One of the big debates at the moment is the method of travel and how to make the least impact on the planet when going on holiday or business. Of course, with certain long haul destinations you have to take flights, but with other closer destinations you have an option.

Mainland Europe is pretty well served now by ferries and by trains. If you want to go to Paris for the weekend, then it is relatively inexpensive and fairly quick to take the Eurostar across. The French rail network is good and this also allows you to visit many other places in the region.

You can also choose to take the ferry and to drive across to many of the destinations within easy driving distance in much of France, Holland, Belgium and Germany. The added advantage of this is that you can bring back lots of shopping bargains from your trip, so you can stock up at the supermarkets.

Further afield, you can also reach Spain very easily via ferry and many people do choose to take their car, this avoiding travelling by plane.

However, for anything further afield, the rail network is still not sufficient to reach a destination easily and quickly and so air travel wins hands down.

However much we want to avoid impact to the environment, if we do have to visit most countries for fun or for business, we have no choice but to fly.