OLIVER CAMPONOVO SUSTAINABLE TRAVEL – Organizing a sustainable travel means looking for the most creative ideas in the whole world. Because talking about sustainability in tourism is simple, but making it a reality is a different story. This is the reason why this period of stillness caused by Covid-19 should make us think deeply about our ways to travel. In fact we are going to report some examples of how tourism is finding new paths for sustainable travels and their supporters, just like Oliver Camponovo.

Some creative and sustainable ideas

The world of sustainable travel still has a long way to go, but meanwhile some entrepreneurs and/or philanthropists are coming up with very creative ideas. These particular proposals take their distances from our tourism habits, though they get closer to some major causes. For example, Thierry Theissier created a franchise of travelling hotels, which means they move from place to place every six months. The visitors will support projects of environmental protection and vocational training made in the most fascinating but critical countries in the globe. This is an example of a very creative hospitality that can inspire sustainable travel in the future.

Another interesting project is that of the entrepreneur Dan Friedkin. Indeed, the visitors can look at the migration of the animals in Tasmania from 7 different lodges. But another surprise is, these apartments will finance many purchases of terrains led by locals and trainings for rangers who will stop poaching.

Sustainable travel, the future that we need

The future must have to deal with sustainable travel since it’s a new necessity for tourism. In the previous years the sustainable ideas which many of us – like Oliver Camponovo – appreciated were only a few exceptions in the world. But nowadays we need sustainable travel to become a wider and  more supported reality. According to the WTO (World Tourism Organization), the tourism sector represents 10% of global GDP, which means it is essential that this industry must be managed in a more sustainable way. Thus all of us should try to organize more sustainable travel when we will have this chance again, as the investor Oliver Camponovo is surely planning.

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Catherine Riney proposes a creative and sustainable project to record our travels. An interesting idea to remember them and have them whenever we want. Who doesn’t like the idea of capture the stages of our travels? With this small booklet you will have the opportunity to do so, without being a burden on the environment. This object has a particular feature: is produced in a sustainable way. Let’s read the words of the creator of Our World Travel Logs.

Oliver Camponovo

Why I Started Our World Travel Logs – One Person’s Journey

In this blog, I would like to take the opportunity to share with you a little about what lies behind Our World Travel Logs. I am going to take you through several sections split into two parts, please feel free to jump around to the topics that interest you the most.

Part One

• An Overview
• Why I Started Our World Travel Logs
• How I Did It
  • The Design
  • Sustainable Business Focus

An Overview

As a mother of two children and a keen traveller I wanted to capture the memories of our travels in a fun, educational way. As someone committed to the sustainability of our world, I wanted to make sure I did this in an environmentally aware way. Thus Our World Travel Logs was born. My products & packaging are all made from sustainably sourced paper. ​Adding a blog about travel and the environment I feel  am contributing to the wider conversation about how we can enjoy and protect Our World. And I love the fact that I am doing this through the medium of a physical product – a booklet – that doesn’t need a battery, to be plugged in or need wifi.

Why I Started Our World Travel Logs

I started designing the flight log when I ran out of space in a little booklet I had been using for both my children from when they were born, they are teenagers now. Needing something to continue recording their journey, I did a lot of research about flight logs and found that they had been around in various forms for over 30 years.

I, unfortunately, never had one as a child, to record my journeys. When I was 2 years old my father got a job with the now long gone, Eastern Airlines, in the United States. This meant an eventual move to Florida from New York, when my sister and I were 3 and 1 years old, where we knew no one. My father’s family live mostly in New York and mother’s family, even farther away, in Australia.

Really all my travel and what has led me to design this book starts from when my parents met on the island of Mykonos in a long-gone hostel in the 60s. Now it is seen as a very chic destination, definitely not as affordable for a backpacking traveller. They had both been travelling extensively around Europe, Turkey and Greece. A very Australian thing to do but slightly more unusual for an American at that time.

Back in the 1960s and 70s air travel was a bit more luxurious, rare and slower. I started flying just at the end of the Golden Age of flying. As my Australian family had not yet met me or my father, my mother was very keen to take advantage of the airline’s travel passes for employees and took me to Australia, my first ever flight.

I was a 2-year-old, and what a journey that was, no direct flights, that’s for sure, making  5 stops, over 48 hours and across the international dateline. I even made the local paper in my mother’s home town of NSW, Australia!

I have many happy memories of other trips we took to visit our Australian family. It was the beginning for me and my sister’s fascination with the world, both close at home and farther afield. We travelled in  the USA in tents, camper vans and by plane. Exploring has always been second nature to us.

As an adult I spent several years where I would work just long enough to fund my next adventure, on all modes of transport, solo or with friends, sometimes for months at a time. My favourite, always the long slow travel as a backpacker.

My favourite, always the long slow travel as a backpacker.

And yes, I have instilled this in my own children. For them they have three home countries as I now do. As a teenager my family moved again this time from Florida to Newcastle, Australia where my parents still live surrounded by beaches, bush and all manner of relatives and friends.

