Can we really Reduce our Carbon Footprint when Travelling? What are the Pros and Cons of Travelling by Air? What are the Alternatives?
Exploring the world does not have to come at a price to the planet. Or does it? A BBC article we read recently got us thinking and feeling awfully guilty about our travel options and choices.
If you have read our post on Eco-friendly travel, you will see how we do our best to reduce our impact on the environment, not just at home but on our travels as well. But when it comes to the means of reaching our destination, are we doing almost everything right, and then getting the most important thing – the transport – completely wrong?
Here lies the difficulty in our situation. Up until the nineties, the prices of flights were sky high and our trips were limited. Naturally, when cheap airlines became more common, we started booking flights every chance we got. We had no clue that airplanes did so much harm to the environment! The concept of green living only took off in the last few years. Shameful, we know, but that’s the way it is.
Chasing dreams turned out to be more fulfilling than anything else, so we poured our heart and soul into researching places to go, things to see and photos to take. Earning a salary meant affording trips and getting out of our comfort zone. All of this, however, meant catching a plane about three to four times a year for five-day breaks. See what we’re getting at?
The more aware we became of the effect that planes have on the environment, the more we are trying to keep travelling by air to a minimum. These days we plan our trips in such a way that we use buses or trains as much as possible. However, our travel buddies cannot take as many days off as they please because they are not digital nomads like we are. That leads to us booking extra flights, when we could travel by rail if we go to the United Kingdom twice, for instance.
There are also restrictions posed by one’s geographical location. Living remotely has its disadvantages in terms of transportation. Those who reside on islands can take a ferry to the mainland and then travel by rail from then on, but does one always have the luxury of time?
We feel terrible about harming the environment with our travel plans, but we also feel like we’re caught between a rock and a hard place here. Travel is our passion and it’s the last thing we would want to give up. Our travel blog should be proof enough of that.
Your Feedback
Have you got any suggestions / solutions on how we can reduce our carbon footprint and travel less by air? We would gladly welcome them. If anything it would ease our conscience and teach us new things about more sustainable ways of travelling.
Final Thoughts
Thanks for taking the time to read our post. If you like it, please share it so that other people may contribute to the discussion and hopefully more awareness will be raised about one’s choice of transport.
Best wishes,
Passport and Pathways x
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I never thought about this before but you’ve opened my eyes to this issue! Thank you!
You’re welcome! 🙂
I have actually never even traveled on an airplane before! Can you believe that?! I would like to sometime in the near future though.
-Charity http://www.morningsonmacedonia.com
Oh wow! Well, you can do it for the experience, but other than that you’re not missing out on much. There’s security checks to go through and the plane is stuffy and noisy. We don’t like it much to be honest. We hope you like it more than we did when you get to travel on it 🙂
I think Eurostar does travel between London, Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam… there’s another train between Calais and Dover and there are probably coaches, ferry’s and car shares but that’s for the UK. I want to visit a friend in Scotland and the trains are far more expensive than planes so yeah it’s difficult. I guess you could always take a shorter plane trip and then take a different transport when you get there mind you I’ve been looking it up and it makes sense and seems that the plane is least efficient when it’s taking off so unless you are going really far it probably doesn’t make as much difference.
Yes, you’re right – trains are expensive sometimes even for short distances! We try to book in advance but it’s not always possible. That’s interesting…what you said about the plane being least efficient when taking off. We agree with you about taking a shorter plane trip and then going by train. We’d like to try the one between Calais and Dover someday.
Travelling is such a tricky one, but I think rather than not flying, you could maybe look into ways of offsetting the carbon emissions caused by your flights! Obviously not quite as eco-friendly as not flying, but it does take away a large chunk of the guilt x
Sophie
That’s a great idea and one thing we can actually do to MAKE a slight difference, thank you! 🙂 x