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What is sustainable travel?

Sara Wolcott | Friday 18th September 2009

Concerned with global warming, my friend Marie stopped all fossilfuel burning traveling exept for public transportation.The Londonernever visits her familyin the United States. She feels the best way to help her young neices is to stop polluting the climate.

It is a position most - including me - dont take. Though perhaps we should. For those of us who still fly, traveling green has become very popular. I am currently in Morocco, which Ive been dreaming about for five years, and find myself struggling with sustainability on a new level.

Morocco thrives on tourism; the young today dont know life without it, and it shapes almost all european-westerner -- locale interaction, for better or for worse. And while much has improved for people here - especially literacy - much has not. As in so many places, inequality is largely increasing, cultures are changing, stories are forgotten, slums grow with highrises and cute towns become tourist traps and summer homes driving out the locales. as one English woman who owns a guest house on the coast told me, there is no doubt that we westerners are a big part of the problem; I hate to see this place destroyed by tourists driving out the locales who taught me so much. ButI dont want to leave!

Yup. And therein lies much of the problem.

Sustainable travel for me means not overgoing my limited budget, which places most of the green options as non options. I try to follow Ruchiras general ethical consumption advice as much as possible - buying local and organic and fresh is super easy here - and tastier. of course; there is also supporting local cooperatives and going off the well trodden path to find gifts that really do support locale peoples livelihoods.

and I try to spend time with local people, which to me is an essential part of travel - though not of tourism. understanding any culture - I dont know if that is ever possible! but it certainly takes time and relationships. i wonder how much any tourist understands what they see. and how much is understanding necessary? many come to see nature not people. Thougheven though those journeys into the sahara are not always done with a 'leave nothing butfootprints' attitude.

Traveling is an inherent aspect of what it means to be human. My friend Marie still travels, just not on planes. Im less sure about tourism. Though had I the means, a romantic getaway in istanbul in an ecochic hotel sounds lovely. But what are the hidden costs? Sometimes it is hard to know. and sometimes, we just dont want to know.

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