Enter our Green Spaces writing competition 2009 for a chance to review a green holiday for The Times

Over the past decade we have travelled the world researching the “clean break”: we have taken the train from London to Vietnam, snowshoed over the Pyrenees, learnt natural horsemanship in Sweden, trekked with Amazonian tribes and made fire with the Bushmen of the Kalahari.

The clean break is a departure from the “fly and flop” holiday: it’s an experience that you won’t forget; a journey into the heart of a destination and its culture, where you do something different, stay in family-run hotels, visit local festivals and hire local guides.

These breaks are also clean in another sense: far from the trappings of mass tourism, such holidays are about travelling in a way that has less of an impact on the environment and benefits the local community — without having to sacrifice comfort or thrills. Indeed, many of the most progressive places to stay are as stylish and innovative as they are green.

Your chance to write - the Green Spaces travel competition

Have you experienced an inspiring, environmentally friendly holiday? We’d like you to tell us about it and send us your photos

• Terms and Conditions – Green Spaces competition for The Times

The 5 best green travel guidebooks

Green expert Richard Hammond this week publishes a new Rough Guide - here is his pick of the opposition

• The Times Green Spaces Travel Awards, 2008

• Slow travel: 5 flight-free journeys

• 10 top wildlife conservation holidays

Related Internet Links

• More ideas for responsible holidays

Related Links

• Clean breaks and eco-holidays Q&A

Here are ten favourites:

Great Huts, Jamaica

Stumbling through the thick vegetation that hides Great Huts’ thatched cabins and treehouses — some built of bamboo, some of mud — you might imagine that this was Africa rather than the Caribbean. The huts are painted with African geometric designs and decorated with sculptures and paintings by local artists.

The whole place is linked with its community, with 20 per cent of all profits funding local projects such as supporting the homeless and elderly of nearby Port Antonio.

The family-friendly huts occupy an idyllic clifftop overlooking one of Jamaica’s most unspoilt shores, Boston Beach. It’s also the birthplace of jerk chicken, which sizzles enticingly on the grill at beach stalls.

If you’ve had one drumstick too many, there’s plenty of ways to work it off such as surfing and scuba diving, or you can horse-ride or hike to nearby waterfalls in the surrounding hills. Or, if you’re really full, let a local guide paddle you slowly on a bamboo raft down the Rio Grande River. www.greathuts.com/; 00 1 876 353 3388.

Swim in Finland’s lakes and rivers

The hosts, Maria and Petri, open their summer holiday home by Lake Sakara to the swimming holiday company Swimtrek, whose professional guides lead the way across several beautiful lakes and rivers of southern Finland. You swim approximately 5km a day (usually in two sessions) but you don’t have to be an Olympic swimmer; so long as you can swim at a steady pace for this distance you will be fine.

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