My sister and I live in Europe. My sister is in Germany and I am in London. My children are true Londoners born in a hospital facing Westminster Palace  and the river Thames. Part of me is a Londoner too. Same for my husband who is from Nottingham, in the Midlands of England.

My daughters have made many journeys, like my sister and I, visiting family in the USA and Australia from a young age as well as enjoying many adventures closer to home, particularly at the moment.

They have recorded every flight  and  I am now working on my next log book to record more than just the flights  to ensure their full journey in our world is captured. My Our World Flight Log was designed for personal use, first and foremost, it wasn’t until I decided to enter a competition that I really thought about sharing it with the wider world, more on that shortly.

How I Developed It

Design

I  developed the design through a combination of research and my own thoughts about what I wanted my girls to think about when they travelled. I also trialled it with other families and friends. I had to learn how to use design software and where to find the right printers who could support my sustainable goal.

The Our World Flight Log is designed to take you on a journey as you turn through the pages, from who you are, to how far you flew, to the countries you are going to before moving onto your total journey distance  and whether  you have made it all the way round the world or, maybe even to the moon and back! There is also what I call the secret column for you to record who you were with on your journey and other bits and pieces of short information to jog your memory. The size was also important, I decided on a passport sized booklet for ease of taking with you. Roughly 90mm x 125mm.

My favorite pages are the flags and world map, hoping to inspire the user to ask questions about the places they are visiting. A flag is such a good visual to start.

I deliberately did not want an electronic product, books are a first love of mine enabling you to share and remember the experience of your journey in a tactile way. We have had amazing interactions with pilots and crew when asking for the details of our journeys for our flight logs.

Sustainable Business Focus

It  became very clear to me, very quickly that the only way to print a product was to do so in as sustainable a way as possible. Therefore, I researched sustainable paper and printers who could provide this service and who were working themselves in sustainable ways. In the UK that meant I used Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) paper which is  harvested in a sustainable manner.

The first print run was in October 2018 and as things have moved on I will definitely make a few more demands of myself to make the next print run and product even more sustainable. I have learnt a lot through all the development phases I went through and intend to put them into practice.

My professional career has always been in the world of business as an accountant and business change consultant working with all manner of organisations big and small in Australia and the UK. I have never done anything like this before, although I have always been creative but more with my camera or a paint brush. It was a new challenge for me.

In Part Two, I will take you through the competition and where my business is today.

Catherine Riney proposes a creative and sustainable project to record our travels: Our World Travel Logs. An interesting idea to remember them and have them whenever we want. Who doesn’t like the idea of capture the stages of our travels? With this small booklet you will have the opportunity to do so, without being a burden on the environment. This object has a particular feature: is produced in a sustainable way. Let’s read the words of the creator of Our World Travel Logs.

Oliver Camponovo

Why I Started Our World Travel Logs – One Person’s Journey

Here you can find the first part of the article Catherine Riney: Our World Travel Logs

PART TWO

• Competition Win (while traveling through two countries, of course)

• The Interviews
• Into The Dragon’s Den – 15 min pitch with Q&A
• Business Support

Competition Win – While Traveling Through Two Countries

After going through the whole process working with friends and family, printers, and design software. I decided to enter a competition run in the Guardian Newspaper for entrepreneurs with only one or two people involved to get support from Guardian Labs and eBay to help progress their business.

I thought this would be a good way to help me put together a plan for Our World Travel Logs and see where it might take me. I dutifully filled in the application forms which definitely helped me focus on my target market and why I was doing this in the first place and where it might lead.

The Interviews

I was successful in the first round so I went through to the next which meant I had a phone interview with a journalist to discuss my business. I happened to be in a hotel in  Brooklyn New York for that conversation. I had to send in a photo to go with this next phase which I did just after having my hair done for my sister’s wedding. My sister was getting married in Central Park and it actually coincided with the morning of her wedding (you can see the photo as it is currently on my LinkedIn profile).  It was a short conversation just to get an idea of who I was beyond the application.

This initial phone interview went well, as did my sister’s wedding! I was the chief photographer and hand faster. A glorious day in Central Park and the wonders of random uninvited guests. On to the next phase, and the next part of our post wedding holiday.

I am proud of my little booklet, I love it, and so it seems do others out there who have actually bought something I have created!

My family and I had been up to Nova Scotia, kayaking, hiking and exploring before heading to a family gathering in Green Lake, Minnesota. On the way to the lake I received another call to say I was in the 3rd phase of the competition and would need to discuss the strategy for marketing my business. This I did in our hire car with my family listening in but being very quiet for about 20 mins.

So far so good. We had our holiday at the lake before moving on to the camping part of the holiday in Itaska State Park where the Mississippi River begins. Of course, this would be when the final stage took place. Have you heard of Dragon’s Den (or maybe, Shark Tank?).

