Last month, I mentioned “Regenerative Tourism,” a new travel buzzword designed to let the Instagram crowd ramp up the virtue signaling in their #blessed travel posts. Perhaps that’s a little unfair, but the reality is that many of us do think about with the tension between our passion for travel and our understanding of the environmental and social impacts we’re causing. With overtourism at a breaking point, and the planet setting heat record after heat record, you can make a pretty compelling case that the best thing is for everyone to stay home. Ideally in a well insulated, heat pump and solar equipped home.
And yet …
This is a fraught and personal topic, and we each need to make our own decisions about our comfort level with our impact. And we need to accept that there’s a cost to every decision we make – after all, the best thing for the planet would be for humanity to disappear, but we tried that in 2020 and it didn’t work out.
I want to share my own thoughts on the subject, and I’m hoping some of you will share yours. I’ll break apart the environment and social impacts, but you could obviously slice these issues in a lot of ways.
Carbon Impact
Flying is really bad for the planet. There’s no getting around that. And for the moment, long haul flights are one of the biggest challenges in a green transition. While I’m personally hopeful that we’re on a path towards effectively zero cost solar energy, which will make things like synthetic carbon neutral jet fuel more feasible, we’re not there yet.
I’m deeply skeptical (for good reason) of carbon offsets. Like the Pope selling indulgences, they promise a simple economic fix for a personal failing, which is probably a sign to be cautious. I’m not above buying forgiveness though, I just try to do it in a more targeted and mindful way.
First, I’ve tried to minimize my carbon impact in other parts of my life. You can use a carbon calculator to get a rough idea of which parts of your life have the biggest impact on the planet. While travel is a substantial majority of my overall impact, my total estimated emissions are on par with the average American. So, still incredibly high compared to the rest of the world.
I’ve also followed the lead of Rick Steves and his Climate Smart travel initiative, which aims to fund climate adaption. I appreciate the realism of that approach – we know we won’t get to a carbon neutral world soon enough, and we know that some of the big changes we need will depend on action from policymakers. In the near term, we can focus on helping folks in the developing world adapt to climate change. Rick has a portfolio of charities that he supports. I’ve become a supporter of Agros, which works to support farmers in Central America so they can thrive in a changing climate.
Social Impacts
After a brief Covid-created hiatus, overtourism is back with a vengeance. From Spain and Italy to Japan and Bali, the crush of tourists is displacing locals and damaging fragile environments. However, tourism is a double edged sword – plenty of people benefit from it, and as we saw during Covid, the absence of tourism can have equally disastrous effects.
There’s a tendency among travel writers to take an “I got mine” approach – people who’ve already “been there, done that” when it comes to Barcelona, Venice, Amsterdam or Kyoto are quick to preach about “responsible travel” and going to less visited destinations. But those cities are popular for a reason – they’re fantastic! It’s unfair to tell a first time visitor to Europe that they need to skip the Sagrada Familia or the Rijksmuseum.
Additionally, if you’re the type of traveler who’s actually worried about the impact you’re causing, you’re probably not the type of traveler causing problems. If you’re a drunk Brit on a “stag do,” maybe skip Amsterdam. If you’re a K-12 teacher from Topeka seeing Europe for the first time, you’re probably fine to visit Anne Frank house.
We’re in the midst of a number of big experiments about approaches to overtourism – Venice is charging a daily fee, Barcelona and other cities are shutting down short term rentals. Within the next few years, we’ll have a good sense of what works and what doesn’t. For now, if you’ve already been to Barcelona or Kyoto, it’s both sensible and probably preferable to skip a return visit. Leave space for someone else.
There are much bigger topics about the impact of travel when you’re traveling outside of traditional tourist destinations and especially western Europe. No matter how lightly you tread, you’re disrupting the status quo in both good and bad ways – you’re bringing money and hopefully building connections, but you’re also potentially creating or reinforcing inequality, or worsening shortages of energy, water, food, or housing. I do my best to understand the impact I’m having, to talk to more knowledgeable people before I go, and to be clear-eyed about the decisions I’m making.
I really struggled with the ethics of going to Cuba, a country with severe shortages of just about everything. After messaging with a number of Cubans, both in Cuba and in the States, I became comfortable with the idea that it was possible to have a net positive impact by bringing supplies and foreign currency and bringing back a more nuanced view of Cuban society. Plenty of other people make a different choice – we each draw our own lines.
What Else?
My goal isn’t to come up with a reason not to travel. My goal is to grapple with the complexity of many competing interests, responsibilities, and desires. Especially as the world becomes more fragmented and populist, it’s even more important to reject isolationism and bring back perspectives from beyond our borders. But we can temper that with our very real ethical qualms without being hypocrites.
What about you? What decisions are you making in regards to your impact on the world around you?