Some Easy Tips To Help You Travel More Sustainably
Recently I did a post on my IG about sustainable travel and it is surprising how many people do travel sustainably without realising.
Some of my top tips would be:
✿ Always take a reusable water bottle with you and avoid using plastic as much as you can, it’s so easy to buy a bottle of water in the shops when you are away, but most people will just throw the bottle in the bin when they have finished and a large amount of plastic ends up in the sea each day, so by using a reusable bottle you are preventing that from happening. Just make sure the tap water is safe to drink first. If not, invest in a bottle that filters the water or buy some purifier tablets.
✿ Explore local places, you don’t always need to get on a plane to see beautiful and new places. Your country will have a lot of amazing places, you just need to get out there and find them.
✿ Shop at local markets and eat in local restaurants, supporting small, independent business is something we need to do more, especially since the pandemic. The best way to know if a restaurant is a local one is by looking at the menu. A lot of independent local restaurants will have the menu in the country's language rather English.
✿ Recycle when you travel, clean up after yourselves. This of course is a no brainer but the amount of people who don’t do it, it’s shocking to see. Also try and leave nature as it is, so this means don’t take souvenirs such as shells from the beach and leaves from the trees etc.
✿ Use a hotel towel more than once or take your own towels. This saves on hotels, hostels washing, which in turn uses less electricity, therefore helping the environment.
One Of My Best Travel Memories
I have so many memories from all of my trips. But if I had to choose one, it would be staying in the Sarapiquí rainforest in Costa Rica. It was like nothing I have ever experienced. Deep inside the rainforest, a 2 hour tractor ride. Surrounded by nature everywhere you looked. Being woken up at 4am every morning by howler monkeys, going on night walks and seeing animals in their natural habitats. Making homemade empanadas. Being totally disconnected for a few days from the world.
Evening bonfires with singing and games. Swimming in the river that runs through the Sarapiquí rainforest. If you ever get the chance to do something similar I highly recommend it. It was an experience I will never forget with some of the best people I’ve met travelling.
Things That Prevent Me From Traveling More
Time and money. I think it is the same for most people. My job doesn’t enable me to have much time off and when I do get time off it’s in the school holidays like everyone else, so everything is more expensive. Being in the education sector we also aren’t paid very well, so the lack of money means that sometimes I have to save for longer periods of time to be able to afford a bigger trip.
Ultimately I would like to live the nomad lifestyle where I can work from my laptop and be free to travel whenever I want.
Challenges While Traveling
There can be many challenges when travelling, but you need to make sure you are prepared for them.
Things like your flights getting cancelled, always make sure you have travel insurance.
Lack of internet/phone signal, I always make sure I do some research before and have some notes on my phone, also I use the app maps.me which is an offline map, just make sure you download the map when you have internet and then it can be used the same as google maps.
Food, I am a vegetarian, so sometimes it can be hard to find food that I can eat, for example in Cuba I lived off rice and beans for 2 weeks. Again, doing your research beforehand always helps.
The language barrier, google translate can be your saviour in times like this, but I always try to learn some of the language, just the basics to get by.
My top tip would be, just make sure you are prepared, just in case things go wrong then you can cover yourself.
My Travel Bucket List
As I mentioned earlier my bucket list is the length of my arm. I would love to tick off all the 7 wonders of the world at some point as so far I have only seen one. I would also like to do a safari in Africa and stay in a tent in the wild. I’d like to travel around Australia and New Zealand for a year, along with exploring Japan and more of Asia. And I would love to spend a night under the Northern Lights.
