Chapter 1

Treading Carefully While Exploring the World

IN THIS CHAPTER

Distinguishing sustainable from responsible travel

Getting a grasp on sustainable travel

Calculating the cost of sustainable travel

Times have changed. Travel has changed. And travelers are changing, too. People are traveling more than ever before — some are making up for lost opportunities during the pandemic years, while others are continuing a life-long love-affair with exploring as many corners of the Earth as possible. But for many — including me — there’s a new awareness around how you travel and a desire to tread more lightly and to plan more thoughtfully.

Sometimes the imprint left behind is invisible, a barely perceptible trail in the sky or a temperature rise of just a fraction of a degree. Climate change became an emergency while the world was looking the other way. In other cases, the impact of mass tourism is shocking and in-your-face. Perhaps, like me, you’re rethinking the need to go somewhere, anywhere, just because you can. Staying at home is not a palatable option for most inveterate travelers, who already know what they would miss out on by doing so. Whether you travel afar or close to home, getting out into the wider world opens up your life to new experiences that test your boundaries, expand your understanding of how other people live, and create lasting connections with the people you meet and communities you visit. But if you travel, you should do so mindfully.

In this chapter, I explain the impact your travel choices can have and how you can plan to lessen that impact to the best of your ability.

For links to all the web addresses mentioned in this chapter, along with other helpful resources, visit www.dummies.com/go/sustainabletravelfd.

Sustainable versus Responsible Travel — What’s the Difference?

You have to get over the semantics first. What is “sustainable” travel, and how is it different to “responsible” travel? Can you be a sustainable and responsible traveler — or is it really just the same thing with a different name?

There’s a subtle difference. Put in its simplest terms, sustainable travel is travel that imparts a neutral or, preferably, a positive impact on the environment (including greenhouse gas emissions) as well as the local community and economy. It is about trying to promote the benefits of tourism to communities, achieving sustainable outcomes, promoting cross-cultural understanding, preserving culture, and protecting the environment and all living things.

Responsible travel is about what you can do to make travel more sustainable, putting the onus on travelers to ensure tourism provides that positive impact, asking travelers to take responsibility for changing and improving how tourism affects all those it touches, and ensuring it benefits communities and destinations.

The concept of “responsible travel,” which first emerged in the 1980s as the impacts of mass tourism began to be noticed, was first defined in the Cape Town Declaration on Responsible Tourism in Destinations at the Earth Summit which preceded the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002. The declaration outlined the characteristics of responsible tourism as:

• Minimizing negative economic, environmental, and social impacts
• Generating greater economic benefits for local people
• Enhancing the well-being of host communities
• Improving working conditions and access to the industry
• Involving local people in decisions that affect their lives and life chances
• Making positive contributions to the conservation of natural and cultural heritage, to the maintenance of the world’s diversity
• Providing more enjoyable experiences for tourists through more meaningful connections with local people and a greater understanding of local, cultural, social, and environmental issues
• Providing access for people with physical challenges
• Being culturally sensitive
• Engendering respect between tourists and hosts
• Building local pride and confidence

These are all principles that are now applied to sustainable travel. Quality of life for all those involved in tourism and travel ventures — whether human, plant, landscape, waterway, or other animal — is at the heart of sustainable and responsible travel. Sustainable travel is just what the name suggests: it should be able to sustain itself well into the future, for generations ahead to enjoy the same experiences in an environment that has not been depleted or degraded by selfish or thoughtless travel practices. You’re hearing more about sustainable travel now than ever before because the effect of travel — such as greenhouse gas emissions — is being recognized as a contributor to climate change.

Understanding Why We Should Care about Sustainable Travel

Changing times call for changing ways. Recognition of the impact that people are having on the world’s climate — much of it related to travel — is causing a shift in how people see the world. Sustainable travel is a way in which you can continue to celebrate the beauty and diversity of the world, while trying to limit the harm you do. Rather than checking off another sight on a must-see-before-I-die list, it’s about choosing travel experiences that will bring you joy, safe in the knowledge that you are not contributing to loving the planet to death.

Traveling allows you to see the world’s most beautiful, fragile, and precious places. By employing sustainable travel practices, it’s possible to still do that while ensuring those places stay protected for the next generation of travelers — and those that come after them. Similarly, taking care of the unique wildlife that shares this planet ensures that the children of today’s children will still be able to see elephants, tigers, koalas, and other threatened species when they set out on their own travel adventures.

Sustainable travel is sometimes called eco-tourism, responsible tourism, or ethical tourism. These terms all have slightly different meanings — and are subject to misinterpretation, misuse, green-washing, and exploitation — but all intrinsically have the common aim of reducing travel’s negative impacts and preserving the joy of meaningful travel.

This book explains how to tell the difference between the truly sustainable and the green-wash facade and how to travel sustainably.

Flight shaming and climate change

With plenty of time on my hands when travel halted during the pandemic, I began to think about how much I had traveled in the past, the places I’d been, and where I might go when the world set itself right again. But in this new quiet space, a world without travel, many people began to see a silver lining: streets, skies, and seas emptied, allowing the natural world to recover from the impact of mass travel and tourism.

I watched as social media and news reports showed changes being wrought by the halt in travel. Reduced air pollution was reported around the world. Clearer skies above northern India made the Himalayas visible from Delhi for the first time in 30 years and pollution levels in New York and China dropped significantly because of less traffic and factory shut-downs. Seismologists around the world found fewer tramping feet, rumbling vehicles, and roaring jet engines enhanced their ability to hear seismic signals from deep inside Earth. Without cruise and container ships, the oceans, too, became quieter, a change that researchers said would lower stress levels for marine life.

Without people around, wildlife became bolder, reclaiming their territory. I laughed when I read that more than 100 wild goats living on a headland outside Llandudno in Wales had invaded the town. Elsewhere, other animals, free of the presence of humans, took the chance to expand their territory and breed more successfully. It was almost like witnessing a different — dare I say, better — world.

Climate change and over-tourism were already worrying issues. A new word had emerged: flygskam or “flight-shaming.” It was coined in 2018 in Sweden and popularized by celebrities, including musician Malena Ernman, the mother of teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg, who pledged to stop flying. Within a short time, it was being widely used around the world to describe the practice of discouraging air travel in order to lower carbon emissions.

Aviation is responsible for an estimated 2 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions — and growing. Most of this is from fossil fuel burned during each flight, which results in the release of carbon dioxide and other gases into the atmosphere. But as travelers rush to make up for lost time after the pandemic, it seems that flight-shaming is not something that will influence all travelers — at least in the short term. European travelers have the advantage of being able to avoid flying by using extensive rail networks or by driving to other countries; for travelers in more remote and isolated locations, such as the South Pacific, getting anywhere else except by flying is a much more difficult proposition. Global travel patterns seem likely to change, with implications for the tourism industry in more far-flung destinations.

A carbon footprint is the term used for...