Tis the season for holidaying, and much the same as every other year (excepting one, see below) I hopped on a train to take me from London down to the South of France to spend a week with my family. Usually I catch the overnight sleeper (and did on my return journey) but this time my family decided to have a bit of a race, and so we all left home on the same morning with the aim of arriving at our destination in not only the fastest time, but also in the most comfortable way.

My usual route is to leave London in the evening, catch the Eurostar to Paris, skip across town to hop onto the over-night sleeper to Toulouse, and from there a local train to Auch arriving bright and breezy the following morning. Not bad in terms of timing and comfort and those sleeper couchettes really are very easy to sleep in (that is, except for The Time when a fellow passenger had decided to bring his two cats onboard and in the middle of the night one of them escaped its travelling box and leaped on me – for a few seconds I genuinely thought I had found myself caught in an Agatha Christie plot and Poirot would be called upon to investigate the happenings in Coach IV – Murder by Cats!)

Instead, this year on a bright Thursday in August I caught the bus across London to Kings Cross (slight panic as I hit the morning congestion – being a cyclist I tend to forget about such things). My mother and sister drove from Hampshire to Bristol to catch their flight to Bordeaux, whilst my father donned his leathers to leave at the break of day to catch the channel crossing from Folkstone – Calais, and then onwards South through the French countryside.

Whilst I was initially a bit put-off travelling during the day (feeling that it wasn’t as efficient a use of time as the over-night) I found it very enjoyable to sit back, listen to my ipod, and read my First Book of The Holiday.

The second leg of my journey was by car from Bordeaux. Fortunately the roads were reasonably clear and with the aid of our trusty sat-nav, a couple of hours later we made it with five minutes to spare before the local vineyard closed for the evening – just in time to buy ourselves some of the local wine to enjoy on the terrace and watch the sun lazily drop behind the fields of dancing sunflowers.

Having not heard a peep from my dad all day we were beginning to worry ever so slightly when he hadn’t arrived by 2300, but just as we were considering sending out a search party we heard the familiar growl of the engine as he zipped along the final few miles of the country lanes to arrive, rather parched (it had been a scorcher of a day) and somewhat dishevelled, but all in one piece.

A couple of toasts to the family Great Escape and much sharing of travel anecdotes later, we were happily planning next year’s escapades. I must say (although of course I am biased) that I think I had the most pleasant journey of them all and am pleased to report that we are all going to travel in style – by train – to our French idyll next year.

I mentioned that I had travelled by train all but once. Last year my mother and I decided that we would give cycling a go and spent twelve days on our saddles pedal-powering our way over the 580 miles or so from Hampshire to Auch. What an adventure that was!

Below I have done an approximate calculation of the various modes of transport that the family took. For my journey to France, the two-and-a-half hour journey in the car completely blew my carbon budget, which is why my return (a ten minute journey by car and the rest by train) has such a smaller carbon figure.

The figures outlined are for illustrative purposes and offer a rough estimate of the total, but if anyone would fancy volunteering to do a more accurate calculation – by all means please do be in touch!

Carbon Footprint (in Kg of CO2e) and Time for each adventurer.

Intrepid adventurer Mode of transport Carbon Footprint ()* Time (door to door)

Climate Geekess