Eco-conscious travel, slow travel, mindful travel—they are all, in our opinion, one and the same. A travel philosophy that more and more people are embracing as a way to see the world and all its wonders without causing harm along the way. A great way to embrace this style of travel is to start at the planning stage of your holiday. Plan to be mindful, plan to be environmentally friendly, and carry that throughout your trip.
You’ll not only be giving yourself a more memorable experience, but you’ll have less of a negative impact on the place you are travelling to.
Before we dive into tips for planning your eco-conscious holiday,
we want to clarify what slow travel really means
With a name like slow travel, people think embracing this travel style means you need to quit your job and slowly travel through the places on your list. Whilst this is certainly one way of doing it (clearly we love it), it’s not the only way to embrace slow travel.
Slow travel is a mindset, not a timespan. You can still embrace slow travel if you only have 4 weeks off in a year. Slow travel just means you take your time when travelling; don’t book yourself on a long-distance flight if you’re only going to see a place for a couple days before flying back.
It’s maximising your time spent travelling so you really experience a place instead of spending a day there and moving on to the next destination to tick off. Sure, you’ll see the world at a slower rate overall, but you’ll make more memories whilst doing it. Travelling this way is also more eco-conscious, as you are being mindful of your carbon footprint too. Hence why we think slow travel, mindful travel, and eco-conscious travel are all really one and the same.
Be sure to check out our Instagram to see more eco-conscious habits!
What Do You Want Out Of Your Getaway?
Before you even start planning your trip
You need to ask yourself why you are going
What do you actually want to get from this mini break in your everyday life?
Are you travelling to see a different part of the world and gain some different perspectives?
Or do you just need a break to recharge and not actually do a lot?
These questions are really important to consider, as they play a big role in deciding where you want to go. If all you are looking for is a pool to sit next to and read a book, then maybe a staycation is what you really need. If you want to see a new country, ask yourself why you want to visit it and what experiences are important to include in your travels.
For example, when we decided we wanted to come to Aotearoa, New Zealand, we knew we wanted to see the natural parts of the country. We wanted to go on hikes, see the glaciers, the sounds, and the volcanic activity. We wanted to see all the natural wonders Aotearoa is famous for. We also wanted to learn more about Māori culture and way of life to understand the connection between the people and the country we are exploring.
Once you know what you want from your holiday,
you can decide the best travel methods to take that will minimise your impact.
Mode Of Transport
We all know that flying isn’t great; however, it’s often the only option to get to the countries we want to explore.
Instead of saying you just shouldn’t ever fly, we think it’s more important to weigh up when you will fly and when you’ll choose to stay close to home. Our method for deciding when to fly is to ensure that we aren’t taking a flight if we are going to stay at the flight destination for less than two weeks. We try to ensure flights result in longer stays than this, but two weeks is our minimum.
Our other rule around flights is we won’t take internal flights in a country. For example, we’ve driven around Aotearoa New Zealand and taken the ferry between islands instead of taking smaller flights between major cities.
To get around places like Europe, we plan on using trains and buses instead of flights between countries. While it does generally take longer to drive, bus, or train from destination A to B, it has the added bonus of enabling you to see more of the country you are travelling through. Planes don’t stop at tiny towns along the way, nor do they have roadside attractions or out-of-way hikes.
Once you’ve decided how you’re getting to your holiday destination, you also need to figure out how you’ll travel around that place. Hiring cars, camper vans, bikes, taking public transport, or just good old-fashioned walking? Often it’s a mixture of the above; peddle power and foot power are great, but if you aren’t an avid hiker or are visiting somewhere other than a major town, things can get pretty far away.
Public transport is a great option to incorporate into any holiday to save on costs and keep your carbon footprint down. When you travel on public transport, you feel more like a local. You get more interactions with locals too, which means more local tips and hidden gems for you to explore!
Research
Research is the most important part of any holiday but especially an eco-conscious one. It’s through research that you can check up on local customs and ways of living so you can respect these when you are travelling. It’s also important to check if locals are asking for tourists to stay away for any particular reason and to respect that request.
Is the city or town you want to visit getting over crowded with tourists at a certain time of year? Shoulder seasons are great for keeping costs down and not creating strains on local resources. Or could you pick a different less touristed town in that country if you don’t want to go during shoulder or off seasons?
If you are visiting a colonised country then it’s extra important that you find out who’s land you are really on and how you can respect the customs of the First Nations People.
In Aotearoa, mountain tops are sacred, as these mountains are the ancestors of Māori people and the head is the most Tāpu (sacred) part. Local iwi will often ask hikers not to summit Maunga (mountains) of particular significance such as Tongariro, Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe and Aoraki. We choose to simple not summit any mountains in Aotearoa out of respect for the local iwi.
It is through research that you can find local businesses running tours, providing accommodation and food.
The best way to reduce your carbon footprint and ensure your money is going into the local economy when traveling is to use local restaurants, shops and accommodation. These businesses are more likely to support local farmers, makers and people through employment. This means the things you are buying have travelled less to get to you and have more of a connection to the place you are visiting.
For finding the best places to visit and things to do we use travel blogs, Pinterest, Instagram and of course good old fashioned search engines like Ecosia. (We steer clear of google and use Ecosia for all our search engine needs. Ecosia not only uses renewable energy to power its search engines, it also invests profits in tree planting projections so our searches are funding the growth of new trees!)
Nowadays there is a wealth of travel knowledge out there from people who have visited before you and from locals in the places you want to visit. These are the best ways to pick out what you want to do and see when you travel. We highly recommend using blogs and instagram posts from people who travel like you want to travel. In this case that would be people who embrace slow travel, eco-conscious travel and mindful travel.
