When I got there, a woman loaded down with grocery bags was standing near the door. I asked her if she was getting on the bus.

“No,” she said, “that bus costs two dollars and I only got a dollar. I’m waiting for the next one in a half hour.”

I, carrying exact change for my own bus ticket, shrugged and climbed aboard. But the driver stopped me.

“She gettin’ on?”

“I don’t think so,” I told him. I explained what she’d said.

As I sat down, the bus driver was unbuckling his seat belt; I watched through the window as he got off the bus and convinced that woman to come ride the bus for free. He even carried her bag for her.

That’s what it comes down to, in this part of the world: you might be poor, you might be carless, but you won’t be stranded. Not if someone is around to help.

I was to encounter this attitude more and more frequently as I moved through the South, but here it really shocked me. That just wouldn’t happen in my beloved San Francisco, where people are more in the habit of stepping over others than stopping to help. It gave me something to think about.

And I had plenty of time to think, riding the bus all over Creation.

Ultimately, the Triangle wasn’t for me. I had two delicious meals with Kirsten and the family, then hopped a bus to Asheville. See you there next.

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photo by Russ Roca of The Path Less Pedaled

I discovered Tammy Strobel (of RowdyKittens) early on in my journey, and she’s been a continual inspiration. Her simple-living tips and car-free lifestyle, all documented with great photos and useful information, got me through more than one situation—and I expect to keep learning from her for a long time to come.

Now, Tammy’s released her first e-book, Simply Car-Free: How to Pedal Toward Financial Freedom and a Healthier Life.

Simply Car-Free is an excellent, real-world, homespun resource for anyone who wants to get more serious about cycling and spend less time in traffic. I highly recommend you download a copy. It’s cheap, too: $9.95 for the first 500 customers, and $12.99 thereafter.

The book is full of extremely knowledgeable and useful info on why, how, when and where to ride your bike. There are also some great tips and facts you’ve probably never heard before. For example:

Sitting down and honestly analyzing the cost of our car was shocking. The car payment, interest, insurance, gas, maintenance and more added up to about $7,000 per year. The average American spends $8,000 a year on their car.

Also inspirational: Tammy’s own story of how she and her partner Logan switched from driving to riding, and what the process was like for a self-described “normal middle-class” suburban couple.

I started out biking 5 miles a week and slowly increased the number of miles I rode on weekends. Before I knew it, I was going for all-day bike rides that were between 30 and 50 miles. Anything is possible, just remember to take it slow.

Want more? Yes, trust me, you do. Check out the first three chapters for free here. Then buy the book, and support Tammy’s awesome lifestyle and excellent work!

(legally required) DISCLOSURE: I got a free advance copy of this e-book for the purpose of reviewing it. Neener neener.

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Tracy L. Barnett
Photo ©2010. All rights reserved.

I arrived in Mexico three weeks ago as the first leg of my yearlong journey through Latin America documenting the environmental movement across the continent, from the perspective of its protagonists. I’ll be traveling through Latin America for this entire year, interviewing green architects and guerilla gardeners, indigenous farmers and bicycle activists, journalists and academics, even public officials engaged in the transition to a more sustainable lifestyle. I’ll be reporting on what I find – in Spanish and in English – on the Esperanza project, a new media initiative.

Inside the theater at Huehuecoyotl, an ecovillage in the mountains of Morelos, Mexico.
©2010 Tracy L. Barnett. All rights reserved.

Here’s how it all began. About 10 months ago I was working as the travel editor at the Houston Chronicle, when a round of cutbacks slashed a third of the staff, including me. It was a shock, but it ended up freeing me up to launch a project that feels meaningful and exciting to me in a way that working for a daily newspaper never could.

The roots of this project really began long ago in Columbia, Missouri, long before I became a travel writer. Back in 2000, I started the bilingual newspaper Adelante, and my student reporters and of course our readers came from all over Latin America. I accepted every invitation I could to visit friends and their families in the South. Before that, I was an environmental writer at the Columbia Daily Tribune. The Esperanza Project tries to pull all of those themes together—travel, Latin America, and the environment—using the multimedia tools I learned as a travel writer and the Spanish I learned as an immigrant affairs reporter in Missouri, California and Texas.

Community members at Teopantli Kalpulli, an intentional community near Guadalajara.
©2010 Tracy L. Barnett. All rights reserved.

Some people have asked me, why Latin America? I can give several reasons for that: First, I wanted to do it. All my life I’ve wanted to take that trip where I just keep on going. Now I’ll be headed south for a whole year, and I’m really excited about that.

But more importantly, I think we in the States get a little self-important thinking we have all the answers. But there’s a lot we can learn from other cultures, ones that aren’t quite as caught up in the consumerist, carbon-dependent model we’ve adopted in the States.

