An important aspect of my life (and this website) is about travelling; such as “11 Reasons Why Travelling Makes You More Happy” and “The Ultimate List of Amazing Events Around the World“, and many more. However, a vital thing I have yet to cover is sustainable travel. Being a sustainable traveller is very important to me, and thankfully, it is an increasingly important topic worldwide.
In fact, one of the startups that I’ve co-founded and work on is aimed at helping tourists find sustainable travel activities while travelling. It’s called Volentos (FB page). We’re only at a humble early-stage (and at the time of writing this we are currently revamping our website), but hopefully we can become a force for good in the travel industry.
But enough about me and my endeavours, I would like to devote this article to help you find ways of becoming a more sustainable traveller.
So, hopefully, all of us can become better at reducing our impact on the planet while supporting local economies and protecting wildlife. Here goes.
Sustainable travel
As mentioned, sustainable tourism is becoming gradually more important worldwide. In fact, the United Nations declared 2017 the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development in an effort to raise global awareness about responsible tourism and how it can act as a vehicle for positive change.
Sustainable travel is generally comprised of three main pillars:
- Environmentally friendly practices:
- Reduce
- Reuse
- Recycle
2. Protecting cultural and natural heritage:
- Restoring and maintaining historic buildings
- Saving endangered species
3. Providing tangible social and economic benefits for local communities
- Ranging from upholding the rights of indigenous people to supporting fair wages for employees, and more.
With that done, we can now dive into the things you and I can do to ease our impact on the planet.
Give the proper way
While many may give things to children in developing nations with good intentions, such as handing out sweets, used clothing etc., this often can have negative consequences such as enhancing conflict and encouraging a culture of dependency and begging.
One of my absolute favourite quotes really paints the picture well in explaining this further.
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
So keep in mind that generally it is much better to give money, equipment or apparel to local organizations and similar entities that work on social welfare programs and local empowerment.
Avoid plastic
Our huge piles of trash in the ocean are stretching thousands upon thousands of miles. This severely hurts marine ecosystems and it will take hundreds of years, if ever, for the trash to break down.
So, aim to be part of the solution and opt for locally purified water in recyclable glass bottles whenever you can, and carry tote bags which you can use while strolling street markets and shop. Strategies like these will reduce your plastic waste as well as reducing your carbon footprint. And there’s bound to be tonnes of similar approaches you can do to reduce your plastic waste.
Take the train
Slow travel is an emerging trend where the mantra is to spend more time in each place and thus also visit fewer places.
Admittingly this is an area I have a huge room for improvement myself, as I want to see everything, try everything and do everything, and generally travel with a quick pace.
Anyways, train travel is a great way for slow travelling, and doing so you’ll experience the places deeper and you’ll decrease your carbon footprint. Train travel is among others, really great in Southeast Asia, Europe, East Africa, China and India (I’m currently planning a train trip to India myself!).
Opt for good tour operators
When I travel I mostly explore by my own or with my girlfriend if she’s with me. However, if I do opt for a tour operator, I take precautions. Are they environmentally friendly? Is there a way to evaluate whether their trips actually help protect and support wildlife or cultural heritage — and especially that they don’t do the opposite! And do they employ local guides? Often I’ll try to get those answers myself through online research and asking friends who’ve done the activity before, but in some circumstances I’ll just directly contact the tour operator.
Support the local economy properly
Often it is not really easy to separate what’s truly local products and what are cheaper imports, but at least seek to make educated guesses when buying souvenirs and other items.
For example, in Thailand you may across some genuine traditional dresses in various floating markets and whatnot that from the onset seem more expensive than the ones you’ll encounter in the main shopping streets. There’s often a reason for that, because those cheaper dresses are often imports from China, whereas the genuine traditional outfits are made by locals.
And so if you seek to opt for the slightly more expensive products you’ll support handcrafts, local professionals and cultural heritage — which has a significant impact on the local community and local economy.
As mentioned, this is not always easy to accurately do, but you should at least seek to do proper research and make educated guesses. You can do it 😉
Don’t buy wildlife products
In many countries I’ve visited there’s been various wildlife products on offer. In Laos I’ve come across tourists buying tiger teeth and elephant ivory, in Vietnam I’ve seen tonnes of snake wine being sold to tourists, and similar stories of tourists buying wildlife products hold true for many other places I’ve visited.
Admittingly, I’ve also ignorantly done this myself in the past, but of which I have regretted and decided to not do anymore. Because, when we buy such products we are inadvertently helping to support a market for trafficking rare and endangered wildlife products as souvenirs.
So the next time you come across such, then please think twice, and then say “no”. 😉
Some good resources
Empowering travelers to change the world | EthicalTraveler
That concludes this blog post on becoming a more sustainable traveller. Do you have any other tips or strategies for how we can reduce our impact on the earth and also empower local communities while travelling? The please do share.
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