Looking through my selfish lens
June 23, 2008
Posted by CindyW in : Opinions & Thoughts , trackback
We are traveling afar, to a different continent in fact. Before anyone points out to me how anti-green air travel is, I’d like to clarify that I am painfully aware of the fact. Several times on this blog I have confessed my conflicted emotions about the previledge of traveling.
We no longer have the “right” to travel afar considering its damage to the environment. But if I have to one eco sin, this will be it. Elizabeth Gilbert whose “Eat, Pray, Love” touched me in so many ways, declared for me. “I feel about travel the way a happy new mother feels about her impossible, colicky, restless newborn baby - I just don’t care what it puts me through.”
Before having kids, whenever I had all my worldly possessions crammed into a backpack, my synapses would start zinging and singing - the intimate memory of newness, independence, loniness, joy, connection and sometimes despair would start my heart pumping.
Greenbeen has recommended the book Common Wealth to me a number of times. It apparently would supply me with more execuse to go places. Surely when I am back from the trip, I will have to check it out of the library to absolve all my accumulated guilt.
With two little children in tow and a heavy mortgage, I can no longer load all the belongings on my back. Still, the seemingly obsessive yearning for foreign places hasn’t gone away. Do I need to seek a shrink?
Anyhow with great conflicting feelings, I have decided to continue to feed my craving, but do so as lighly as possible. Yes, even with two little children.
Take little stuff and bring home little. You’d be surprised how long the repleated use of three changes of clothes can serve you. We pack all of our things into one backpack for a month’s trip. Everywhere we go, we acquire new phrases of local languages, lingering taste of local foods, and stories of local history and culture, rather than souvenirs and trinkets. Unaware of anything different, my kids seem to take to the style quite easily.
Minimize small flight trips and maximize usage of public transportation. Instead of short flight trips we try to take only one long trip every year. After we land at a destination, trains and buses are usually our vehicles of choice. Riding on a bus with bleeping goats and quacking ducks would stay in your memory far longer than flying smoothly from A to B.
(courtesy of www.tibetplus.com)
Borrow instead of buy. My kids are six and three. Despite my boast of robustness, flying with small children and keeping them seated for 12+ hours can be real grind. This time around, we gave in to the portable DVD idea. Fighting the convenience to buy one from the store, I was lucky enough to borrow one from a generous neighbor. In exchange, her toddler aged boys wanted pictures of trains and buses we would ride and ticket stubs. I was told that those were highly valued tradable items, in the world of 3-6 year old boys at least.
Find alternative lodging options. Increasingly there are more eco lodging options, though they still tend to be associated with eco tours. After trying a few, we found them inconsistent. The agritourismo accommodation in Italy was one of our best memories while a “green” hotel in San Francisco was not far from window dressing. Another option we have really enjoyed is staying with family friends, or friends’ families, or even friends’ friends. Collect all the potential contacts and don’t be shy of using them, especially in a foreign countries. I am aware that this is not for everyone. But so far, we have had the best experience with this type of accommodations. Imagine being taken to local hangouts in Paris that are no where to be found in any guide books.
Will doing all the above redeem the damage air travel does? I won’t begin to delude myself in thinking so. However if one does not want to give up the selfish idea of traveling, these options can reduce our environmental impact once on the ground. In fact when we travel in third world countries, our footprints are much smaller than back in the U.S. because of the “smaller” lifestyle in these countries.
Plus, being a traveler instead of a tourist just makes trips more fun and memorable. I promise.
CindyW at Organicpicks
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Comments»
A few years back (before the 4th child!) we took our three boys on a family trip to Italy to attend my sister’s wedding. It was the trip of a lifetime for the boys. Stepping out into the world to learn people speak different languages, pizza tastes different and buildings are older than our country was the best lesson we could have ever taught them. If we could afford it, we would go back in a minute - carbon filled air travel and all! They will never truly appreciate the world until they have experienced it! Have a wonderful trip!
I absolutely love travel, but I’ve always stayed in the smaller family run places - mostly because I’m cheap, but also helps the local economy and gives a better experience. We haven’t gone anywhere in years, because I’ve been sick. I miss it. But I have all kinds of memories - Italy, France, England, Greece, China, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Germany, Austria… they were all beautiful adventures. In fact, the photo I chose for the header in my blog was the view from the balcony of the place I was housesitting in France. The town had less than 100 residents and I walked down each morning to the bakery to buy bread. That trip always symbolized the adventure of life. It may not be the greenest thing to do, but it has opened a whole new perspective in life for me.
There are also the simple little things you can do:
Order the vegetarian meal for the flight.
Bring your own water bottle and fill it up at the airport fountain/fill it on the airplane instead of getting water in a plastic cup
Bring your own snacks and decline the over-packaged snacks on the plane
Go to the bathroom before you get on the plane. The energy for one flush is equivalent to driving 10 km according to this Treehugger article.
And of course, you can offset your flight.
Arduous - I never thought about how much energy it cost to use the toilet on a plane!
Do they even give out snacks anymore? Last I heard (I haven’t flown in a year), they were even holding back on those snack pretzels (yep, all 10 miniature pretzels will be no more).
So how do people feel about offsets?
Cindy, you make a great point about choosing the most environmentally friendly way to travel. We have to be realistic in the green movement. Americans are not going to go back to living the life of the Amish - now matter how beautiful and peaceful that may be. The genie is out of the bottle.
The thing to do now is exactly what you are doing. Make the very best, most thoughtful choices you can.
As to offsets, we bought them for our last plane flight. Do they work? Probably not but they are fairly inexpensive and better than doing nothing.
I agree with Green Bean. We won’t be giving up travel, nor should we if we want to avoid provincial thinking. You made some very thoughtful choices, and get me thinking about greening our little trips.
You’re amazing! I can’t believe how light you pack! Have a wonderful trip and don’t feel guilty about the air travel. You’re giving your kids a perspective that is worth much more than the carbon you’re using.
I am starting to accept the fact that I won’t be able to afford to travel for a very long time…so I am thoroughly enjoying the next best thing: living through other’s experiences. I really enjoyed Eat, Pray, Love for that reason. I feel (somewhat) that I too visited Italy, some ashram in India and Bali.
BTW, I am the friend that will look through all 10,000 pictures and listen to you talk to me about it for days.
I knew I was born to serve some purpose…this seems to be it. Enjoy your trip.