It’s a lot easier to stick to these philosophies of travel when you get your inspiration from people embracing this way of travel.
Fill your mood boards, instagram feeds and friendship circles with like minded people seeking to travel and live in mindful eco-conscious ways and you’ll be surprised at how quickly you start to embrace this way of living.
Booking
We wouldn’t have swum with this turtle if not for a local recommendation in Exmouth, WA.
Before we started embracing slow travel, we were notorious for jamming our travel days with as many activities as we could find.
What happens when you do this?
Well, for one, we had things planned that we physically didn’t have the time to get to and two, we felt so rushed at every place we visited! So whilst we saw a lot, we still felt like we were missing a lot and we really didn’t value the things we were seeing.
It took us a week on our first trip to the U.K. before we realised that traveling like this wasn’t sustainable. Sure, we were getting photos of the places and ticking of heaps of travel must do’s but we weren’t really experiencing any of it fully.
For the rest of our 4 week trip in the U.K. we decided not to follow our itinerary and miss off things we had planned to do. That way we could see some things spontaneously and take our time going to the places we had chosen to visit. Whilst we felt a bit of FOMO for the things on our list we didn’t get to see, we weren’t tired and cranky from rushing to and fro and we made some great memories at the places we did visit! My favourite castle we visited on the trip wasn’t even on our list! We drove past a sign for it and decided to check it out.
So the best advice we can give you is to leave room for rest days and space to change your plans when booking your trips and organising your itinerary. Being flexible on your travels helps to take out the stress when things go wrong, or the weather is bad. Flexibility also means you can check out that cool walk a local just recommended to you whilst you got your morning coffee.
Trust us, the local tips are always ten times better than the instagram hot spots and the spontaneous detours are the ones you remember the most.
Packing
Try not to overpack
no one is going to notice or care
if you have the same outfit on in multiple photos
if you have the same outfit on in multiple photos
The less you pack the less you have to carry around from place to place. Taking less on a plane is a good way to slightly reduce the emissions from your travel as well. So if anyone does comment on your lack of wardrobe range just wear your eco badge with pride!
This brings us nicely to the point of not shopping for a new wardrobe with each trip you take. Of course, some adventures will call for special clothing items such as a trip to a colder climate might mean you need to get a warmer jacket or your first hiking based trip will require some good hiking shoes.
But once you have these items there’s no need to go buying more.
Shop in op shops and with sustainable small business when you do need the odd new garment. Keeping clothing purchases down is a great way to have more money for the trip and score eco points whilst your doing it. We do highly recommend you pack all your at home eco-habits when you go on holiday too!
It’s super easy to forget all the simple things you do at home for the environment when your on holiday.
Try to keep up your habits year round. Things like turning the lights off in a hotel when you leave, not leaving the air conditioning on in your hotel room if you aren’t in it. Not wasting resources by taking super long showers ect. We also like to pack our keep cups so we can drink on the go without using single use cups (even the biodegradable ones aren’t as good as using a reusable cup). When exploring towns, markets ect well carry around a set of chopsticks each and our reusable straws so spontaneous snacks can happen without using single use cutlery or straws. We also always carry our reusable water bottles, just make sure they are empty if you’re going through customs.
Think about what you do at home to be environmentally friendly and bring that mindset with you when you travel.
Time For Your Holiday
Now that you’ve planned, booked, and packed for your mindful adventure
remember that you don’t need to have the perfect holiday
Contrary to popular belief, this isn’t about getting the prettiest shots for your Instagram. This is about time away to connect and grow and bring back some new experiences to your everyday life. Don’t cram it all in so it looks great for the gram. You’ll find that in doing this, you miss out on any real connection with the place and people you are visiting.
By all means, take photos; just remember to put the camera and the phone down and take it in for just you too.
Memories aren’t formed by posting to social media but by actually living your life and having your own experiences. It’s so easy to fall into the trap of doing what everyone else is doing and going to all the tourist hotspots you see shared on Instagram. But often when we get there, we find it’s not as good as we had hoped because it’s full of other tourists all crowding each other to get the perfect Instagram shot.
So take your time, enjoy it for yourself, and don’t despair if things go wrong. We all seem to have this idea that a holiday has to be the perfect happy time away, that nothing bad will happen, all our plans will be perfect, and the weather will be exactly what we want it to be. This just isn’t what happens, and that’s totally ok! We don’t live on Instagram; we live in the real world.
We’ve found that when things don’t go to plan, they make a really good story. So let your story play out and go along for the ride.
Your Eco-Conscious Holiday is About Small Steps To Be Better
The hardest part of making your holiday eco-conscious is just deciding to be eco-conscious with your choices. If you plan to be eco-conscious then you will be eco-conscious! Remember that it’s ok to fall short in some places too.
The world doesn’t need you to be perfect; it just needs you to try your best
The more you try to put slow travel into practice, the easier you’ll find it is to travel this way. Making small changes and planning them from the start of your holiday is how you’ll turn these changes into habits. You’ll pick up more eco-conscious ways to travel the more you do it and the more you talk to other people too.
If it all seems like too much, why not just pick one of the sections above and apply that to your next holiday?
Keep going until you’ve got them all down, and then look for more! We have loved the journey we’ve been on to grow our eco-conscious travel. We make new changes to how we travel all the time to continue to do better and to make it work for us. Ever since embracing this way of travelling, we have made more memories and developed deeper connections to the places we have visited.
If we can inspire just one person to embrace this way of travelling, that would be amazing, so give it a go and tell us what your next eco-conscious trip was like!
Keen for more inspo? Be sure to check out:
- How To Be An Eco-Conscious Hiker
- Eco-Conscious Travel Tips That Anyone Can Implement
- How Eco-Friendly is Vanlife?
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