Latin Americans, in particular, bring a different perspective and a level of creativity and passion to their activism really inspires me. My hope is that it will inspire my North American compatriots, as well.

Right now a completely unexpected green revolution is going on in Mexico City. Rooftops of homes and factories are being planted in gardens to provide an alternate food supply and offset carbon emissions.

A young activist in Coyoacán.
©2010 Tracy L. Barnett. All rights reserved.

In Guadalajara, bicycle activists are taking to the streets by the thousands, demanding green spaces, bike lanes and a more people-oriented approach to transportation and city planning. In the mountains not far from here, the Huichol people are fighting a groundbreaking legal battle to take back their ancestral lands and manage them in their own integral way.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Everywhere you look in Latin America, local groups have formed to raise consciousness about the urgent need to shift to a more sustainable lifestyle. They don’t have a lot of resources, but what they do have is creativity, passion and spirit.

One of my first articles, though, has to do with a more personal dilemma: Whether to buy carbon offsets to help compensate for the pollution my travel will inevitably cause. Carbon offsets have become pretty controversial of late, but after a lot of thought, I decided to donate $10 a month to the Marda Permaculture Project to plant olive trees and build greenhouses in the town of Marda, Palestine.

Composting at the ecobarrios in Mexico City.
©2010 Tracy L. Barnett. All rights reserved.

I don’t claim that this is the answer to corporate pollution on a broader scale, but on a personal level, it felt like the right thing to do. It’s a wonderful project that builds community resilience using tried-and-true permaculture techniques, and you can read all about it here.

This year I’m going to be using video and photography and my best reporting skills to bring these people to life for The Esperanza Project readers. I’ll also be seeking collaborators, people to write stories from their eco-experiences in Latin America, and people to help with translations. I hope some of you will join us at theesperanzaproject.org.

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Post tags: adventure, americas, community, ecotourism, ecotravel, ecovillages, environment, esperanza, featured posts, green living, latin america, mexico, photography, sustainable, the esperanza project, tourism, tracy barnett, travel

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As many of you are aware, I’ve reached the end of my journey around the United States and am now back in the West. The story is far from over, however!

For the next several weeks, I’ll continue telling you about my adventures. From Virginia, the path leads south and west: through North Carolina to Tennessee, finally landing in New Orleans for three weeks of mind-blowing, frustrating, inspiring, parading, jazz-infused mudraking.

And then it’s all over, which is a sad prospect for you and me both. But never fear! There are new things on the horizon.

One question many of you have asked: where am I headed next, and when? The answer is a bit complicated. So here’s the plan, as I see it.

Uprooted International will take me around the world in 2011. I’m hoping to focus more on sustainability and travel issues, including the ethics of travel and what the tourism industry is doing to respond to environmental concerns. And as always, I’ll be talking about how to travel dirt-cheap.

As Uprooted grows, I’ll be bringing more and more outside voices: fellow travelers, explorers and gamechangers with stories to tell from all parts of the world.

At the same time, I’ll be launching a new project or two, to focus more on the green/cheap living, radical interdependence and DIY ethic that’s inspired me throughout this journey.

So, lots of irons in the fire. It’s very exciting around here—but I’m glad, too, to be home with my people, in my beloved West, watching spring break over familiar horizons.

In the immediate future, my travelogue posts will be slowing down as the inspiration for new projects picks up.

Keep reading: there’s good stuff in the pipe.

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Enjoy the show, and I’ll see you next week.

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Post tags: California, ecotourism, ecotravel, environment, featured posts, Humboldt, nature, outdoors, photography, Siskiyou, travel, water

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It was September, and fall was falling: leaves beginning to turn, rains getting cooler, fresh breezes brushing lightly at the corners of the day.

After a long summer in the Northeast, I was ready to head South again. But first, I stopped off in Virginia to see Aunt Margie, her husband Larry, and my dear darling grandmother Helen Lee.

I needed family just now: I’d worn myself out from months of traveling, and wanted desperately to slow down, be around familiar faces, and do some laundry. I wasn’t just physically tired, but soul-weary: could hardly convince myself to get up and write, let alone go out and have more adventures. I’d lost a little oomph.

As it happened, I’d come to exactly the right spot.

Margie and Larry are passionate environmentalists, and Margie told me she’d always wanted to visit Polyface Farm out in the western part of the state. I didn’t know a whole lot about the place, but its name had kept popping up during my travels. In my current state of mind, it seemed more like a chore than an adventure: great, let’s drop in on another random farmer and inspect their blighted tomatoes. I just didn’t have the adventure in me. But Margie did, and for her sake I thought I’d go along.

