Going Green Lifestyle Tip #2:
Here are a few tips for ECO travel planning if you want to have minimal impact on the planet.
Consider incorporating outdoor adventure travel into your trip. This way you can fall in love with the outdoors while leaving less of a carbon footprint. 98 million people have biked, hiked, white-water rafted, and kayaked all over the world in the past 5 years.
Be earth conscious while taking photos. Digital cameras are definitely the way to go.. and getting an affordable waterproof and durable camera like mine makes it possible to bring it with you for underwater activities, along with other outdoor fun. It's compact and lightweight too! Cameras that use film contain hazardous chemicals that often get disposed of in the wrong way. Disposable cameras are usually not recycled even though they claim they are, just creating more garbage in landfills.
Cruises can leave a HUGE impact on the environment... each cruise ship consumes several thousand gallons of fuel EACH HOUR!!! Cruise ships can spill oil and sewage into the ocean and also disturb fish and marine animal habitats. Nearly 12 million take cruises every year. Try an eco-friendly sailing cruise instead, which carries less passengers and disrupt ports and seas far less than regular cruise lines.
ECO-tourism is awesome. Trips focus on local culture and promote environmental awareness. Destinations are not less crowded and you can often save a lot of money. Attention is drawn to environmentally sensitive areas that need help, and money gets put into the economies of developing countries that need it.
Do your research online. Over 800,000 of the million travel books printed each year go to waste, and only 18% get recycled. Save money (and paper) by doing online searching and only print the pages you really need.
Look into eco-friendly hotels. There are hotels that conserve water and energy but compete with other hotel prices, so you won't spend any more but will be using less water and energy during your travels.
Bring your own toiletries to reduce plastic waste. A single 300 room hotel uses more than 150,000 bottles of plastic shampoo each year.
Use your own reusable luggage tag (doubles as a fun identifier for your bag). Over 60 million sheets of paper get used each year on the paper luggage tags you fill out at the airport.
Use your phone or a GPS as a map instead of paper maps. Map paper often can't be recycled because of all the ink used on it. Use old maps as wrapping paper for gifts, or for paper projects instead of throwing them away.
Use e-tickets instead of paper tickets during travel. If everyone did this, as much as $30 per ticket can be saved, and the airline industry could save $3 billion annually on paper. The paper saved would be enough to provide boarding passes for all the people in India.
Travel off-season to save money and avoid crowds. With less people traveling in an urban area area, it eliminates travel congestion and can eliminate vehicle carbon emissions.
(These green tips came from the New York Times Bestseller "the green book" by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas M. Kostigen)
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