Traveling on an Environmental Budget
Posted on August 19th, 2008 - 3:30 PMAbout the author: Viccy Salazar joined EPA in 1995. She works in our Seattle office on waste reduction, resource conservation and stewardship issues.
It is summer. I want to take my family on vacation but given all the focus on climate change, I am very concerned about how my travel plans might impact the environment. So, I sit down with my family and ask them – what do you want to do on vacation and how can me make it “green”? Of course, the first question was – what is a green vacation? Here is the list we came up with:
- It is fun and we can all be together
- Minimizes traveling
- Car is better than airplane
- Biking or Walking is better than car
- Can cook for ourselves using fresh ingredients
- Doesn’t damage existing natural resources
- Can stay in either a tent, a friends house or one room together
- Measure our carbon emissions and offset them
My kids wanted to know if this ruled out Disneyland. Not completely but it did make it harder to go. We would have to make choices about how we would get there, where we would stay, what we would buy while we were there and how we could offset our emissions.
Other trips we considered were camping at a lake, a train trip across Canada, the beach and a staycation – staying home and touring our own city, Seattle. Eventually, we decided to do a combination of camping, the beach and a staycation. When the kids looked at both the environmental and financial costs of all of the choices, they realized that they were getting more vacation for their resources if they stayed closer to home and chose less high profile activities. We decided to use some of the resources on EPA’s website to figure out exactly how much impact our vacations did have – tracking mileage, evaluating hotel stays, and figuring out how much we can recycle.
When I look back on the conversation, I realize that I learned lessons too. 1) being green means making substantially different choices – not just figuring out how to do the same thing using less, 2) my kids care about the environment and see it directly affecting their future and 3) it can be done but it isn’t easy. We are off on our vacations and staycations next week. I’m looking forward to it. I hope you are all having both a fun and green summer too. I’d love to hear how you are making your vacation green.
The Sierra Club has a more detailed comparison of cars vs. planes.
Tags: green travel, planes, travel, vacation
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Question of the Week
September 15th, 2008 at 7:59 am
Read your articles, i like your idea to have a theme family vacation.
aha.. i will do like what you did on my next vacation. Thanks for the idea. Lucky to browse and find your article. Have a nice day.
BTW you can stop by at my traveling blog and write article like this over there.
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October 4th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
nice article. lets say to our kids “save the planet” with “green vacation” :)
manuel
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October 9th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Good points about green vacations. However, beyond transportation, I can see the difficulty in assessing the carbon footprint of a family vacation even semi-accurately. There are a lot of variables involved that may be confusing for the average family.
I am a big fan of the camping vacation, as I believe it is not only a perfect example of a “green” vacation, it’s a way to for people to become more aware of environmental issues, including the need for wilderness protection. However, even camping can have environmental issues you wouldn’t expect. I happen to blog about hiking and backpacking, and as someone who is experienced in those types of recreation, I’ve become familiar with Leave No Trace ethics. Many serious backpackers do not build campfires unless a fire is required in an emergency situation. All the same, most of us will admit there’s nothing lovelier that staring at a campfire on a fall evening in the wilderness. Of course, campfires are perfectly acceptable in established campsites (unless the wildfire danger is high). But a campfire, over the course of a camping trip, may unleash the equivalent pollution of a 200-mile car trip.
One more thought. You have mentioned the choice between cars and planes. What happened to rail? I think it’s unfortunate that our passenger rail system is so inadequate for most vacationers in the US. This ought to be changed. I think it’s going to require the commitment of government at all levels to make that change and build a modern passenger rail system for the US. I lived in Germany for a time, and was impressed with their rail system. A family in Stuttgart can take a high-speed train and in a few hours be at the seaside, and a family in Berlin can take a high-speed train and in a few hours be in the Black Forest. Their trains are very eco-friendly, most running on a combination of overhead electricity and diesel. Granted, we have distances far more vast than densely populated European countries, but we have the potential to make all travel - not just vacations - greener by improving our passenger rail system.
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October 23rd, 2008 at 4:17 am
Great share…I love your opinion…
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November 14th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
An excellent point. Given the state of the economy right now combined with what are sure to be soaring oil barrel prices in the future, we need to move away from fossil fuels and pay close attention to our carbon footprint. While a potential innovation to help us move away is still in all likelihood far away, these are the ideas we need to start considering in preparation. There are many alternate forms of transportation to daily driving, and they are only going to get more and more efficient as interest increases.
