Ask Lonely Planet Kids: how can families travel more sustainably?
Our children are all too aware of the importance of living an environmentally-friendly lifestyle, and travelling certainly contributes to our carbon footprint. However, for many of us travel is key to ensuring our children understand and appreciate the wider world, so how do our community of family travellers balance these two concerns? We asked them for their tips on how families can travel more sustainably.
The expert view
It's important to consider your whole life, not just your vacation, in your bid to make your family's travel more sustainable. If you have low-waste, low-energy and low-animal-product consumption at home it goes a long way towards offsetting your travel footprint.
Obviously minimise your flights and travel by bus or train if you can. If flying is your only option, pick the shortest route and try to travel with an airline which offsets and is as plastic-free as possible. On the road do everything you can to minimise plastics. Take your own, refillable water bottles and use them. There’s even an app ReFillMyBottle to help you. Choose your accommodation carefully: avoid huge resorts with constant aircon and large golf courses and swimming pools, say no to a daily room clean and boycott buffets. The waste generated by buffets is off-the-scale and often it is the expensive, high-footprint products going to the trash.
Nobody is perfect, but millions of small steps go a long way towards decreasing total consumption.
- Alyson Long, from World Travel Family
Our Twitter community says
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Our Facebook fans say
The above comments and more family travel tips can be found on our Facebook feed.
Want to investigate further? Try these helpful extra resources:
1) World Travel Family has ways to be a more eco-friendly traveller.
2) Lonely Planet's Best in Travel 2020 has this list of the 10 best sustainable trips for families.
3) If you want to join a beach clean , this list of clean-ups around the world on Lonely Planet is a good place to start.
4) Our latest title The Plastic Problem will give your kids loads of ideas for how they can reduce their plastic consumption.
