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Traveling has a significant impact on the environment. As plane tickets are becoming cheaper and more people travel, the emissions are drastically increasing. It takes a lot more effort to travel environmental friendly, but it will be rewarding – not only for mother nature, it will also make you feel better and leave positive impressions on the places you have visited and overall enhance your travel experience.

Traveling can also have a positive impact: not only does it broaden your horizon and make you more open-minded towards other cultures, you can support the local economy. Be a role model in terms of environmental-friendly behavior – if you can convince even one person to change their behavior to the greener, it’s already a success and has the potential to spread.

 

Small actions sum up

Not getting your sheets and towels changed daily at your hotel, taking shorter showers, keeping air-con use to a minimum and turning off lights when you don’t need them – those small actions seem to be peanuts first, but will sum up.

If you can choose, always opt for the more environmental friendly option: green accommodations, use renewable energy, recycle and recycled products, no plastic bags …

 

Avoid disposable bottles and cups

Bring a reusable bottle while traveling to avoid plastic bottles. It also comes really handy when flying as you can fill up your bottle after passing through security. In countries where tap water is not drinkable, consider using a water filter.

Disposable coffee cups are a huge problem: in the UK alone, 7 million disposable coffee cups are being thrown away every day and the vast amount of disposable cups end up not being recycled. Even if it’s a bit more to carry, get a reusable cup and tell the coffee stores to pour the coffee in your cup instead.

 

Avoid unnecessary plastic bags

Some countries seem to have absolutely no awareness of the plastic problem and wrap their food in multiple layers of plastic before finally putting it into a plastic bag. When going out to a market or shopping, avoid plastic bags and bring our reusable one. Market sellers like to do you a favor and put it in a plastic bag for you – be quick and politely tell them that you don’t need a bag.

 

Eat locally

Eat what and where the locals eat – it is an important part to understand a foreign culture. There is no need to go to McDonald’s when in Thailand. However, as interesting as an unknown dish is, make sure your meal does not contain endangered species.

Support the region’s farmers and cut your carbon footprint – which will also give you a better taste of the local cuisine. Maybe you can find restaurant that advertise local produce?

 

Go for the vegetarian or even vegan options

Researches have shown that a reduction in meat consumption will cut greenhouse gas emissions drastically. Also, meat production requires a much higher use of natural resources, such as freshwater and farming land which is often accessed via deforestation. Moreover, in order to keep meat production cheap, animal welfare is often neglected.

Sadly, in many places we have visited, it’s hard to avoid meat. Just wanting to eat locally, sometimes not even a single option on the menu is vegetarian. You can still ask the restaurant employees to leave out the meat and replace it with more veggies instead. If more and more people do it, the demand gets higher and the restaurants will have to think of and provide vegetarion options as well.

 

Volunteer

It will give you a different view on places and very different experiences. It is great to help and give something back. However, make sure that the volunteer organizations are legitimate before spending your time.

If you want to read more about our volunteering experience, read more here.

 

Transport

As a means of transprot, planes have the biggest impact on the environment. Avoid flying whenever possible. Take the sea route or the bus. It’s also more fun to see and feel the distances traveled. Walk or rent bikes to get around – it’s also more healthy.

Moreover, taking the slow means of transport also gives you an idea about the distances you have travelled and enables you to look outside and see the landscapes changing. In times of high pace, it’s nice to appreciate the beauty of the world.

 

Carbon offset

Sometimes, we have to take the plane or have an impact on the environment. Calculate your carbon offset and fund reforestation or renewable energy projects. We normally use atmosfair for our carbon offsets.

 

Donate

You are back from your travels, the experiences still fresh and you want to give back even more? Why not make a donation?