There’s no doubt about the impact travel has on the world. With more and more people starting to travel nowadays, it’s important to raise the issues behind sustainability, or lack thereof, when it comes to the travel industry. I mean, simply boarding a plane has negative impacts on the environment, but the answer is not: Don’t travel! That’s not a permanent solution when so many people want to see the world—us included. Instead, the best thing to do is to travel as sustainably as possible.
To help achieve this, here are our top 16 sustainable travel tips to help you travel while lessening the negative impact on the environment and increasing the positive impacts you can have on the local communities.
Disclaimer: This blog post includes affiliate links, which means we receive a tiny commission – at no extra cost to you. Don’t worry; this doesn’t affect our recommendations whatsoever. It just helps us keep the lights on.
Why Travel Sustainably?
The tourism industry has skyrocketed in the past few years, and unfortunately, this growth has had some negative effects. Most tourists’ standard travel habits are not sustainable for the environment or the communities they visit. But don’t worry, we aren’t going to tell you to stop traveling altogether!
While admittedly not as high as other industries, the travel and tourism industry accounted for 8% of global carbon emissions. So, there are definitely environmental concerns about tourism, especially with the industry’s rapid post-pandemic growth.
Being mindful of the way you travel and making ethical and sustainable choices when planning trips can have a bigger impact than you might think. In fact, traveling sustainably really isn’t going to look or feel that much different for you. Awareness and education on how to travel sustainably are the first major steps. In 2023, 80% of global travelers said that traveling sustainably was important to them, so we can definitely see a positive shift in idealogy!
Our Top Tips for Traveling Sustainably
Looking to do your part to change the tourism industry to become more sustainable? We applaud you! Anything helps, no matter how seemingly small the action may seem. Here are 15 of our top sustainable travel recommendations.
1. Travel in the Off-Season
We have become huge advocates for traveling to popular tourist destinations during the shoulder season. Not only does off-season travel put less strain on local communities, but you’ll also generally get a much better experience. The infrastructure in some destinations simply can’t handle the crowds in high season, so it is more sustainable to choose a different month.
Of course, there is a reason tourists tend to flock to destinations during the high season, and weather tends to be the main determining factor.
But the high season can be unbearably packed with tourists in popular destinations like Rome, Venice, and Paris. On the other hand, if you visit Paris in the winter, the crowds will be much less overwhelming, you won’t need to book restaurants and attractions as far in advance, and locals will tend to be more welcoming.
2. Support Local Businesses
There are many cases in which most of the money pouring into popular tourist destinations goes to just a few massive companies. This is a huge issue in the cruise and all-inclusive sectors of the travel industry.
In all-inclusives, you pre-pay for all of your food, drinks, and activities. So instead of directly benefiting locals, your money stays within the hotel. Additionally, when many tourists go abroad, they tend to stick to the major brands and restaurant chains that they are comfortable with.
So, one of our top sustainable travel tips is to skip the McDonalds and go local! Stay at locally owned hotels, eat at mom-and-pop shops, shop at local markets, and book tours through local operators.
3. Take Your Time and Slow Travel
We know better than anyone how hard it can be to eliminate the “I want to go everywhere” attitude. Travel is exciting, and it is too often tourists get caught up in the excitement when planning a trip and try to see everything in a short itinerary.
Instead of trying to squeeze in 3, 4, or even 5 cities in a ten-day itinerary, we recommend choosing two of your top destinations and spending more time in each place.
Here are some of our top arguments for slow travel:
- Cuts down on travel days: You’ll spend more time actually exploring the destinations and less time traveling. No one enjoys travel days! Plus, this cuts down on carbon emissions.
- Gives you more time to get to know a city: When you spend just 24 hours in a city, are you really getting to know the place? Traveling slowly gives you time to get off the beaten path and create a deeper bond with your destinations.
- Less stress, more relaxation: Most people travel to relax, and there is nothing less relaxing than constantly getting to and from airports and arriving in new cities. Staying in one destination gives you space to relax while still exploring a new place.
4. Hit Up Lesser Known Destinations
For the same reasons that we urge you to consider off-season travel, we also recommend checking out off-the-beaten-path destinations. Overtourism has become a major issue in the past few years, with many destinations worldwide feeling the burden.
We love traveling to lesser-known cities for a number of reasons:
- Avoids crowds: Going to secondary destinations means fewer crowds. The ratio of locals to tourists will typically be much more balanced, and you won’t feel like you are in “Disney World”.
- More unique experiences: Everyone has seen a million photos of the Eiffel Tower or Big Ben. But when you get off the beaten path, you can explore places you may have never heard of!
- Benefits new communities: While tourism has its downsides, it is still generally a good thing for communities (in reasonable doses!).
Let’s use Venice as an example. The incredibly popular island city has fewer than 55,000 local residents, but on busy days, more than 120,000 tourists will visit. That’s more than triple the city’s population!
Overtourism puts a massive strain on the local infrastructure and can make the cities unliveable for locals. Going back to our Venice example, there are now more tourist accommodation beds than locals in the city. When locals move away, cities start to lose their authentic feel.
