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Der Maler, Вулиця Лугова, 12, Kyiv (2026)

12/05/2022

How nature and 'extreme wilding' can re-boot our minds
Is it possible to 're-wild' ourselves, and find peace by living a slower, more rural existence in harmony with nature? Lindsay Baker speaks to the authors who think we can.
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The movement towards rural living in the western world seems to be a sign of the times, with an exodus from urban life, and people seeking a rustic idyll, a simpler existence – and in some cases embracing the idea of "slow living", an antidote to fast hustle culture. And the lure of rural life is inevitably even more acute in spring and summer, when there is a sense of renewal and expectation in the air, and as, the poet Philip Larkin famously put it: "The trees are coming into leaf/ Like something almost being said".

It's no surprise, then, that the theme for the US's Mental Health Month this year is "back to basics". In fact, increasing numbers of people are responding to burnout and the stresses of modern life by moving completely off-grid, in what has been described as "extreme wilding". In an attempt to reset their lives and their expectations of life, they are going beyond the cottage-core notion of a cosy, tidy garden and a cute, nostalgic rural aesthetic, and are placing themselves in truly remote and rugged landscapes.

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The sense that a close connection with nature can be life – and mind – changing is shared by a number of recent books. The idea of re-wilding is familiar, with many reforestation projects and the re-introduction of endemic flora and fauna happening across the globe, helping to restore eco-systems and reverse some of the damage done to wild environments. But in a moment when mental health problems are rife, and as we start to emerge from the worst pandemic the world has known for a century, the term rewilding is now being used in a new way.

04/05/2022

How Taipei discovered an active volcano on its doorstep
When Taiwan's capital discovered an active volcano on its doorstep, it found itself hastily setting up a system to monitor it for dangerous signs.
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Steam billows from cracks in rocks stained a sickly yellow-green. Pools of cloudy water bubble like a pan on the boil. The sharp stench of sulphur laces the air.

This smouldering moonscape is Xiaoyoukeng, an impressive collection of steam vents in Yangmingshan National Park, an 11,000-hectare (42 sq-mile) expanse of hiking trails lying within Taipei's city limits.

Xiaoyoukeng is the best place to get up close to the park's geothermal activity – it is pitted with fumaroles (natural vents in the Earth's surface that allow gases to escape like steam from a kettle's spout) and hot springs, some just a metre (39in) or so from the paths.

For decades, most residents of the Taiwanese capital simply thought they were lucky to have such a striking national park on their doorstep. Geologists knew about the Datun (sometimes spelt Tatun) Volcano Group, a body of around 20 peaks, in the park, but they largely thought that the fumaroles and hot springs were simply remnants of its fiery past. With no historical records of an eruption, the accepted view was that the group was extinct and no longer posed a risk.

03/05/2022

How to save energy at home
Soaring gas prices have increased demand for more energy-efficient, eco-friendly homes.
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In a quiet corner of rural Northern Ireland, not far from the Mourne Mountains, the Golemboski-Byrne family lives off-grid in an energy efficient cottage. Husband and wife Steve and Claire renovated Lackan Cottage Farm themselves 10 years ago, adding solar panels, a small wind turbine, double glazing and heaps of insulation.

"Part of our thinking was, 'I don't want to wake up one morning and find out our electricity bill has doubled'. I didn't really think it would happen," says Steve.

But electricity prices have shot up in recent months. In Northern Ireland, for instance, suppliers have hiked bills by up to 30% in the first half of 2022, hot on the heels of rises last year. Yet higher prices are expected in the autumn.

It's all part of the energy crisis facing Europe and other parts of the world, partly down to a lack of natural gas, which is burned in power stations to generate electricity. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has further exacerbated the situation, since Russia is a major gas supplier. Fears of a worsening shortage have pushed market rates upwards. (Read more about alternatives to Russia's natural gas.)

The skyrocketing cost of living is causing serious problems for homeowners, some of whom are having to choose between buying food and heating their houses. People who live in highly energy efficient, or energy self-sufficient, properties are protected from some of these cost rises – but not all, says Steve. His family still has a diesel car, for instance.

"It's going to hit food, it's going to hit the cost of transport. We're not immune from it," he says.

At least the price of electricity or fuel for home heating is not a worry. The Golemboski-Byrnes generate their own energy on-site and harvest wood from their farm to burn in the coldest months of the year.

Getting to this point wasn't easy, however. Steve notes that he and Claire had an extremely low income for several years and, prior to moving to the cottage, lived in a converted horse lorry. But they found clever ways of upgrading their new home, such as installing solar panels they got from a church in Belfast that was discarding them in favour of new ones. After some cleaning, the second-hand panels functioned perfectly well.

