Eurostar is due to open ticket sales for its direct ski services from London and Ashford to the French Alps on Tuesday 7 July with return fares starting from £149, down from £179 return last year.

Eurostar provides two weekly direct services to Moûtiers, Aime-La-Plagne and Bourg St Maurice. Compared with flying, the overnight service, which leaves St Pancras in the evening, allows you an extra two days on the slopes because you arrive early the following day (rather than late morning/early afternoon if you fly) and the return train leaves in the evening (so you can ski on the final day before coming home) without having to pay for the two night's accommodation. Choose to go out on a Friday evening and you can often the find the slopes are less crowded on the Saturday as it is changeover day.

Eurostar’s ski direct services offer access to a variety of top ski destinations in the French Alps such as Courchevel, La Plagne, Tignes, Meribel, Les Arcs, from where it is a short bus ride to the resorts. An extra item of luggage (in addition to the normal luggage allowance) - such as a pair of skis or a snowboard - can be taken onboard at no extra cost (and of course there is no need to wait for baggage reclaim).

Introducing a new column, Jeremy Smith suggests how to make the most of holidaying at home.

In these budget-conscious times, the word 'Staycation' has become a media buzzword, but more often than not it's used incorrectly. A staycation isn't a holiday in your own country. That's just a holiday. A staycation is a holiday based from your home. Without having to travel, there are none of the stresses or costs to you or the environment, and no worries about what the room will be like. Moreover, if you love the local restaurants you discover, the activities you try or the places you visit, it's easy to go there again, because they are all within easy reach of where you live. Welcome to Greentraveller's tips for a perfect staycation...

"'The journey not the arrival matters,' said TS Eliot, but for most of us, the journey has become a tiresome inconvenience, to be endured for as short a time as possible. It’s a great shame, because our submission to the inhuman demands of high-speed transport has robbed us of the joy of travel for travel’s sake."

So says Chris Haslam, writing in the Sunday Times, who joins the slow travel wagon and features the following five flight-free journeys:

Out of london by narrow boat (Journey time: ages)
To Paris by bike (Journey time: four days)
Slow train to Constantinople (Journey times: 5 days)
Banana boat to Costa Rica (Journey time: 20 days)
Camper van to Kathmandu (Journey time: 40 days)

Read the full article on timesonline.

The Ecologist Magazine has launched an online blog on sustainable tourism. Written by the former editor of the Ecologist, Jeremy Smith (pictured left)*, it will look at "the issues surrounding tourism's future, from carbon offsetting to conservation, the destruction of local uniqueness versus the preservation of local culture."

Read the first posting, Sustainable travel - bons voyages?, on the Ecologist website: www.theecologist.org.

Jeremy Smith on board the Trans Mongolian Express

See also: Life on a canal boat: In the first of a three-part series in the Ecologist, a repentant travel writer (Paul Miles) trades in his longhaul flights and luxury holidays for three months living on a narrowboat.

*Note from Greentraveller's editor: Jeremy is the bloke I teamed up with to write Clean Breaks - 500 new ways to see the world (which will be published this August by Rough Guides).

The BBC reports on the test run of the 140mph Japanese 'Javelin' high-speed train service that is due to launch in south-east England at the end of June.

Bill Turnbull and Kate Silverton describe its maiden journey from London's St Pancras to Ebbsfleet, see the video: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8106429.stm.

See also: On board the javelin train.

Eurostar has today introduced single fares from London to Paris/Brussels from £35.

In order to look for the single fares, travellers need to click on the new 'one way' option on the Eurostar website, eurostar.co.uk.

Commenting on the new single fares, Nick Mercer, Eurostar’s Commercial Director, said: “We want to help travellers who are planning a tour of Europe or who need the flexibility to return by a different route, by making low priced single fares available.

Eurostar now offers one-way tickets between London and Brussels/Paris

“We hope this greater range of fare options will allow travellers to make even more use of Europe’s high-speed rail network and exploit the environmental advantages of train over plane for seamless rail journeys.”

Eurostar said it will continue to offer its lead-in return fare of £59 but that it has also removed several of its ticketing conditions from its standard return fares, such as Saturday Night Away, One Night Away, Midweek Day Return and Weekend Day Return.

>>Under its Tread Lightly environmental plan, Eurostar has set a target of reducing CO2 emissions by 35% per traveller journey by 2012, compared with 2007.

>>Eurostar is also a founder member of Railteam, an alliance of Europe’s leading high-speed train operators that is developing simpler ways to book and travel on the fast-expanding, European high-speed rail network.

See also: Eurostar's cross channel route to face competition

Global Media company Cision has published a list of the top ten travel blogs - including the most read, the most influential and the most influential names. The list is as follows:

1. Travel Rants Blog
2. Travelhouseuk's Travel Blog
3. Guardian Travel Blog
4. Telegraph Travel Blog
5. Wandalust
6. Europe a la Carte Blog
7. Green Traveller
8. Travolution
9. Travel Weekly Blog
10. Essential Travel Blog

For more info, see: http://www.uk.cision.com/Resources-page/Top-UK-Blogs/Top-UK-Blogs---Travel-/.