Sweden - Day 1 - June 19, 2009

After months and months of planning, the day of departure is finally here.  We leave on the 6 p.m. flight out of Raleigh and will fly to London. After a 7-hour layover, we will fly from London to Stockhom.  I will post my total flight miles.  I will be tracking all flight and rail miles so that I can purcase carbon offsets upon my return.

Some of you have expressed interest in the cottage in which we will be staying. I don't have a picture yet.  I will post one as soon as I get there.  But, here is  picture of my brother's home.  It was the sumer home of his wife's family. When they first moved in, there was only cold running water. There were no indoor bathrooms.  This picture was taken a few years ago (obviously in winter).  I will post some more recent photos when I get there so that you can see how they have renovated the house.  But, you can see, this is a very typical Swedish summer home. 

I have already taken several steps to green my trip. I called American Airlines and verified that we CAN take our stainless steel water bottles. They have to be empty when we go through security, but we can fill them up in the concourse. So, no bottled water!  I have ordered vegetarian meals for all flights.  We are taking our Chico bags, one each, to avoid plastic bags. I am resusing an old notebook as a travel journal ( I couldn't find a new one that I really liked anyway).

Any other ideas for greening travel?  Share them here.