Of course, popular places like Paris, Venice, and Barcelona are amazing bucket list items. But if you want to be a sustainable traveler, we urge you to go somewhere else.
5. Avoid Airbnb
Airbnb has been at the forefront of conversations surrounding sustainability and ethical travel. Airbnb can be a great option in terms of accommodation as it can help save you money while staying in a comfortable home. While Airbnb started off as a great alternative to hotels, with locals offering their spare bedrooms for travelers, it has turned into something else entirely over the past couple of years.
When looking for Airbnbs, you’ll notice that many of the listings available in popular tourist destinations are owned by big corporations that have multiple properties. This not only removes valuable housing from the locals’ hands but also prevents your hard-earned money from directly benefitting the locals whose city you are visiting.
Here’s another major issue: Airbnbs cost much more than locals pay in rent. So, in a touristy city, what is stopping landlords from offering up their homes for tourists who’ll pay double or even triple the rent instead of settling for less money with a local? This, in turn, takes potential homes away from locals while simultaneously raising housing costs for locals as a whole. Probably one of the most harrowing examples of this in recent years is Lisbon, Portugal, where the cost of housing rose by more than 40% in 2023 over 18 months! And this number continues rising today.
To crack down on this growing issue, some cities have introduced regulations to prevent big corporations from dominating Airbnb listings. They only allow hosts who actually live on the property to use Airbnb. We think this is a great option that nods back to Airbnb’s humble beginnings.
There are some great ethical alternatives to Airbnb that you should check out to help out the locals struggling with the rising cost of living and lack of housing. Our preferred option is to house sit using Trusted Housesitters!
6. Choose a Sustainable Travel Company
There’s A LOT of money in the tourism industry. And greedy corporations and individuals take advantage of this to offer travel services that have little to no regard for our world and our fellow humans. If you want to be conscious about the impact you have on the world when you travel, you should choose to travel with the help of sustainable travel companies.
Don’t just go for the cheapest or best-rated travel company that is the first to pop up when you look up a travel service in your chosen destination. Instead, DO YOUR RESEARCH. It’s important to find travel companies that look after their home and their people instead of exploiting the people, animals, nature, and culture around them.
Here is our list of sustainable travel companies to help you start planning your travels as ethically as possible! These companies are carbon-neutral, offer trips that benefit local communities, and even pair travelers with researchers who are looking to solve the world’s environmental issues.
7. Travel with a Reusable Water Bottle
Bottled water is a hot commodity for travelers when they are not in their home country. It’s easier not to have to worry about bringing your own water bottle around. However, one of the easiest changes you can make to travel more sustainably is to use a reusable water bottle. Top tip: Opt for one with a handle or one small enough to fit into the side pocket of your backpack.
Unnecessarily buying bottles and bottles of water when a lot of the world has potable tap water is harmful to the environment for no reason whatsoever. Simply fill up your reusable water bottle at your accommodation. And whenever you need to get it topped up while you are out and about, find a drinking water fountain or ask the cafe/restaurant you stop by to fill it up for you. As a plus, this green travel tip will also save you money in the long run, as buying bottled water every single day can add up a pretty penny, especially if you’re in a hot summery destination.
8. Bring a Water Filter (If Tap Water Is Not Safe to Drink)
But what if you are traveling in a country where tap water is not safe to drink? This is where a water filter comes in handy. During our seven-month stint in South and Central America, we were glued to our Sawyer Squeeze. We have used other water filtration products in the past, including the famous LifeStraw, but nothing beats our Sawyer Squeeze. It’s super easy to use; simply put water in the bag, turn it upside down, and then squeeze the contents of the bag into your reusable water bottle! Easy as that!
Thanks to our water filter, we were able to be nicer to both the environment and our wallets by avoiding buying bottled water during our seven months in the Americas.
Here is our full list of other eco-friendly travel products we recommend!
9. Travel by Bus and Train When Possible
When it comes to forms of transportation when traveling around, it’s a no-brainer that you should pick public transport over private transportation. And when it comes to transportation between slightly longer distances, if you can, we encourage you to travel by bus and train rather than a short-haul flight.
To lessen your impact on the environment and your carbon footprint, your absolute BEST option is to travel by train and ferry. But where that isn’t possible, a bus or an electric vehicle of some sort is another great option. To put this into numbers, a gasoline car produces around 192g of CO2 emissions per person per km, while a bus produces around 105g, and a train produces roughly 41g.
10. Cook Meals at Your Accommodation with Local Ingredients
Did you know that eating out has a bigger carbon footprint than cooking meals at home? If you’re lucky enough to book accommodation with a kitchen, take advantage of it!
When you shop at local markets and grocery stores, you directly contribute to the local farmers and vendors (while saving your own money) and reduce your carbon footprint by minimizing the need for long-distance food transportation. On the plus side, getting to know your local markets and ingredients can be a super fun way to travel in and of itself.
Top tip for green travelers: Choose local ingredients to further cut down on carbon emissions!
11. Be Respectful to Locals
This one goes without saying, but you are a guest in a foreign city or country, so act accordingly! Act as you would if you were to be invited into someone’s home—with respect. Unfortunately, travelers have developed reputations in certain countries for being disrespectful and rude. And that’s not how we want to be seen by locals! Plus, it’s not very ethical.
