Bring a water bottle, preferably one with a filter – Check.
Stay in hostels or camp – Nailed it.
Don’t litter – Good.
Buy from markets instead of stores – Adds to the adventure.
Use a backpack instead of plastic bags – I try.
Bring your own reusable utensils – I do my best.
Local transit over planes or private cars – Makes sense.
It all sounds great, but when it comes to sustainability none of these things outweigh the benefit of just staying home. So, are travelers eco friendly?
In fact, haven’t tourists been responsible for the destruction of coral reefs and graffiti’d mountains? Isn’t it travelers who cause the high-rise hotels and sprawling shopping centers? Economically, isn’t it visitors who saturate economically unsustainable environments?
These folks are home to me
Impermanence
It is so easy to forget that somewhere that you’ll only be for a short time, has been and will be there for much longer. With travel, we define our existence by the hour and the number of nights we stay in a place, not by the years that we give ourselves in our lives overall. We know, accept and welcome that everything is fleeting and will be over all too quickly. After all, our journeys—in life at “home” and while traveling—are nothing but a series of moments, and when we travel, we really witness this for ourselves.
To know a place is not the same as experiencing it, even when it is. I can still close my eyes and walk down the streets of Itacare, Bahia. But I cannot feel the people or smell the rhythm in the same streets.
The beaten path
Behind the high rises run footpaths rather than highways. A place where a footprint is more poignant and less impactful. Or maybe it’s the opposite.
Just like in the rest of life, where do we really get if we follow the herd? It feels safer for sure. But linking back to impermanence—when are we really ever “safe”? Everything can change at any moment. It seems that life is calling us to the road less traveled.