In the meantime, efforts must be made to get remaining fossil fuel based vehicles off the road for good. A very socially efficient way of doing this is donating vehicles to charity to be sold at auction for scrap materials. The proceeds go to a good cause, the donor gets a tax deduction, and the environment is better off for having one less car on the road. Here are some good basic starting pointers on how to donate your car to charity
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November 15th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
great share for travel holics
budget is the main problem when talks traveling but when we can arrange it we can go anywhere as we want.
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December 13th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Everyone knows there are things they should–and shouldn’t–do to help the environment. Even so, most people aren’t going to completely avoid planes as a way of reducing greenhouse gases. I love nature
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December 14th, 2008 at 9:52 am
Hi,
I didn’t think about green travel and vacation at all. Must say that when you consider how many people are traveling every day and how many fuel are burned day by day then you can find it very disturbing.
But I can’t imagine that one would travel 5 days by car or 2 hours by plane people don’t have much time these days on their hands, so I think this is the main factor.
take care :-)
Nemanja
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January 30th, 2009 at 11:23 am
Might I suggest for a trip off the beaten path you can take along a camping toilet. The one I got is a piston flush type and uses biodegradable solutions. When you are out in the sticks it is a blessing trust me.
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February 5th, 2009 at 4:16 am
However, even camping can have environmental issues you wouldn’t expect. I happen to blog about hiking and backpacking, and as someone who is experienced in those types of recreation, I’ve become familiar with Leave No Trace ethics
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March 24th, 2009 at 10:55 am
that good article and good option to travel with our kids.
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March 25th, 2009 at 11:26 pm
its summer and time to traveling. But in the crisis like now i know that budget is the main problem. Lots of people cancel their plans because of budget problem
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May 5th, 2009 at 11:37 am
I don’t think that anyone is going to be impressed with any “environment- friendly” ways to have fun with the family. I do think that it is a lot more efficent than ‘muddin’ in a desil truck.
Camping is an experience in itself.
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May 8th, 2009 at 12:25 am
great article. this great for a budget trip that needed in this economy. we should the some time to relaxing our body, mind and spirit. travelling indeed can fulfill this.
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May 18th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Nice articles for family vacation idea. Finally I found article with same interest with mine. Lucky to find this article. Have a nice day.
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July 1st, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Right now in my country it is a holiday for children and my child ask me to vacation and after I read your article I got the idea to setting their vacation and it will be vacation dreaming for them
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July 4th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
For me, work hard and play hard. Vacation is a must. setool
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July 11th, 2009 at 9:17 am
I spend vacation with my family, like play games or listen to ringtones
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July 12th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
family vacation…
My Friend Asked me to Read your Post The Beavers Bend Family Vacation: A Short Drive From Dallas on Sunday.Your post was Well written.Please Keep it up .I Love reading on family vacation….
July 21st, 2009 at 6:32 pm
i like your idea to have a theme family vacation.
aha.. i will do like what you did on my next vacation. :D
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July 27th, 2009 at 7:32 am
have never used to travel with kids before, but now decided to try it. just read a lot on the topic in the books I found with the help of http://www.picktorrent.com engine or heard the experience of my friends. sounds pretty easy to employ. Thanks so much for the depth and understanding at which you covered the topic. it’s a useful piece of information not only for me but for many others
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July 29th, 2009 at 11:56 pm
good information..
thanks for information
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August 19th, 2009 at 3:55 am
Good articles. I like travelling, read your articles, i have idea for vacations with my family and gf. I agree with ur word” Car is better than airplane”. Because car is cheap than airplane right ?
thanks for ur information usefull
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September 8th, 2009 at 4:01 am
i like your idea to have a theme family vacation.
aha.. i will do like what you did on my next vacation. :D
Nice..thanks for the great share.. :D Regards,
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September 19th, 2009 at 3:33 am
I think vacations are for refreshing and fun :)
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October 20th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
I like to find a good balance on my vacation. This year for the feastive season we are thinking of travelling to Europe the fashionable way. Travel in Europe has been hugely modernized by the introduction of high-speed rail, which has replaced and is preffered to air travel on some major routes.
CO2 is cut by ten times by rail, however trains carry far many more passengers.
The United Kingdom has had an underground train tunnel leading to Europe, it was opened over ten years and has recently been improved.
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November 19th, 2009 at 8:32 am
that good article and good option to travel with our kids.
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