Green Travel

I love to travel.  Well, not air travel--American carriers are atrocious, from their fight against security measures, horrific service, and filthy planes.  Southwest and Virgin America have become our luxury airlines, while the legacy carriers have become Greyhound with wings.  Sorry, that's unfair to Greyhound.

 

But I'm not taking the Queen Mary to Asia or South America anytime soon, so I have to fly--and therein lies the problem:  the evidence suggests that air travel has a hideous effect on our atmosphere.  Hotels use up a lot of water and energy.  And tourists can make quite a mess.

 

So how can we assuage the negative effects of travel, since biofuels won't be powering 747's anytime soon?  Well, there are carbon offset programs where you can buy credits for tree planting or investment in renewable fuels.  It's not a perfect solution, but it's one way to counter the carbon that you're aircraft is spewing into the sky.  On a lesser scale, you can bring your own food (you don't want that overpriced, over-packaged junk at the airport, and even worse, the airplanes anyway).  Instead of paying $4 for a bottle of water, bring an empty water bottle and fill it up after going through airport security.

 

Next, hotels--this is tough.  The stupid signs suggesting "rack your towel to reuse, on the floor means wash" are a joke--the maids always switch them out anyway.  This is greenwashing at its worst.  Some chains, however, including Starwood have "green" initiatives that are respectable, and I've noticed Marriott properties have aggressively replaced incandescent bulbs with CFLs.  Overseas, I've found that bed & breakfasts, and apartment rentals, are less of a waste than hotel chains.  In Eastern Europe, consider staying at a local's house--every town has a central tourist office where you can peruse pictures of the homes, settle on a location, pay for the accommodation, and then you're on your way.  it's a great way to save money and resources while getting a more realistic view of your host country.  If you're really brave, there's always http://www.couchsurfing.com:  I've met folks who swear by it.

 

This is only a beginning--not perfect solutions, but they are a start.  I'll write more on this later.  Happy traveling!