The Green Outings Goal

I think it would be epic to get to and from an outdoors destination on green energy alone.

There's lots of ways to do this, like biking or hiking to the destination, but to make it interesting I'm considering car travel, since that's the way that we normally get outside. Obviously this is easier the closer the starting location (my apartment or house) is to the trailhead.

The most likely way this could happen is by having an electric car that is charged by solar panels, wind turbines, hydropower, or geothermal power. It would be really cool if the energy source was super-local such as on the property of the house, or a community solar array in the neighborhood. Doing it this way you'd only be able to go somewhere that the electric car has round trip range to. Also because of how low-power a local generation setup is compared to how much power driving takes, it's probably not possible to do two day trips in a row, such as going somewhere on Saturday and having the car fully charged by Sunday morning, unless there's a car-sized battery pack already mostly charged by the time you get home Saturday night.

The trip could be extended further if electric car chargers were powered by green energy. Wouldn't it be cool if an electric car charging station's power came from a local wind, hydro, or solar farm? Again the power farm would have to be very big or the charging station would have to have batteries in order for it to be effective and fast though.

Another solution could be to use a more efficient means of electric transport, such as an electric motorcycle. However a motorcycle currently has a really low range, because of the battery size constraints of the motorcycle design, at around 100 highway miles, so a round trip would be within 50 miles.

I should acknowledge that things like electric personal transport vehicles, solar panels, and taking road trips outside have many environmental impacts besides the energy needed to undergo the actual trip, such as the mined materials that make up vehicle frames and batteries, the pollution of the tires wearing down, and even the impact of a highway cutting through the landscape and it's potential wintertime salt runoff. This thought experiment focused on the energy sources, but I could explore broader alternatives another time.