And this year, I’m planning to finally make it to the 20th anniversary of the annual event, happening Oct. 16-18 in San Rafael, Calif. Eco-luminaries like Michael Pollan — who’s coming out with a new youth version of his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma — and Annie Leonard of “The Story of Stuff” fame will speak — alongside a host of other environmental thinkers discussing everything from “Busting the Drug War” to “Visualizing Your Cause on Google Earth.”

Evenings will be dedicated to movie screenings, parties, dancing and socializing. Plus there’ll be fun conference-not-as-usual activities, like herb walks and a seed exchange. And for those who need more than just three days, pre-conference and post-conference intensives will be offered on Oct. 14 and 19.

Who else will be driving up from the L.A. area? I’m working on creating a full carpool for maximum fuel efficiency –

Image via Bioneers

GrassRoutes: Oakland & Berkeley, for example, clues you into Frugal Foodies, a vegetarian dining society in Berkeley that’s actually accessible to visitors who want to make new foodie friends, and Lakeside Park Gardens, where you can volunteer to help build a sensory garden for the blind.  GrassRoutes: Northern California Wine Country of course details the organic wineries in the area — then also lists the many places you can pick cherries in Livermore valley and provides detailed biking directions — including best spots for breaks — to inland Sonoma county.

In its listings, GrassRoutes guides go beyond simple recycling programs and vegetarian options to look at whether a restaurant or store banks locally, is known as a pillar of the community, or employs people reentering workforce. But lest you fear GrassRoutes guides are all do-gooder and little fun, rest assured that you’ll get details on the best  local lingerie shop, international grocery stores, green spas, and dive bars — a number of which boast only the faintest of greenishness yet have been awarded the little “community pillar” symbol (cheap drinks will, indeed, make the locals consider your bar indispensable).

Like most travel guides, GrassRoutes guides include a brief history of the area, transportation info, plus sections on dining, entertainment, cultural activities, nightlife, and pet and kid-related stuff. Unlike many travel guides, GrassRoutes guides are organized not by neighborhood, but by activity. Brunch places are grouped together, for example — separately from the lunch places, dinner spots, and take-out restaurants, all of which have their own categories.

This unorthodox structure makes the guides actually seem best suited for local residents eager to explore their town — or for newcomers who’ve moved into the neighborhoods. The Oakland & Berkeley guide, for example, includes rather detailed profiles  bike shops in the area, big ups welding classes offered at The Crucible, and plugs a tool lending library — information that’s not going to be particularly relevant to a visitor.

And some of the information a visitor might want is missing. The Oakland & Berkeley book’s very bare bones maps will require that you find  a separate map or fancy phone to help you get around — and walking tours of neighborhoods will have to be self-concocted since none are included. The extremely brief details lodging options — ghettoized to a few pages at the very back of the book, no less — may also leave you turning to web resources to find a place to stay.

That said, the Northern California Wine Country guide’s more helpful for the average tourist, with expanded lodging info and details on bike-fueled wine tours, olive tours, docent-led winegrowing hike and more. All this means that like the quirks of these NoCal areas the guides cover, the guides too have their quirks, with everything from a short glossary of Oakland lingo (do you know what joog means) to a sociological critique of Napa valley, about which Serena writes:

I am acutely aware of the lack of diversity, the assumption that paradise can be bought, the lavishness enjoyed on the backs of unnamed others. I wriggle and struggle to find something real in this land of  façades.

For this kind of personal, locally-oriented, in-depth look at discovering the real place-ness of these tourist spots, pick up a copy of GrassRoutes guides. Both the Oakland & Berkeley and the Northern California Wine Country guides cost $16.95 each (less on Amazon); a San Francisco guide is due out next month.

If you were at the BlogHer conference, you know about Zwaggle, a site for parents who want to trade kids’ stuff — because Zwaggle ran the recycling room for unwanted shwag at the BlogHer Conference last week. At that time, Zwaggle wasn’t quite sure how they were going to recycle all the items, especially since the company didn’t know what shwag people would be getting.

