Last week we asked: Why should we travel at all in this world, given that, researchers say, global tourism—pleasure travel alone—is responsible for some 8 percent of the greenhouse gases now driving climate change?
Conceding that we need to make big changes in how we travel, starting right about yesterday, Up the Road has concluded that the benefits of travel still outweigh the costs. As Mark Twain said, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” These days, that makes getting out and about downright essential.
But: How, in this torn and traumatized world, do we travel responsibly?
Most of us have recognized travel’s dark side—the destruction of rare and precious places and their plants and animals, the waste or thoughtless use of natural resources, the corruption of other cultures. Many of us have already tried to make changes, by choosing responsible travel companies, say, and less destructive adventures and approaches.
Yet we also realize that tourism can have powerful and lasting positive effects, such as providing much needed outside money to fund community development, conservation work, and cultural revitalization. Maybe we’ve volunteered for trail building and habitat restoration, or spent our two-week vacation digging new wells or installing solar power in some remote village.
Whichever way it goes, in terms of travel—whether we’re standing in the light or saluting the dark side—depends largely on the choices we make. It all starts with realizing that every travel decision is a choice, one with radiating impacts.
A few key tips:
For global and long-distance domestic travel, fly less, for starters. Fuel efficiency counts. Take the train if possible, or a boat, or a bus. And when you do need to fly, make the trip matter. No more one-week wonder tours of Europe, or girlfriend-getaway weekends in Hawaii. Even if you can afford it, the planet can’t.
When you do go big, in terms of distance, stay a while. Stay long enough to know a place, its people, and life as they live it, from unique foods and drinks to local arts, crafts, and community celebrations. Rent a cottage for a week or a month—even a year, you retirees—and then take long, looping trips out from “home,” by public transit or bike, if possible, to explore. Practice slow travel in all its forms. Give back—buy local goods and services, for one thing—and otherwise make a meaningful contribution whenever you can. Avoid frenetic, if-it’s-Tuesday-this-must-be-Denmark tourism.
Travel slower, that’s the key point. Stop using travel as a means to get away from your actual life but, instead, as a way to deepen and enrich it. Go for quality of travel, not quantity.
The writer Michael Pollan famously used just seven words to tell us how to eat healthier: “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” To translate that wisdom into travel advice, Up the Road suggests just six words: “Travel, not too much, mostly slow.”
