Toby Sawday

Toby researched and wrote the first Sawday's Special Places to Stay guide to India, before taking a sustainable development masters course with Forum for the Future. He is co-founder of the Publishers' Green Network, and business development and sustainability manager for Sawday's Publishing.

If you share my weakness for local food, make your way to the Shropshire market town of Ludlow, seen by many as a slow food paradise. Despite its size it has four proper butchers, several delis, three Michelin-starred restaurants and a famed annual food festival. It was Britain's first member of Cittaslow, the international “slow town” movement whose philosophy is to protect the local environment, celebrate local food and produce and resist the homogenisation of Europe's small towns.

In addition, Suffolk is one of my favourite green places to stay. Milden Hall is a fabulously eccentric mix of farmhouse, B&B and eco-playground, where Juliet and Christopher have turned their sprawling farm into a pond-dipping, tree-hugging, leaf-sewing, bug-hunting treasure.

There are bikes to borrow, nature trails to follow and, if you are especially keen, tutor-led sessions on issues such as water. You can stay in the 16th-cent-ury farmhouse itself or in the beautifully restored self-catering Tudor barn, where you curl up in truckle beds behind heavy curtains, and eat at a huge long wooden table stretched beneath the cavernous beams.

Details: Milden Hall (01787 247235, www.thehall-milden.co.uk)

Richard Hammond

Richard runs greentraveller.co.uk, an online guide to green holidays. He is also the editor of greenhotelier magazine and the editor of Green Places to Stay, a guidebook of green accommodation worldwide. He writes a column on ethical travel for New Consumer magazine and is the Contributing Editor to the Travel Channel's TV series How to Holiday Greener.

Ten miles off the north coast of Devon, Lundy Island is England's only marine reserve. It is a quiet, gentle place - free from cars and city lights - where wild ponies, Soay sheep and sika deer roam among moorland and heath. The reserve was set up to protect the huge variety of marine life around the island, including sea fans, branching sponges and cup coral.

The only inhabitants are the few people who look after the island's buildings - a church, a small convenience store, a pub, and the island's 20 or so holiday properties, including dormitory-style barns, restored cottages, a lighthouse, a late-Regency house (for 12) and a 13th-century castle.

Go there for blustery walks along the west coast where seabirds swoop among the steep cliffs pounded by waves, and to the sheltered east side, where you can scramble down to rock pools and hidden coves. I have sought refuge by the log fire of the cosy pub during new year gales, spent a clear Easter morning admiring the views from the lighthouse, and snorkelled with the island's resident population of grey seals in the summer.

Details: For accommodation contact the Landmark Trust (01628 825925, landmarktrust.org.uk) and for boat tickets to the island contact the Lundy Shore Office (01271 863636)

Anna Shepard

Anna writes about green living for The Times, including the Eco Worrier column for the Body&Soul section and a blog. Her book, How Green Are My Wellies?, is published by Eden Project Books in June.

Taking the train is not the most obvious route to Madrid, and by no means the quickest, but anyone who has hopped on a morning Eurostar to Paris followed by the overnight Trenhotel to Madrid will know that it knocks the socks off taking the plane. It's a proper way to travel, without airport queueing or cheap-flights guilt. It's low-carbon, leisurely and, best of all, luxurious.

When I did it, we were impressed by the Eurostar's commitment to fair trade and organic drinks and snacks. We had time for lunch in Paris followed by a roam around a gallery before we found our couchette on the sleeper train. For a gran classe ticket, you get a two-bed room with a private bathroom.

You'll be impeccably served with a three-course dinner in the formal restaurant car, just as the sun sets over the South of France. The next morning, after breakfast, but before the smell of Madrid's tapas bars permeate the train, there's time to bask in the pink glow of distant mountains and think about what travel is really about.

Sometimes an empty Sunday or a bank holiday weekend requires something more than a stomp around your local park. I like to go to Wilderness Wood, an award-winning, sustainably managed forest in one of England's most enchanting bits of countryside - the High Weald area of East Sussex. Set in 61 acres of working woodland, the forest has been recognised by several green awards, and given the title of Centre of Excellence by the Forestry Commission.

From the composting of scraps from the café, which is stashed full of local produce, to the seasonal spotter factsheets about the wildlife you might see, every effort is made to preserve and promote the environment.

