The unbearable lightness of Morocco, unplugged

A short post today, and an ironic one: to share a link to my Morocco unplugged story (about a new "digital detox" trip I did earlier this year) while en route to an accidental digital detox on beautiful Lord Howe Island (well, there is WiFi at the small museum, when it's open, but not at Pinetrees Lodge, apparently by popular request.)

Djelleba phonetime, Meknes

The concept behind the Morocco trip, one of Intrepid Travel's three new "digital detox" adventures, was that everyone in our small group would sign a pledge to not use their smartphones or any other devices for nine days.

Living in northern NSW now, where some of my friends don't even use email let alone Facebook, I didn't find it too hard. In fact it was a relief to forget my life back home and immerse myself in Morocco. I wrote postcards, read a real book (instead of my Kindle), played cards, got used to not knowing the time or what was happening in the world and listened to our guide telling folk stories instead of disappearing into my headphones. It was a lighter way to travel, somehow.

A moment in the holy hill
town of Moulay Idriss

I think my four companions liked it too, though two 20-somethings admitted they use apps back home to manage their use of social media (one is called Forest: if you succumb to the call of the online world, a virtual tree dies).

"The only thing that makes life worth living is the possibility of experiencing now and then a perfect moment," wrote American writer Paul Bowles, Tangier's best known expat, who lived there for 52 years.

"And perhaps even more than that, it's having the ability to recall such moments in their totality, to contemplate them like jewels."

Others might disagree, but surely the only way to experience anything is to "look up" from our devices. In fact, remember Look Up, that spoken-word short film by Gary Turk? It's had more than 60 million views since it was uploaded to YouTube in 2014. If that's not ironic, I don't know what is.

As always, thanks for reading. Now let's all go outside, and look up at the sky.

2017: A year in search of simplicity

Here we are again at the end of another journey together around the sun. How was it for you? Strange to think that no matter how settled we might feel, we're all constantly in transit, glimpsing milestones as we go, pausing at moments like these to ponder what we've experienced along the way.

Barefoot at Blinky Beach,
Lord Howe Island

For me, it's also a time to wonder if I spent the past 365 days wisely. Did I love well, let go, reduce my impact, do my best?

As always, there was a roll call of destinations. This year my trips seemed to have a common thread, by accident or design: a search for simplicity. Whether it was a chance to go barefoot, travel low-impact or just shrug off the home-fire routines for a week or two of being in the moment (and taking copious notes so I could write about it later).

Here's a bit of a highlights reel...

It started with a new "digital detox" trip through northern Morocco, where I went offline for nine days (bliss) and had company doing it.

Then came an Earth Weekend (not just an Earth Day) on beautiful, earthy Norfolk Island and, soon after, the inaugural Seven Peaks Walk on my other favourite little Australian Island, Lord Howe.

Jordan rocks (really)

Jordan, in May, was a highlight for me: six days of heat-wave hiking and camping in out-of-this-world landscapes on the new Jordan Trail (my Walking to Petra post was the second most popular post I've ever written). Big thanks again to the Seattle-based Adventure Travel Trade Association for inviting me to their inaugural conference in the region; it was my first visit to the Middle East and won't be my last.

In July I swapped the southern winter for a chilly northern summer - in Iceland, a place that impressed me in unexpected ways (see More than "fire and ice": 10 reasons to love Iceland). I even got to have a quick dip in the North Atlantic. (Any trip that includes a swim is a good one, in my book.)

Torres del Paine #nofilters

Then I went to the opposite side of the globe, to Patagonia. An all-too-brief media trip that left me yearning to return to spend a month in a cabin or go trekking in the too-beautiful-for-words Torres del Paine country.

My last trip of the year a few weeks ago was closer to home: a sea kayaking adventure in Raja Ampat, an archipelago of about 1500 limestone islands off the north-west tip of West Papua.

Paddling West Papua

It felt more like a holiday than any other trip this year, probably because we were in and out of the water the whole time like kids at a pool party. When we weren't kayaking, we were snorkelling, stand-up paddleboarding, walking to waterfalls or relaxing on the traditional Indonesian boat we called home for nine tropical days. (Blog post coming soon.)

As always, I feel truly privileged to be able to experience all these places and write about them and want to take this opportunity to thank all the tour operators, tourism organisations, editors and PR people who made this year's travels possible.

First sunrise of 2017, Lennox Head

Meanwhile, in northern NSW... this month marks my third year in little Lennox Head, a place that makes me love coming home more than anywhere else I've lived.

Every time I'm offered a trip, in fact, I weigh it up against the joys of my non-travelling life: surfing with friends, beach walks, late afternoon lake swims, moonrises over the sea, winter whale-watching, planting trees.

One of my at-home highlights this year was helping to set up a Boomerang Bags community in Lennox: we make cloth shopping bags from recycled fabric and will soon be giving them away at local shops to reduce plastic bag use. Loved this chance to meet and work with a bunch of like-minded locals on a good-news project.

Barefoot with Boomerang Bags

Oh, and I got to see Jane Goodall speak in Sydney, interviewed two other inspiring women about travelling and living simply ("soul trekker" Laura Waters and Jo Nemeth who lives without money) and won another Australian Society of Travel Writers award: Best Responsible Tourism Story, for a piece about a solar-slum tour I did in Kolkata, India, last year.