Key to the project was improving the house's insulation. The couple installed new, double-glazed windows, refreshed the walls with plaster made from lime and h**p fibres, and packed the roof with a layer of sheep's wool 50cm (1.6ft) deep.

30/04/2022

As Covid restrictions and quarantines continue to lift around the world, work-related trips are bouncing back in a big way in 2022.
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While all travel took a tumble during the pandemic, international business travel, in particular, was hit hard, as video calls and conferencing quickly took the place of on-site visits and in-person client meetings. But as the world learns to live with the virus, work-related trips have come bouncing back in a big way in 2022.

In fact, according to travel management company TripActions, business travel bookings for the first three months of 2022 alone surpassed more than half of all bookings for 2021, with an 875% increase from March 2021 to March 2022. Because of the newfound acceptance of remote work, business travellers are also booking longer "bleisure" stays, combining business trips with extra days for fun. More than a third of business travellers are booking longer (four- to seven-day) stays, a boost of three percentage points from last year.

As Covid restrictions and quarantines continue to lift around the world, certain places are seeing the biggest boom in this type of travel. We selected five countries that are seeing impressive rebounds across different international regions, based on the number of international business travel bookings (which include flight, hotel, rail and black car bookings) within the TripActions platform, and spoke to residents to find out how business travel is changing and how to have a more sustainable work-play stay.

28/04/2022

Five places business travel has changed post-pandemic
As Covid restrictions and quarantines continue to lift around the world, work-related trips are bouncing back in a big way in 2022.
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While all travel took a tumble during the pandemic, international business travel, in particular, was hit hard, as video calls and conferencing quickly took the place of on-site visits and in-person client meetings. But as the world learns to live with the virus, work-related trips have come bouncing back in a big way in 2022.

In fact, according to travel management company TripActions, business travel bookings for the first three months of 2022 alone surpassed more than half of all bookings for 2021, with an 875% increase from March 2021 to March 2022. Because of the newfound acceptance of remote work, business travellers are also booking longer "bleisure" stays, combining business trips with extra days for fun. More than a third of business travellers are booking longer (four- to seven-day) stays, a boost of three percentage points from last year.

As Covid restrictions and quarantines continue to lift around the world, certain places are seeing the biggest boom in this type of travel. We selected five countries that are seeing impressive rebounds across different international regions, based on the number of international business travel bookings (which include flight, hotel, rail and black car bookings) within the TripActions platform, and spoke to residents to find out how business travel is changing and how to have a more sustainable work-play stay.

27/04/2022

An extraordinary corner of the Great Barrier Reef
A hub for marine life and sustainable tourism, the Southern Great Barrier Reef is having a moment.
"You might want to stay in the water for another minute," our skipper called out from the nearby boat as our small group surfaced from a dive on Lady Musgrave Island's magnificent outer reef. "There's a pod of whales coming straight for you," he grinned, and swiftly maneuvered the boat out of the path of the incoming cetaceans.

Peering down through my snorkel goggles, the turquoise water was so clear that I could make out the mantra ray cleaning station some 20m below us, where we'd observed one of these majestic kites of the sea dancing in the current as small fish nibbled at its vast white underbelly. Then everything went black as five barnacle-encrusted humpback whales swam directly beneath us, the gentle giants gliding just metres from the tips of our fins.

In this extraordinary corner of Queensland's Great Barrier Reef, it's difficult to believe the World Heritage Site narrowly escaped being put on Unesco's "in danger" list earlier this year. Though few travellers will have heard of the setting of my blockbuster dive.

Part of the Capricorn and Bunker Group, a cluster of coral cays and reefs on the southern fringe of the Great Barrier Reef, Lady Musgrave Island is one of the reef's best-kept secrets. While tourists have been visiting the Northern Great Barrier Reef since the 1890s, intrepid travellers didn't start arriving the southern section until the 1930s, when the turtle cannery on Heron Island was converted into a holiday resort. Yet the Southern Great Barrier Reef (which spans some 300km from the Capricorn Coast down to the Bundaberg region) still receives far fewer visitors than the likes of Cairns and the Whitsundays, accounting for less than 9% of the reef's 2.4 million annual visitors pre-Covid-19.

It's a shame, for in my own experience of snorkelling and diving along the length of the Great Barrier Reef since my first visit to the Whitsundays as a six-year-old in the 1980s, I've discovered that its southern fringe is no less spectacular than other sections. Less prone to extreme weather events such as cyclones and prolonged heatwaves, it can be argued this corner of the reef is also in better shape. United by a commitment to sustainability, its key tourism operators hope to keep it that way.

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12/05/2022

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