Green travel ideas from two environmentally conscious travelers

Now that Yen has explained a bit about the ground that we’re hoping to cover with SimpleGreenChoices.com, I want to start my own participation on this blog with an assumption that I think we all can agree on: our travel has a profound impact on our lives and the world around us.

Some of the impacts are overwhelmingly positive. We escape from the stress of our daily lives and get to experience a new place with fresh eyes or settle into the comfortable routine of an old familiar haunt. Sometimes we go to experience another culture or learn more about the natural world, or even to teach our kids about their world and expand their horizons. Our interactions with others from different cultures and places helps to foster cultural understanding and make the world a better place. And the dollars that we spend on our vacations can help to sustain local communities and protect the world’s most beautiful places. Travel even keeps our global economy running, accounting for $7 trillion in spending in 2007 alone and more than 10% of the world’s economy, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council.

But our travel can also have a negative impact. Car and plane emissions account for a disproportionate percentage of the global carbon dioxide emissions that are warming our planet (and potentially threatening the very destinations we travel to). Many people alter their habits and produce more waste on their vacation either because of the circumstances or out of a relaxation of their normal environmentally conscious habits. Although tourism development and growth can benefit communities and natural resources, it can also tax them. If development is not done in a sustainable way, the cultural and natural heritage of a magical place can be lost in all the bustle of tourists coming to see those very resources.

In other words, travel is a double-edged sword, and the amazing power of those $7 trillion spent by travelers every year hangs in the balance every time you and I are on the road spending them one by one (sometimes faster than we would like…).

As Yen said, our goal is to consolidate all the best and most useful knowledge on improving the environmental impact of travel to enable you to make smarter, more sustainable decisions every time you set foot outside your neighborhood.

But before we get into the details over the upcoming weeks and months, I think it’s worth us all stopping to consider our own travels up to this point. Is your net impact a positive one and why?