Easy ways to be a sustainable traveller
Obviously the first thing we can do is fly less. But there are other things we can do to fly, stay and experience more responsibly.
I don’t know how you’ve been feeling about travel lately, but I’m a lot more intentional in what I’ve been booking. The idea of a quick getaway, a weekend city escape or whatever, it’s not so appealing anymore. If I’m going to put forth all the effort it takes to cross an international border, I want to be in that place for a solid chunk of time, to really explore and absorb.
All this to say, I’m now flying less, which means less carbon emissions, which is good.
There are a handful of tools and resources that can help you make greener choices when planning future travels.
✈️ For flights, Google Flights gets green right off the bat, displaying carbon emissions as well as price and length of a trip in its search results. You can see the environmental cost of a plane trip and choose a sustainable option.
🍃 Less.ca is a means to offset your flight with a simple calculator. Plug in your flight route, and number of passengers, and it will give you two kinds of projects to contribute to: gold-standard international offsets (endorsed by groups like the World Wildlife Fund) or CSA-standard Canadian offsets (which contributes to Canadian projects).
🏨 Select Green Hotels is a search engine for eco-friendly accommodation in Europe. They take into account how sustainable a hotel is when it comes to food, building materials, waste and water. Hopefully they expand into other regions of the world.
And, if you’re on Instagram, give Savour.the.detour a follow. Ana, the woman behind the account, consistently get me thinking. She asks the right questions, and focuses not just on environmental impact, but of travel’s impact on community, food systems, and more.
(Since you’re already on Instagram, why not give me a follow too, while you’re there.)
