5 Eco-Friendly Travel Tips

In honor of Spring, it’s time to start planning your next travel adventure! Whether it’s spring break or summer break, or just a weekender trip – travel plans are exciting!

That being said, traveling is also usually costly – not just for you – but for the environment too. Usually when traveling people like to indulge and splurge. But in doing so, it causes more waste, more energy, and more emissions than would have been extended before.

Some of the best ways to travel eco-friendly are to travel as though you never left home. You’ll see what I mean below.

Here are 5 tips for eco-friendly vacationing:

1. Non-Stop Flights

When flying, choose a nonstop flight over multiple layovers, if you can. You’re instantly reducing your travel carbon footprint. Most airplane carbon emissions come from takeoff and landings. The less taking off and landing you do, the better.

2. Pack Only What You Need

Over-packing and thus weighing down your travel vehicle, be it a plane, train, or automobile – always adds more to your carbon emissions. The heavier the vehicle, the harder it has to work to get from point A to point B, therefore releasing more emissions.

3. Eat and Drink Local

Wherever you decide to vacation, whether it’s Seattle, WA or Clearwater, FL – it’s always more eco-friendly to eat and drink local. Restaurants with locally sourced fish will always have a lower carbon footprint because the fish isn’t traveling too far to get to your plate. It’s the same thing with alcohol, so drink from a local brewery or winery if you can!  It also doesn’t hurt to find a local farmers market to shop for your everyday food.

*Added bonus – drinking and eating locally puts money into the local economy, generally boosting the community.

Related: Eco-friendly Gifts

4. Ride Local

Another way to embrace the local community when traveling is to ride local, as in use public transportation. If you’re embracing the local transport like bikes and buses, you’re not adding any extra emissions than what was already there. Riding bikes don’t add any at all!

5. Lodge like you’re at home

When staying in a hotel there are usually a lot of “amenities” that make you feel luxurious. But those amenities come at a cost to the environment – producing unnecessary energy, waste, and emissions. In an effort to reduce these unnecessary factors – simply skip those amenities and live more like you  do at home:

• Take shorter showers
• Reuse towels
• Don’t change your sheets every day
• Turn off lights when leaving the room
• Turn off or down the air conditioner when leaving the room
• Unplug unnecessary accessories like phone chargers, laptops, or hairdryers

Almost everything on this list are things you’re probably already doing at home and that’s why traveling shouldn’t be much different. Sure, when we travel it’s to get away from our everyday lives – I get it. But, it’s still a change of scenery and a shakeup from home.

Let me know in the comments below what you think of these eco-friendly travel tips. Do you have more to add?

Check out tips for being a more eco-friendly pet owner here.

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Christina

Christina is a twenty-something living with her beagle, Mash, and husband, Nate in their van. She loves traveling, shopping, art, and photography. She’s also a vegetarian, pop-culture enthusiast, book-lover, and Dave Matthews Band fanatic. Catch her somewhere around the country in a converted camper van or at home in Florida for a visit.