Turns out, you can visit Polyface Farm any time you like—but you can’t just walk in and take a tour. It’s a working farm, after all. They’re busy.

Guided tours cost a mint, and if you want to talk to Joel himself you’ve got to hire him for a lecture—or as a supplier for your restaurant. But if you’ve got gumption, you can always drive down to Polyface and show yourself around for free. We had gumption, or Margie did. She wrote a note to let them know we’d be coming, added her cell number just-in-case, and faxed it in to Polyface’s office.

Monday morning we hopped in the car and sped off toward Staunton. Once we got on the road, I started feeling more eager. I’d researched Polyface over the weekend, and discovered just how special it was. So this was the place that started everybody using chicken tractors! This was the guy that Michael Pollan had written about in The Omnivore’s Dilemma. This visit might turn out to be a pretty good idea after all.

Nerds that we are, Margie and I chose to read passages from The Omnivore’s Dilemma while we drove. That’s what we were doing: Margie driving, and me reading aloud about pigs, when the phone rang.

That’s Margie, a little later, being attacked by pigs.

Margie answered.

“Hello?

That had been Joel Salatin on the phone. “Come on down,” he’d told Margie, “We’re dressing chickens.”

This is where I started to get real excited. Joel Salatin had called us personally! And invited us to watch him kill chickens! Margie seemed a bit less enthusiastic about the slaughtering aspect, but I couldn’t help imagining the photographs.

Someday I’ll tell you about my “thing” for dead chickens.

An hour later, we pulled into the gravel driveway and parked. It was quiet, so we poked our heads around the main building—and there was a big metal contraption covered in chicken blood and feathers. Chickens had been slaughtered here, but we seemed to have missed the show. I thought maybe we should just wander away and avoid bothering anybody. But there was another car just pulling up, and at Margie’s urging we followed its three occupants into the empty office.

The three turned out to be young restauranteurs, here to see the farm and buy some meat. As we were talking, a documentarian from New York walked up with her big camera. Then Joel Salatin himself strolled through the door. He’d just washed the blood off his arms, and was ready to take them all on a tour of the farm. Margie and I, grinning eagerly and trying desperately to look like we belonged, were invited to join the parade.

What ensued was an hour or two of mind-stretching commentary on agriculture, food politics, animal character (“the pigness of the pig”) and grass management. I photographed turkeys, pet bunnies and got hog slobber on my boots. And in the process, I started to feel inspired again.

It wasn’t just Salatin’s joy and enthusiasm for his work that inspired me: it was also the sense of hope I felt from seeing real, positive, and effective change taking place. My inspiration had been stymied by the citified consumerists of the Northeast’s urban centers, but here in the grass I could see my path again. And not just mine: humanity’s. I started to remember why I was on this path in the first place: to learn from people just liek Salatin, and to spread the word.

Oh god this photo is so dorky but I’m posting it anyway, as proof

Margie’s husband Larry hadn’t come with us, but he’d prepped me beforehand. “You ask the farmer,” he said, “if his methods can actually feed all the humans on the planet.”

The answer turned out to be “yes”. Margie and I left Polyface with several pounds of meat, ear-splitting smiles, and a brand-new understanding of sustainability.

And that’s how I got to visit Polyface Farm and talk to Joel Salatin.

Want to know more? Read yesterday’s post, Joel Salatin and the Future of Food.

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Post tags: agritourism, ecotourism, ecotravel, environment, farm, green living, joel salatin, organic, polyface, Polyface Farm, sustainable, tourism, travel, Virginia

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Boston’s one of those truly people-oriented cities, so few and far between in America: a magical place dominated by young people and universities, where everybody walks, few people drive, and you can get wherever you want to go on the train.

I’d been told about the massive student population here, but it has to be seen to be believed: there are over 100 colleges and universities in the greater Boston area, 27 of which are in Boston proper. Across the river in Cambridge there are 7 more, including Harvard and MIT. That adds up to over 250,000 students in Boston/Cambridge, about 40% of the population.

Those who do try to drive around Boston spend most of their time stuck in traffic.

Students, as a general rule, live near their schools and spend more time walking than driving. They tend to travel in smaller circles, be more active, and have less gas money—so undoubtedly Boston’s student population helps make it a pedestrian city.

But it’s not just the kids. Boston is over 350 years old, and was therefore designed with no concern for the automobile. Instead, since 1631, this town has relied on mass transportation. The “T” system speeds throughout the greater Boston area, connects to commuter trains, boats, Amtrak and a zillion bus lines. It’s so efficient, even locals rarely need to drive. In fact, the Boston-Cambridge area has one of the highest percentages of foot commuters in America.

(...)
Read the rest of Headed to Beantown? Take the T. (331 words)

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