There has been a lot of fuzz about our “carbon footprint” and most articles on nondestructive traveling start and end with quoting our unsustainably high carbon dioxide emissions on international flights. The obvious result of these well-intended pieces is that readers can’t hear it any longer and loose interest in nondestructive travel altogether.
The climate isn’t getting any cooler but our heads should. You should have a warm interest in leaving behind a healthier planet, or this article is not for you. So, are you still with me? “Nondestructive travel” is about reducing the depletion of resources we leave in our wake as we live our lives. We all contribute our share to the trashing of this planet, the stripping of minerals, fossil fuels, groundwater, biodiversity, fresh air, glaciers, rain forests, fish, lakes, reefs, river deltas, peat swamps, tundras, everything we destroy. So nondestructive travel is refusing to continue this bullshit at least while you’re out of your home.
We know there is a necessary transformation we have to make at home, but things aren’t just so flexible there. The paperwork for your new solar panel is late, you can’t afford replacing that old boiler, there’s not enough cash in your clunker, using rainwater for the garden seems far-fetched, you have no idea where to dispose of your batteries, non-toxic detergent is too expensive, the kids keep nagging, and so on.
While traveling we have a unique chance to try out all this good stuff. We can start sharing a little, go to a less westernized hotel, experiment with vegetarian or vegan food, take a bus instead of a rental car, cook with a small stove, save water and drink from the source rather than a plastic bottle, or, heck, if we are intrepid adventurers we hitchhike, camp and couchsurf our way to everywhere, bathing in the river using a small piece of organic soap, eating raw food and telling folks we meet about this lifestyle that is a curiosity now, but a necessity tomorrow.
Chuckle over the irony here as I provide you with loads of “resources” related to nondestructive travel:
Eat
You should consume local food, preferably produce that needs little water and fertilizer.
http://www.ifoam.org/
Organic Farmer’s markets in Australia, Canada, South Africa, UK, US
http://www.koraorganics.com/blog/live-in-my-skin/all-things-organic/organic-certification/farmers-markets-around-the-world-5/
Here’s a fun footprint calculator, showing you how many acres it takes to support your lifestyle, and how many planets it would take if every human being would live your standard of living: http://www.footprintnetwork.org
Move
Try to avoid flying. Long-distance buses are the champions of fossil fuel efficiency, but you can easily go beyond that.
Sail: www.crewseekers.net/
Hitch: hitchwiki.org
Just walk http://www.odysseyxxi.com/
Entertain
Buy an ebook-reader! Virtually everything published more than 70 years ago is freely at your disposal through www.gutenberg.org and a number of university website you easily find through Google.
You have all the distraction you need, you don’t consume any paper and hardly any electricity, especially if you use a portable solar charger.
Sleep
An ecological hotel will make you a lot less destructive, compared to your condo. But you can lower your CO2 production to what you breathe:
couchsurfing.org
Or use alternatives like servas, hospitalityclub, bewelcome, triptrotting, airbnb, wwoof, workaway.
You can camp in the wild in many countries, make sure to do some reading about basic wilderness survival.