Two days ago I returned from 12 days of holidays to the US. I had a most fantastic few days off and more or less discovered one national park or monument a day, if not two. I am now the proud owner of a National Park Annual Pass. My daily target hike was 10,000 steps (I have this step counter on my phone) and I was very good indeed, with the highest step count on one day with 18,958. This equates to 14.79 km or nearly 10 miles. All in all, I felt very "green" and environmental. I breathed in fresh air every day, felt healthy, caught some sun and even got a nice tan.
Of course, my carbon footprint was dramatic, as I flew in from London and rented a car and drove thousands of kilometres. And there was something else which turned my "green experience" rather grey - my daily breakfast.
I booked my holidays with hotels from the IHG Group, my all time favourite hotel chain; those are basically all sorts of Holiday Inns, Intercontinentals, and other brands they have. This time, the first 2 nights I spent at Candlewood Suites and from then on in Holiday Inn Expresses. The latter offer a free breakfast, so I thought it was perfect, as when going on a long road trip, a quick breakfast downstairs gets you started nicely for the day.
I spent 10 nights in HI-Express hotels and had 10 times breakfast there. The IHG-Group is one of those chains that runs on a franchise basis - everything is standardised and participating hotels have hardly any chance of being individual. The advantage obviously is that one knows what one gets and so, as a guest, one can mostly rely on a pre-defined good quality. BUT, and that's the catch, when it comes to breakfasts it can be ever so dull. Every day one gets to chose from the absolutely same breakfast buffet. It is a copy/paste activity from hotel to hotel. After day 2 or 3 I got so bored with breakfast; I tried everything, found what I liked and disliked and even the stuff I liked got dull, as it was always the same - literally the same. Yoghurt was from the same brand, jam was the same brand, EVERYTHING was the same.
In European HI Express hotels this is different. They also have to offer a certain range, but within that they are free to chose the provider, a concept which I much prefer. There is also another thing us Europeans do much better, I think, and that is the choice of cutlery and dishes. This leads me right back to my oh so carbon-green/grey holiday.
After I had my first breakfast I sat in front of that heap of plastic, styrofoam, and cardboard. I was appalled. Plates are made of styrofoam or cardboard, cutlery is made of plastic, apples were individually wrapped in clingfilm, jam, butter and honey was portioned in little plastic containers. Bowls were made of styrofoam, yoghurt was in plastic containers with aluminium lid, bagels were individually wrapped in plastic foil, my coffee cup was a mix of styrofoam and paper with a plastic lid, the coffee stirrer was of plastic. Sugar was individually packed, so was the coffee milk and sweetener. Milk for my cereals came in small tetrapaks, my juice was served in a plastic cup. Porridge (oatmeal) was individually packaged, so was cream cheese, ketchup, sauces, literally everything.
I remember my first trip to the US in 1996 and even back then in the recycling dark ages, I found all this plastic to eat from disgusting. Nothing has changed. 20 odd years on, and people in the US are still eating from plastic and styrofoam and nobody complains. And what's even worse, no hotel (chain), as all the others in the market are probably exactly the same culprits in the waste department, have discovered that "going green" could be a worthwhile and moneymaking market niche to discover.
Anyway, to prove my point, I took photos of every single breakfast I had every day. Just to show what amount of rubbish I produced. I think this is an outrageous amount of which I am not very proud of.
Yes, it was convenient. I did not have to go out every day to get myself breakfast somewhere. It was also good because on some days I just had to get out quickly and hit the road first thing in the morning.
This leads me back to my first 2 nights at the Candlewood Suites, one of their hotels that don't offer breakfast at all. I had to go and get myself some elsewhere. And so I did. And I will leave the question open what I enjoyed more. I know, I can't expect Eggs Benedict in a HI Express, but hey, I had metal cutlery, drank coffee from a real cup and ate from a proper plate. That was a real holiday experience.
For those who want to see my trip through the US, here the link: My Travel Blog
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