Travel Tips
Tips for Travelling Responsibly
Here are some tips on how you can make responsible travel choices. We've set them out so that you can easily print them off and tuck them in your travel kit.
What is Responsible Travel?
Responsible travel is about minimising your impact and maximising your connection with people and the environment. It's about making a positive contribution and having the most rewarding and inspiring travel experiences of your life.
Responsible tourism can be more-or-less defined as travel that takes into consideration the 'triple bottom line' issues of:
Environment: travel that minimises negative environmental impacts and, where possible, makes positive contributions to the conservation of biodiversity, wilderness, natural and human heritage.
Social/Cultural: travel that respects culture and traditions and fosters authentic interaction and greater understanding between travellers and hosts.
Economic: travel that has financial benefits for the host community and operates on the principles of fair trade.
Travelling by the responsible travel ethos is one of the most direct and personal ways you can make a difference to some of the biggest issues affecting our world: poverty and peace. Be a part of the solution, not a part of the problem - and have the time of your life doing it.
Before You Leave Home:
- Do as much research as you can - the more you know about a country and its people before you arrive, the quicker you get under the skin of a place.
- Learn a few words of the local language and make sure you know what's considered polite and what's not in terms of eating, greeting and dressing.
- Try to leave as much excess packaging at home (eg film boxes, anything plastic) - so your hosts don't have to deal with your garbage.
- Consider your transport options: could you ride a bike rather than drive? Take a train rather than fly?
- Look at off-setting your contribution to carbon emissions, so your travels are 'carbon neutral'. Check your carbon emissions here Climate Care
Is Your Holiday Green - or Just Greenwash?
- Tour operators, hotels and lodges that are genuine in their approach to responsible tourism will generally have a written policy covering their environmental impact, employment and cultural policy. If they don't, ask them why - by their response, you'll be able to make the judgement call.
- Ask some specifics about how they implement their policy:
- How are they dealing with the main environmental issues facing them?
- Do they employ local guides, leaders and staff and provide training opportunities?
- Do they limit the size of their groups to minimise environmental and social impact?
- Do they have a 'green' purchasing policy?
- Do they work with the local community? If so, what proportion of their revenue is redirected to that community?
- What information do they offer their clients on responsible travel?
In the immortal words of Kermit the Frog, it's not [always] easy being green. But if an operator is getting it right, they'll be proud of it and will be happy to answer your questions.
Culture Shock vs Cultural Connection
One of the best things about travelling is making connections with people from different cultures, in an authentic and mutually enjoyable way.
- 'Cultural sensitivity' is simply a matter of respect: take your behavioural cues from the locals and, if in doubt, try to see things from the locals' point of view.
- Go with the flow. Other cultures have very different concepts of time, personal space and socially acceptable behaviour. You'll find it a lot less stressful - and a lot more enlightening - if you just chill out. You might even reassess your own ideas.
- Dress appropriately. Looking at the locals is a good way to gauge what to wear. Particularly in conservative cultures, don't flaunt your flesh and try to be neat and clean - it's only respectful.
- Try to be conservative with resources such as water, food and energy - you may be depriving local people or making a negative impact on their environs.
- Buying locally made crafts and curios means your money goes directly to the community.
- Enjoy the ancient art of bargaining: part pas-de-deux, part drama, part chess-game, bargaining is a skill and an art form. It's as much about the social interaction as the final outcome. Make sure you know when bargaining is appropriate - and when it's not. Have fun with it and keep things in perspective - does haggling over that last dollar really make a difference to you, compared to the vendor?
It's when you make those cross-cultural connections - even though initially you may have thought you had nothing in common - that it hits you again: people are the same wherever they're from; we all have the same needs and desires, aspirations and affections. Revelling in that realisation is the holy grail of travelling.
Wilderness Wanderings: How to minimise your impact on fragile places
No matter what you do, your mere presence will make some impact on any given environment, so keep that impact short term and minimal. These tips apply to remote wilderness as well as your own backyard.
Hiking
- Keep erosion to a minimum: don't be tempted to create a new track or take a shortcut. Stay on the existing trail where possible even if it's muddy or there's room to walk alongside
- While you're admiring the view, try to keep one eye on your feet! Particularly at high altitudes and latitudes, native flora can be very slow-growing. It can take years to regenerate after being crushed by your muddy boots.
- Take your rubbish home with you if it can't be properly disposed of along the way.
- Take a strong water bottle and boil or purify your drinking water, rather than buying bottled water: the scourge of the 21st century is shaping up to be discarded plastic water bottles...
Toilet Hygiene
- Tent pegs make good shovels: if you get caught short on the trekking trail, dig a hole at least 15cm deep (or 30cm in hot areas), on the lower side of the trail, preferably at least 100 metres from it.
- Take a cigarette lighter and burn your toilet paper. If there is a risk of fire, or the ground is too hard or stony to dig a hole, use leaf litter or rocks to cover.
- Make sure you're at least 100 metres away from any watercourse.
Washing and water pollution
- If bathing or swimming, consider the sensibilities of local people - both regarding what you wear and the fact that you're using 'their' water. Bathe downstream from water collection points or villages and avoid using soaps (particularly ones containing phosphates) in fresh waterways.
Wildlife watching
- Be aware of suggested or legal approach distances and other recommendations for observing wildlife. A basic rule of thumb is if the animal is altering its behaviour due to your presence, then you're too close. The best wildlife watching is when you get to see the animals' natural, often quirky, behaviour. Invest in a long camera lens and binoculars.
- Don't be tempted to buy souvenirs made from wild animal products, including skins, ivory or bone. Not only is it illegal to import or export them in most cases, you're likely to be supporting poaching practices that have had devastating impacts on animal populations. Similar principles apply to wooden products: check you're not purchasing a chunk of old-growth rainforest.
Responsible tourism is not the full or only answer to the future sustainability of tourism. But unless we shift our attitudes to tourism and travel we'll lose the wild places, the traditions and the eccentricities of the world. Life will be far more homogenised and far less surprising, and our spirit will be the poorer for it.
We hope to give you the tools and the inspiration you need to try a new way of travelling. We hope our on-line information, our guide books and Code Green: Experiences of a Lifetime, our book dedicated to responsible tourism, will reveal a way of travelling that will challenge your perceptions; shake you out of your comfort zone; enthral you and enrich your soul. Not only will you make a contribution to other people's lives, you might just change your own.
Now get out there and be great.