In some situations, making sustainable choices can be particularly challenging. One of those, for me, is travelling.
Let’s see how we can become sustainable travellers.
Transportation:
When deciding where to travel to, we should prefer closer destinations that we can reach by train, instead of taking the plane.
If we really have to take the plane, we can at least plant some trees to offset the pollution we generated - though not taking the plane is still the best thing we can do.
Again, if we need to go on a long trip and travel by plane, let’s consider whether we’re going to eat the scheduled meals on the plane (sometimes we would rather sleep through the whole trip or eat right before boarding). If we don’t plan on eating on the plane, let’s remember to communicate it to the airline, so that they don’t waste the food they were planning on serving us.
When we get to the airport or train station, we should take public transportation to reach our final destination.
Food & Beverages:
To avoid buying plastic bottles, we can carry around a reusable water bottle. If the trip is particularly long or we travel very frequently, we can consider buying a LARQ water bottle, which filters the water, allowing us to refill it at every occasion.
If we plan on eating during our trip, we can carry around some reusable cutlery (bamboo or stainless steel), so that we don’t have to use disposable items. We can also consider bringing our own home-cooked food, which allows us to be healthier and saves us the trouble of finding something that doesn’t include animal products, for instance.
Pastimes:
Let’s always remember to bring a good book and some earphones so that we don’t end up buying magazines that we throw away 5 minutes later. Podcasts and audiobooks are other good options to keep us company when we travel.
Beauty case:
In order to avoid disposable items, we shouldn't buy travel-size products (shampoos, lotions, etc.) and we should instead fill up the bottles we already have or buy reusable ones of a size that is suitable for our hand luggage.
When we travel, shampoo and soap bars are especially useful, because we don’t have to worry about restrictions on liquids and they don’t risk exploding in our luggage.
Instead of a traditional toothbrush, we can use a bamboo toothbrush to avoid plastic.
Instead of traditional cotton pads and cotton swabs, we can use the reusable versions.
If we’re travelling to the seaside, let’s remember to be conscious of the sunscreen we purchase, in order to take care of our health while respecting the coral reefs.
Once we get there:
Renting houses and apartments instead of hotel rooms enables us to waste less and save money. If we do have to stay at a hotel, we should at least ask not to change our sheets and towels on a daily basis (we don’t do it at home, why should we do it when we travel?).
Wherever we go, we should try to leave the fewer “footprints” that we can. If we have the chance to see different parts of the world, we should be grateful and try to give back some of the immense luck that we have. Some ways to do that are offsetting the CO2 emissions generated by our trip (for instance, by planting trees) and picking up plastic from the beach.
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