Sweating, filthy and up to her ankles in muck, Helen Kellaway is having the vacation of her life. For the fun of spending eight days at hard labor in a Norfolk Broads marsh and eight nights sleeping on the bare wooden floor of a thatched village hail (showers not included), the 22-year-old mathematics graduate is paying £22. It’s a bargain, she insists: "This is infinitely more rewarding than sitting on a beach." Paul Townsend, a 38-year-old Cambridge University physicist, pauses from clearing scrub to adjust the bandages on his blistered hands and enthusiastically agrees. "It may not relax the body, but it certainly relaxes the mind," he says. Kellaway and Townsend are part of an eight-member team of working vacationers organized by the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers. When their holiday is done, they will have reclaimed a patch of overgrown marshland as habitat for the area’s unique species of ferns, butterflies and hawks.

It’s a splendid idea—if you happen to be a fern or a butterfly. But are intelligent men and women really spending their vacations this way? They definitely are. The BTCV organizes 600 excursions a year into the wilds of Britain for roughly 6,000 vacationers, and it can’t keep up with demand. Paying participants fell trees or plant them, clear brush, clean up ponds, do whatever they have to do to make the native wildlife happy. Don’t even ask how the food is on these tours. "I couldn’t name what was on my plate last night," a member of Kellaway’s team grins, "but at least there was plenty of it." The volunteers say they enjoy every minute. "I love being out in the middle of nowhere, where it’s quiet, peaceful and green," says Kellaway.

Amateur status: Across Europe, vacationers are rediscovering the joys of nature. Not all of them go to such extremes as spending their holidays cultivating calluses in a swamp. Still, concern about the environment has spurred a growing number of Europeans to seek alternatives to polluted beaches and mobbed tourist capitals when they get away from it all. Instead they go camping, take bird-watching tours or head for farm country to study such arts as beekeeping. While the trend toward "green" vacations has brought hard times to some conventional resort owners, it has been a godsend to country dwellers, economy-minded travelers, conservation groups and, of course, marshland creatures.

Many eco-vacationers readily admit their amateur status. "Ten years ago we attracted the committed environmentalist—people who knew a lot about conservation," says BTCV’s Bob Cronk. "Now we tend to see many more people looking for a chance to see parts of the country they might not see otherwise. They want to learn about the environment, and they want to do something constructive to halt its decline." Mark Mascarenhas, manager of the high-toned outfitters Black’s Camping off Oxford Street in London, has noticed a similar phenomenon among his customers. "More people are coming into the store and confessing that they’ve never been much of a camper before," he says. Even the greenhorns are worried about the planet’s future. Mascarenhas says many ask for tents waterproofed with chemicals that pose no risk to the earth’s ozone layer.

The French get back to nature in their own way—and that doesn’t usually mean roughing it. Better to drive the Route du Fromage through Normandy, following the cheese-shaped signposts from one farm to the next and learning how Camembert is supposed to taste. For French people who have grown up eating anemic, industrially made cheeses, the experience can be a revelation. Others choose to see the countryside from a different perspective, traveling France’s vast network of tree-lined canals on rented boats. The popularity of such holidays is reflected in the growth of France’s canal-boat fleet from 570 at the start of the decade to roughly four times that figure now. Gourmands who take time off in the winter months can arrange to spend a few days in a farmhouse kitchen learning to make pâté de foie gras.

France does offer some facilities for people who enjoy the crackle oVa campfire and the company of the stars at night. In addition to traditional campsites, more than 1,000 small farmers around the country supplement their incomes by renting space in their fields to campers. Elise Royannais, who has 75 acres set aside for tents on her farm in La Chapelle-en-Vercors, says her guests like the friendliness of "camping a la ferme," as it is known in France." They have more personal contact here than on an ordinary campsite," she explains. And for no extra charge, she’s always glad to let them help out with the haying.

Small farmers in Italy are also making ends meet by putting up guests. The National Association of Agritourism lists 1,500 farms offering hospitality from the Alto Adige to Sicily, and it estimates that there are at least 5,000 others that go unlisted. Most are small operations offering no special services or activities beyond the opportunity to relax and eat like a local, but some have expanded tobecome the equivalent of small resort hotels, with swimming pools, riding stables and accommodations for 20 guests or more. Still, farm life is not for all vacationers. Many Italians prefer to fly off to more exotic climes when they can get away. With Italy’s high cost of living, a two-week trip to the rain forests of Madagascar can often be cheaper than two weeks in Sardinia.

There are still plenty of Europeans who prefer their vacations in shades other than green, and they have a wide variety of activities to choose from. Club Med offers computer classes for young urban workaholics who refuse to let vacations come in the way of their careers. A French travel operator runs tours of the country’s medical research facilities for senior citizens, including a stop at Marseilles University for lectures on progress in artificial-heart development and the manufacture of artificial skin. Bus tours of France’s nuclear power plants drew more than 300,000 visitors last year. And the beaches of the Côte d’Azur are still open. Three small children playing on three different beaches there were injured by discarded hypodermic syringes last month.

-SAM SEIBERT with ELIZABETH JONES in the NorfolkBroade, FI0NA GLEIZES in Paris and PAUL BOMPARD in Rome

Source : NEWSWEEK, July 10, 1989

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