Exploring local roads by bike can make for a great--and affordable--vacation.

RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS PA—When my kids were young, we took them on four cross-country (Pennsylvania to California and back) summer vacations in a small private plane. (My husband was a pilot, and I learned how to navigate and serve as backup pilot, but that’s a story for another day.) When you travel long distances by small plane, you tend to stop at small airports that are the correct number of miles apart, rather than those in large cities or near anything of any particular tourist (or kid) interest. So I got really good at finding fun things to do wherever we happened to be.

Sometimes all it took was a walk through the residential streets to find a playground with swings and some friendly local kids. Or we’d amble along quiet country roads, picking wildflowers. Sometimes we got luckier: One tiny airport in the Midwest, a few miles from a small town that was the birthplace of one of the Apollo astronauts, was home to a tiny museum containing a real space suit and assorted space paraphernalia that you could examine up close and personal. In Muncie, IN, we had a great time touring the Ball Mansions, especially the kid’s touch ’n’ feel nature cabin located behind one of them, and eating “elephant’s ears” (flat pieces of deep-fried dough sprinkled with sugar) at a local festival. Another time, we watched the 4th of July fireworks from the top of a parking garage in Sioux City, SD. We visited local zoos, toured chocolate factories, strolled through botanical gardens, rode the local bus or trolley to the other side of town, checked out dozens of trading posts full of Native American art and jewelry, patronized small-town stores and snack bars, and played with the locals in countless neighborhood parks. And we had a very good time!

I’m not suggesting that getting your pilot’s license and renting a plane is either an ecofriendly or economical way to take a vacation. My point is you can have fun just about anywhere you find yourself—even in your own territory, if you start thinking like a visitor instead of a resident.

Visit Your Own Hometown
Since one of the biggest vacation costs (environmentally, financially, and timewise) comes from traveling to and from some other place, so you can save money and green your vacation by just staying home and playing tourist locally. Buy or borrow a guidebook, get a good local map, and surf the Net for places to visit and things to do. If you are disciplined enough to stay in a vacation mindset, you can sleep in your own bedrooms. If not, spring for a nice bed and breakfast or hotel in a nearby town. Eat out, try new restaurants, do the tourist things you never do. You can even splurge a bit on food and lodging, since your “staycation” isn’t costing you much in transportation. Eatwellguide.com is a great resource for finding ecofriendly restaurants, stores, farms, and even bed and breakfasts. Their “Plan a Trip” feature allows you to find potential places to visit along the route from point A to point B. So you can enjoy a tasty, local meal or visit a cool, green farm on a hot afternoon—and when you find one you like, return visits are easy, since you live nearby. Localharvest.org is also a good resource for including trips to farms and farm markets in your itinerary. Plus, you’ll find great local spots to buy fresh, organic food whenever you want it.

If your hometown feels too close for a getaway, take a map and use a pencil tied to a string to draw a circle connecting the points 25, 50, or maybe 100 miles away from your house. Challenge yourself to find a location (or two or three) inside the circle to visit and explore. If you can take a train or bus to a chosen locale, so much the better; you’ll have less driving to do and can travel farther on a budget. There is something wonderfully freeing about suspending the need for car travel if you habitually travel by automobile. And public transport tends to be more ecofriendly. For me, taking a train—or even better, a ferry—makes any trip infinitely more exciting and exotic. If your wanderlust really runs deep and you want to see the country on a budget, consider an Amtrak USA Rail Pass. It gives you unlimited (and quite green) travel through the U.S. and Canada for 30 days for one flat rate. Stop and explore along the way whenever you like.