Veggie Vagabonds
“Every country can be cycled, cuisine conquered and mountain climbed with a vegan diet“
When it comes to vacations, we all have our own perks about where and how far to travel, what to carry and how to pack. Whether this be just one night or days, I personally tend to carry way more than what we need as a family. This is especially true with moms traveling with children, like how I dread my boy will fall in some muddy puddle and soil his trousers or my girl spills her beverage or even husband dropping his food on T-shirt.
For all those reasons and many other obsessiveness, I tend to have large luggage. However, I have some tips that’s helped me to reduce our travel impact to a manageable but sensible sized greener journey.
1. Food and Water
On one day trips, I make sure I always pack food; packing snacks and food, helps me to reduce the amount of packaging that come with sandwiches, salads or even snacks. Moreover, the choice of homemade food adds the benefit of healthier options that cuts down all the processed ingredients. By carrying homemade food, you could have picnic anywhere you fancy.
Apart from the health aspect, ordering food at restaurants saves time and reduce the expenses. We always tend to carry water bottles for all of us. This helps in reducing the amount of plastic water bottles one has to buy and dispose of it after use. According to Guardian, a million bottles are bought in a minute in UK and most of these might get dumped.
Another aspect to travelling green is to carry reusable cutlery sets for all of us, these are used only if the occasion arises when we are being given plastic cutlery by the restaurant or takeaways.
2. Clothes
When we think of vacations, we are all about dressing up and looking nice for both ourselves and the family. However, when packing clothes, I tend to pack one top for each day and one extra in case of an emergency. Depending on the length of the stay, jeans are considered to be worn for 2-3 days.
For my little one, I always pack 4-5/extra sets. Packing like this ensures that we r packing lighter than what’s usual, and every lighter luggage helps in lesser load on the energy consumption of car or flight.
Repacking
Another good tip is to pack soiled clothes in bags so that they don’t soil any unused ones. This reduces the load for washing and helping Mother Earth by using less electricity and water and reducing the amount of toxins dumped.
3. Emergencies and medications
This is one area that I have lots to pack. Because we use reusable nappies, depending on the number of days, I have to carry 5-6 diapers per day for my baby. During the stay, I rinse and pack the soiled ones in a wet bag so as to avoid urine damage to the fleece layers. By doing so I am taking care that the soiled ones are not damaged and last longer. This applies to The reusable sanitary towels as well.
4. Emergencies and Medications
This is purely based on the distance one chooses to travel. Generally I tend to walk for my local shopping and only take car if there’s more luggage or there’s longer distance to cover or the weather is not great. Choosing to walk or use public transport helps immensely in reducing the carbon emissions. Shorter distance that can be done by car is better than a quicker flight journey, this will help, in reducing your carbon footprint.
5. Wilder holidays
Make camping a regular holiday as this reduces a lot of carbon footprint. In UK there are plenty of Eco-friendly campsites that have Eco-showers and toilet. These are excellent experiences for the so called Generation Z. Making campfires, cooking outdoors with minimal utensils and food and star gazing are some of the favorites of my son. Such experiences let our children appreciate simpler things in life more, than if they are cooped in a hotel room with television.
Hiking and trekking are also very good activities that are Eco-friendly, make sure to stick to the designated and marked paths. This will not only help you from not getting lost but also protect lots of plants and tiny creatures living underneath.
6. Hotel stay
When in hotels, use the towels more than once and avoid just leaving them for replacements every day. Every towel you return will be washed by the laundry and this adds to the electricity and water wastage. Most hotels will have a facility to let the cleaning staff know if you want the room serviced. Opting to not get the room serviced everyday of your stay also reduces the laundry, cleaning toxins and electricity wastage. In our recent stay at Prague, the hotel provided goodies when one opted out from room service for the day.
7. Shopping
FACT. It’s very unusual for me to go out and come back without doing any shopping, even if it’s one fruit or vegetable. I tend to keep bags in the car and also some fabric or mesh bags in my handbag. When going out and about it’s very useful to have bags in hand for unexpected shopping. To be more conscious in green shopping you could take a number of steps….1 2….
8. Souvenirs
Finally, we all want something that is a memory of the vacation. When choosing a souvenir, I would recommend in choosing items with enviro-friendly materials and that can last for a while. Try to avoid items that have been made with or have traces of endangered species or animal parts. This way we are not supporting the cruelty against animals and also protecting them from being killed for out need for decoration.