Post-conference, Adam of Zwaggle sent me an update. It looks like the recycling efforts were a huge success! If you’ve been curious about what happened to those trial DVDs and magic 8-balls, here’s your answer:

>> A few items — including the Quickbooks and Raggs DVDs, free panty offers, and CFL bulb recycling kids — went back to the sponsors.

>> The Magic 8-balls, Boca burger magnets, T-shirts, and some DVDs were donated to Create Now, an LA nonprofit providing creative arts mentoring to kids. The shwag’ll mainly be given out as prizes at talent shows or put in gift bags.

>> Must of the rest — including magazines, fliers, and water bottles — were recycled.

What remains, according to Adam, is just a “4 lb box of random one-offs (lotion, pens, small block, stickers)” that he’s still trying to find homes for. This reduction’s a grand feat, since the recycling room was very popular with Blogher conference attendees. I guess a lot of people really hate seeing all the shwag go to waste at other conferences!

Writes Amy Lenzo of Beauty Dialogues about the recycling room: “To me, this is a very good sign, and I’d love to see the practice adopted in all conferences.” Stimey of The Junk Pyramid too loved how the recycling room helped her de-junk. Others, like Ariel of Inside Voice vowed to de-shwag further in the future: “Next time I’ll be more judicious about what exactly I take home. Until then, anyone want a DVD of The Closer?”

All of this has me thinking about last year — and how much more we can reduce the amount of plasticky trash generated at BlogHer. This year’s greening efforts were a tremendous improvement over previous years, but many attendees still were bothered by all the one-use plastic containers and other items used and tossed at the conference.

Got a suggestion about how we could make BlogHer Conferences even greener? Comment or email me at greenlagirl@gmail.com with your ideas, and I’ll compile them into an action plan of sorts as well as send on the suggestions to the organizers.

[crossposted on BlogHer]

If you remember, GM was originally gonna lend BlogHer riders a much more fuel-efficient Malibu for our trip up to the conference. Unexpectedly, we got a Tahoe instead — one that’s a hybrid, but still only got 22 mpg.

In case you missed it, GM’s not doing so well these days — selling assets, laying off employees, closing a buncha plants that make big cars.

No, big cars aren’t doing well. Which makes me think that — if GM wants to sell cars — it should be pushing its smaller, more fuel-efficient cars. But GM’s still trying to push its humongo behemoths on a nation that, clearly, isn’t interested.

On our way back, my carpool partner Kendra and I tried to identify types of people who might actually buy a Tahoe. We came up with two demographics:

1. People who have 8+ children.
2. People who need to tow boats.

One other demographic was people who are v. rich. However, that demographic just demonstrates potential, not desire, for Tahoe ownership — meaning I just don’t get why some rich person would buy a minivan vs. a sports car — unless they have 8+ kids or a boat.

None of my friends have 8+ children or boats, as far as I know.

The Tahoe did its job, of course, which was to get us from LA to San Francisco and back. My point is that I think the Malibu coulda done that too….

[crossposted on BlogHer]

The problem with shwag bags: Most of the stuff’s just junk to you. This year, BlogHer‘s letting conference attendees drop off the unwanted magic 8-balls and “Saving Grace” T-shirts in a recycling room run by Zwaggle.

What’ll happen to the unwanted shwag? I talked to Adam D. Levy of Zwaggle — who said that the stuff’d be donated to L.A.’s nonprofit Create Now.

But why would a nonprofit providing creative arts mentoring to kids want a whole buncha tire pressure gauges and Boca burger fridge magnets? Adam said that some of the stuff will go back to the vendors, while others will be recycled.

Apparently, Zwaggle signed up to run the recycling room before figuring out what items they’d need to recycle, much less how to recycle them. Zwaggle’s not really in the recycling biz, after all — the Zwaggle site’s basically like a big, points-based freecycle network for parents who want to trade kids’ stuff.

I’m following up with Adam next week to find out what exactly will happen to the chunky plastic nail care kits. To the right’s the stuff I dropped off –

Shwag people actually wanted: Free prints from Snapfish and a free 7-Day T-Mobile hotspot code appear to be the most popular.