But looking back on all this, what makes a year (or a life) feel well-lived I think isn't how many trips we do or what we achieve.

Barefoot again, in Raja Ampat
(in Waterlust whaleshark leggings)

It's the connections we make - with each other and with the world we live in and on, and they happen more easily when we slow down and simplify things. That's what I'm most thankful for, because it's what reminds us we're all in this together, all hurtling around the sun at an incredible 108,000 kilometres per hour.

So happy simple new year, my friends, and thanks for your company. May our next 365-day trip be full of adventures of all kinds. See you back here in 2018!

Plastic free: 5 ways to avoid bottled water on your next trip

A few weeks ago I got back from Nepal, where I did a 15-day trek* in the Langtang Valley (story coming soon) - and thought about plastic. Specifically plastic bottles of water that save us from dying of dehydration in countries like Nepal where tourists can't drink the tap water.

Kids on the trail
north of Kathmandu

Of course most of us would rather die of dehydration than buy a bottle of water at home.

We all know it's bad for the environment in terms of the resources it takes to produce the bottles, the depletion of aquifers to fill them and the pollution problem of disposing of them.

We know bottled water is bad for us; the World Health Organisation just launched a review of bottled water, in fact, after a study in New York found microplastics in 90 per cent of 259 bottles from nine countries. (The Story of Stuff has a great 8-minute video about The Story of Bottled Water.)

But when we travel we often do things we wouldn't do at home.

What happened to serving water
on flights in refillable jugs?

Who hasn't bought plastic 2-litre bottles of water in Thailand or Morocco, because we can't drink the tap water and, well, bottled water is cheap and convenient? Or cracked open a tiny 300ml bottle tucked into the seatback pocket on a plane? Or said yes please to an ice-cold water bottle on a tropical tour bus? I know I have.

Sure, plastic bottles are often re-used in countries like these, in creative ways. I've seen them used as hanging pots for plants, cut down to make lamps, turned into pipes on mountain streams.

Plastic bottle pots in the Philippines

But the first rule of reducing plastic pollution is to, er, reduce (before reuse and recycle).

What was heartening on my Nepal trek was that, with the exception of a couple of my fellow trekkers who bought plastic bottles of water every day (adding up to 50 or 60 empty bottles by the end of the trek), everyone in the group treated their drinking water in a variety of ways, to avoid buying plastic bottles.

Here are five of them, all simple, cost-effective ways to avoid bottled water on your next trip:

Clean water in pill form

1. Aquatabs. I used these tiny water purification tablets on the trek and they worked a treat. Filled my one-litre stainless steel water bottle from any tap, dropped in a pill, shook the bottle and waited 30 minutes before drinking. A pack of 50 Aquatabs costs about $10; I bought mine in Kathmandu (the city, not the outdoor store).

The Lifestraw in action

2. Lifestraw. Designed by Swiss company Vestergaard in 2005 for use in countries where people don't have access to clean drinking water, the Lifestraw is basically a fat drinking straw that lets you safely drink from almost any water source. One straw can filter up to 4000 litres of water before it has to be replaced and costs about $40 from Macpac. There are also steel straws now and bottles with built-in Lifestraws.

3. SteriPEN. This one uses ultraviolet (UV) light to sterilise water; just fill your water bottle, stir it with the SteriPEN for 90 seconds (a green light signals when it's done) and you're ready to drink.

CamelBak's UV glow

Cities all over the world have long been using UV light to sterilise public water supplies, but US brand SteriPEN was the first to create a handheld UV device to purify water, in 2001. They start at $89 but the light lasts for 8000 litres.

4. CamelBak All Clear. CamelBak has taken things a step further by putting a UV filter in the lid of a BPA-free bottle, plus an LED screen that counts down the 60 seconds it takes to purify the water. It can be recharged by USB port, and a single charge purifies 60 litres of water. It's pricey at $199, but at least it's built into your bottle.

Purification in two small bottles

5. Chlorine dioxide. This one's my least favourite as it's a bit fiddly (I'd rather use Aquatabs). You add 12 droplets of Lifesystems chlorine dioxide solution to water and wait 20 minutes. The water tastes slightly better (less chlorine-y) than with Aquatabs, but there's always a risk the bottles could crack or leak their contents through your backpack. Costs about $30 from Trek&Travel.

Remember to pack your reusable water bottle to use with all of these except #4 and you're good to go. Preferably stainless steel - it's better for you than even BPA-free plastic, more durable than most plastics and recyclable when you're finished with it. Two brands I've used and loved are The Source, which donates $2 of every sale to Sea Shepherd, and Sydney-based Cheeki.

Happy plastic-free travels. (There'll be another post on more plastic-free-travel tips soon.)

*Big thanks to Intrepid Travel for encouraging us all to reduce our use of bottled water on this amazing trek, in line with their strong sustainable travel stance, and for hosting me on the 15-day Tamang Heritage & Langtang Valley trek, which runs Feb-May and Oct-Nov every year.