Vacation & Fair Trade

For my birthday in November my husband surprised me with a trip to Vancouver.  We had both wanted to go there for some time and we both really like all of Canada that we have visited, I am particularly fond of Montreal but I really enjoyed Vancouver as well.  Much to my husband’s dismay my idea of a vacation is waking up early and walking around different neighborhoods all day only stopping to have dinner. We have learned to compromise, usually I do some sightseeing alone in the mornings and he meets me later since he likes to sleep in on vacation.

While on vacation another thing I really like is checking out local shops. Vancouver is a splendid place to find local shopping in particular on Granville Island. There is a large public market with grocers, restaurants and tons of little shops. In my search of Granville Island I found Ten Thousand Villages, a shop that sells only fair trade items and can be found in various cities in the US too. I am familiar with Ten Thousand Villages, which obviously isn’t just local to Vancouver, still it was wonderful to step out of the cold and search through hundreds of lovely fair trade items.

I didn’t research fair trade in advance of my trip but I will do so in the future.  I could google fair trade and the name of the city I am visiting to find where it is being sold. I know that farmers markets in San Diego are a good place to find fair trade (Seven Hopes United is at The Little Italy Mercato and the Rancho Santa Fe farmers market) so I would check out farmers markets too. I also find it fun to check out local grocery stores to see what foods are more common in the city I am visiting and I always keep any eye out for fair trade there as well.  I find it so much fun to get to know a new city and I think it’s even more fun to find something I’m passionate about like fair trade in the new city as well.

vancouver_fairtrade

One thought on “Vacation & Fair Trade

  1. Ash

    I do the same thing while on vacation! I love just walking around different cities & seeing what it would be like if I were to live there. Some of my favorite things from Canada are Ketchup Chips and Coffee Crisp candy bars. Did you happen to see any of those? :)

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