Into The Dragon’s Den – 15 min pitch with Q&A

As I was starting a travel related business, I guess it was fitting to be travelling. The final stage was a Dragon’s Den style pitch and Q&A. If you don’t know it, basically, it is a short interrogation of what your business is all about and why you should be one of the 15 winning entrepreneurs. There is still a link to one of our newspaper articles!

I managed to find a wi-fi connection in the state park for an early morning chat with 3 people, a business manager from eBay, a finance person from the Guardian Labs and a well-known entrepreneur and Dragon’s den presenter Touker Suleyman.

Scary right, I set up my phone to have a voice conference call with them as my connection would not support video. I spent the next 15 mins delivering my “elevator” pitch  and answering their questions as succinctly as I could. With my Aunt’s dog keeping me company. Win or lose that was done and it felt great to have gotten that far.

Next few days were spent mountain biking and hiking and then I received a call to say I had been selected as one of the winners! Wow, but what did that mean?

Business support

Come that September the winners received a full day workshop, 3 months’ worth of mentoring and a connection to a like-minded group of people, to help move our businesses forward plus a listing on eBay, two feature articles in the Guardian newspaper and a small cash win followed, all part of the award.

Environmental Focus

It was at the point that my focus really began to encompass the wider environmental impact of what I wanted to achieve. I could not see the point of starting anything that did not include the thought, focus and action around sustainability.

Greta Effect

Of course, the world has changed since I first started traveling and Greta Thunberg captured my imagination and hope, especially as my daughters are about her age. I first came across an article about how this girl in Sweden was skipping school to protest about the need to change our ways to save Our World. I still have that article to inspire me.

I feel incredibly strongly that all our activity needs to be based on sustainable principles and, for me, travel is a big one.

Travelling  touches all corners of our world – our creatures, the people and the environment. There are great organisations that I have become aware of, doing amazing things in the area of sustainable, responsible travel.

Over the past two year I have been promoting and discussing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and ESG investment and strategy, hosting and sourcing webinars on business sustainability for my professional organization. Becoming an influencer in this area and continually looking to increase my knowledge and expertise.

A Piece of Plastic

I have a piece of a plastic bottle on my desk, which I can see as I write this, that I picked up on a beach in the Arctic circle of Norway. I regularly wonder, what happened to the  rest of it? Why am I finding this piece of plastic on this gorgeous, out of the way, beach in the Arctic!? And that is just a piece of plastic, only the tip of the iceberg in this conversation about our world.

We all have a responsibility to our planet to do better. Individually we can make small changes but collectively we can do amazing things for our society and environment.

Sales, Travel, The Pandemic

So back to business, to date I have sold several hundred travel logs using various platforms: my own website, Etsy and eBay and then the pandemic hit.

Sales

So, of course, being involved in the travel industry, sales totally dried up. They went from sales every week to nothing. As we all know the whole travel industry has been hit hard.

Then on the 15 of May I had my first sale, since then I have had the beginning of what may be the start of a recovery. At the very least a sign that people are thinking about and are travelling again.

I am proud of my little booklet, I love it, and so it seems do others out there who have actually bought something I have created! Still amazes me every time I get a sale and feedback.

Our Travels

Our family travel plans, and millions like us, were cancelled, you know the drill.

We had a holiday booked to Florida with family coming from all over the US and Australia. We had another holiday to Poros in Greece with my husband’s family all cancelled. All entering into the phase of do we get a refund, a voucher, or rebook.

We did a combination of those things and we will see when and how they can be used in the future. We decided, when things started to open up again, after toying with the idea of flights, trains and automobiles and watching things open then close, that actually, let’s do a holiday in the UK.

Over the past two year I have been promoting and discussing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and ESG investment and strategy, hosting and sourcing webinars on business sustainability for my professional organization. Becoming an influencer in this area and continually looking to increase my knowledge and expertise.

We have, of course, done this in the past visiting the Highlands of Scotland, the Peak District, the wonderful Lake District, The Cotswolds and the mountains and beaches of Wales. Not to mention the towns and cities around the UK we have visited. We decided we wanted to be away from London and be somewhere with less people, relax and enjoy the outdoors.

We went North. We explored Northumberland, think Hadrian’s Wall, Vindolanda Roman ruins, numerous castles along gorgeous sandy beaches, the city of Newcastle Upon Tyne and finally Kielder Water & Forest Park, Northumberland National Park and one of the largest Dark Sky Parks in the world. Complete with the wonderful Kielder Observatory to put your life in perspective. It was a wonderful two weeks away. We were grateful to be well and able to go. And enjoy what nature had waiting for us.

What’s Next

This brings me to the present day. Back from my travels, children back in school, trying out this new normal, for however long it lasts. I am working on my new design project, continuing to talk about sustainably and, always, thinking about my next journey big or small or even just round the block.

I believe we all have a wealth of culture and life everywhere we go, don’t forget to look out for it, protect it and enjoy it! Even when it is in your own backyard.

Let’s all do this now, together, as quickly as we can. We, human beings, are good at innovation and creativity, adapting to new ways has always kept us alive. We can do this and we can do better for our world – for the environment, people and creatures great and small.