Just home from 'Sun, Golf and Sangria' in S. Spain. Lets consider the cost of my break - to both my wallet and the environment. Lets compare my four day break with the cost of an overnight stay in London.
Travel costs (car to John Lennon, Ryanair to Mercia, hire car to La Manga) were less than car/rail to Westminster, which is where I usually go. Villa costs were no more than one night at a medium standard hotel. And door-to-door time was five hours rather than four and a half to Wesminster. And my experience tells me that low cost air travel is rather more dependable than the railway.
The point I make is that for anyone living in North Wales and buying one of the zillions of apartments going up near San Javier, Med breaks are cheap and convenient. More so than watching Everton playing away, for example. Now Ann Jones may prefer to watch her Rhyl team playing at Llanelli, (and every Welsh rugby fan would have preferred to be at Croke Park yesterday) - but most people would rather head for the Med. and we had better get used to it. That's what peoeple are going to do in increasing numbers.
Now to the cost to the environment of the exponential growth of cheap Ryanair/Easyjet travel. I suppose I can plead 'carbon compensation' because I plant 200+ trees every year - but this misses the general point. The only effective solution will be costs-driven technology - and the only effective discipline will come from a global carbon trading scheme. Simply piling extra tax on aircraft fuel is just going to discriminate against the poorest. Anyway, it was a wonderful four days. The only drawback was that the villa didn't have internet access - which I will ensure doesn't happen on my next trip to La Manga. I've missed my blog.
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