Even better, it's a nice place to hang out, whether looking for a quiet picnic spot or drinking tea in the café. During the summer months, hire a barbecue stand and spend the afternoon among the foxgloves in the shade of chestnut trees. Winter brings other attractions. You can borrow a spade and dig up your own Christmas tree. Keep the roots intact and plant it in your garden to recycle the following year. Then you'll need another excuse to return to wood.

Details: Eurostar (www.eurostar.com); Elipsos Trainhotel (www.elipsos.com). Wilderness Wood (01825 830509, www.wildernesswood.co.uk)

Kathleen Wyatt

Travel Editor, The Times

I've wandered no farther than Kew for my green space. The 300-acre Royal Botanic Gardens have always entranced me. From the horror of the gales in 1987, when they lost some 700 mature trees, to the golden expanses I've walked in over many summers, they have blossomed and grown better every year.

The gardens may be beset by aircraft on their way to Heathrow, but step inside them and you travel the world through greenhouses and seed collections. The Millennium Seed Bank, which secured its billionth seed last year, includes a rare beast: the Madagascan palm Tahina spectabilis, which grows for up to 50 years, then dies an operatic death as soon as it has flowered.

In one visit, you can dodge the sprawling cacti in the Princess of Wales conservatory, push through the jungle of the Palm House and walk the sweeping Cedar Vista. From next month, you'll be able to stroll among the treetops, 18 metres up, on the Xstrata walkway. Best of all, the gardens are a playground: I saw a greater age range there than I did in the Tube on the way - and no one looked pained or bored.

Green spaces and their champions are closer than you might think. Now it's your turn.

Steve Keenan

Travel Editor, Times Online

Namibia opened my eyes to green spaces eight years ago. I was staying in Damaraland Lodge, a co-operative venture between the South Africa-based Wilderness Safaris and the Damara people. Our guide, Linus, was born on a farm an hour away, the lodge had exclusive use of four of the 12 Damara conservancies in which to spot desert elephants and cheetahs, a waterhole had been bored and a generator backed up the solar panels.

Since then I have learnt a deal more about co-operative ventures between tourism professionals and communities. A recent example of best practice is Village Ways in the Indian Himalayas, where villagers have built guesthouses with grants and set up and managed walking holidays.

Now I am seeing green community initiatives that are self-inspired, with no outside investment. A Sunday Times article this month makes me want to explore the guesthouses of Seychelles Secrets, while my colleague Ginny McGrath enthuses me about family homestays in Krabi, Thailand, where she immersed herself in village life.

Details: Wilderness Safaris (www.wilderness-safaris.com); Village Ways (www.villageways.com); Seychelles Secrets (www.seychellessecrets.com); Homestays in Krabi can be arranged by Tell Tale Travel (www.telltaletravel.co.uk)

Kate Quill

Assistant Travel Editor, The Times

I am drawn towards cities, and an example of an inherently green space to me has always been Venice, a city where your legs are the favoured form of transport and the noise, air and light pollution caused by traffic and roads are absent. At night a delicious quiet descends on the city, save for echoing footsteps and lapping water, and the streets are only gently illuminated. In a world of glaring electric light and the ever-present rumble of engines, it's a tonic for the soul.

London's parks are among the world's finest urban green spaces. No wonder Londoners love them. Country dwellers often dismiss townies as being out of touch with nature, but I challenge them to stroll through Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park early on a weekday morning, when hordes of people of every age, colour and profession - from pinstriped City boys to OAPs - busily pedal their way along the cycle paths.

The rest come to walk briskly, admire the swans and geese, stare at the open sky and simply breathe - these really are the lungs of London.

I am a fan of restaurants that take the sourcing of their food seriously and are committed to local, seasonal produce. For this my votes go to Bordeaux Quay in Bristol and Due South in Brighton. Both restaurants opened several years ago under the leadership of chefs who were at the forefront of a trend that everyone now wants to copy - but few carry out with such conviction and attention to detail: Barny Haughton (at Bordeaux Quay) and Ricky Hodgson (at Due South).

It's a great thing to eat delicious food and know that its flavours are a reflection of the local climate, culture and landscape.

Details: Venice (www.turismovenezia.it/eng); London Parks (www.royalparks.org.uk, www.londonparks.org.uk); Bordeaux Quay (0117 9431200, www.bordeaux-quay.co.uk); Due South (01273 821218, www.duesouth.co.uk)

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