Instead of running around doing as you please just because you are on vacation, take a deep breath and reflect on your position while traveling somewhere foreign. Respect the local culture, traditions, and the locals themselves. Respect can be something as small as learning a couple of key words and phrases in the local language and understanding the cultural etiquette of how to dress.
We also recommend supporting local businesses and eating at local restaurants and cafes, which ties back to number 2 on this list! Other tips to be respectful to the locals include:
- Asking for permission before photographing locals
- Avoiding doing anything that could harm the local environment (for more on this, read tips #14, #15, and #16)
- Participating in tourism activities that give back to locals, such as seeking out companies that employ local guides (for more on this, check out tip #6 on choosing a sustainable travel company)
12. Volunteer Your Time in a Foreign Country
One way to offset the negative impacts travel has on the local communities is to volunteer your time. This is especially important if you are slow traveling, as you should give back to the community you are temporarily living in. You can give back in many ways, including supporting local businesses and volunteering in local organizations. Volunteering is a great way to become a part of the community and make true connections with the locals living around you.
However, before you join any old organization, make sure you do your research first. Avoid “voluntourism” programs that prioritize your tourist experiences over actually helping the community.
13. Opt for Direct Flights
When you have an option to choose between a flight that has a layover and a direct flight, choose the direct flight. A long-haul direct flight is actually an effective way to reduce your carbon footprint when you travel. Since taking a single flight reduces the number of takeoffs and landings, which are the most fuel-intensive, you’re lessening the impact on the environment.
As a plus, direct flights are much more convenient, saving you a lot of time and stress, so why not go for a direct flight anyway? The extra cost you may need to pay is worth it for the environmental benefits and convenience of it all.
14. Conserve Local Resources
This is a big one that we were confronted with recently during our one-month stint in Oaxaca, Mexico. Oaxaca has been battling water shortages for years, and it’s only been getting worse. But despite locals going for months – yes, months – without getting any water delivered to their homes, as tourists, you would need to ask the locals directly or venture outside of the city center to really understand and realize the severity of this water shortage.
During our stay in Oaxaca, we wouldn’t have known there was a water shortage in the city if it hadn’t been for this Xochimilco walking tour that opened up our eyes to this dire environmental issue. Plus, we quickly discovered getting our laundry done was going to be quite the task. Laundromats around the city were overwhelmed by the amount of work they had as no one had water in their homes. But beyond getting our laundry done, we didn’t have to worry about running out of water in the middle of our shower or washing our dishes. Isn’t it quite disturbing that while tourists get to consume as much water as we want, the locals barely receive any water from the city to even flush their toilets?
Beyond water shortages, wherever you travel, be aware of any other important resources that may be lacking in a country. It’s easy to not care when on vacation, but be mindful of your consumption.
It can be something as small as taking shorter showers, reusing towels, and turning off all electricity before leaving your hotel room. Try to leave as small a footprint as possible!
15. Be Kind to Mother Nature
Be kind to Mother Nature by sticking to marked trails and paths when hiking or exploring natural areas to avoid disturbing wildlife and damaging vegetation. Make sure to leave no trace!
And when it comes to waste, do your best to recycle. Even if you are traveling somewhere where recycling is not common, go out of your way to figure out how to recycle your plastics, cardboard, and glass. This is something we had to figure out in Tulum. So if you are visiting this part of Mexico, check out our full guide on life in Tulum (and, of course, how to recycle).
And here’s a big one: when snorkeling or diving, do NOT touch or step on coral reefs!
16. Avoid Unethical Wildlife Tours
As you know by now, it’s important to choose the right company and program before you go on any tour if you want to be as sustainable and ethical as possible. This is doubly important when it comes to wildlife tours. The unfortunate reality is that a surprising portion of wildlife tours exploit animals for profit, subjecting them to terrible living conditions, stressful environments, and harmful interactions with tourists.
As a golden rule, avoid any wildlife tours that involve any direct contact with wild animals. This includes riding elephants, swimming with dolphins, or taking photos with wild cats. All of these experiences come at the cost of causing harm and stress to these gorgeous animals. So, no matter how tempting these experiences may be, DON’T!
Instead, go for wildlife tours that allow you to observe animals in their natural habitats. We highly recommend doing some research beforehand to ensure the company you go with has an actual commitment to the ethical treatment of wildlife.
Top tip for green travelers: Just because a company says it is a “sanctuary” for rescued animals does not necessarily mean it is one if it is still exploiting the animals for money and tourism. This was the case for many elephant “sanctuaries” we came across during our travels in Southeast Asia. There are very few “sanctuaries” that actually protect the elephants, but you can find them with some research.
Let’s Make a Positive Change in the Travel Industry!
There is a lot you can do to become a more sustainable and ethical traveler. As travel becomes more and more mainstream, it is becoming all the more important for each of us to do our part to lessen our impact. Every little bit helps!
Psst! If you are a nomad, you might want to read our post on how to be an ethical digital nomad.
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