You step off the plane. The soles of your san­dals touch the hot asphalt of the run­way. You take a deep breath and the excit­ing air of your vaca­tion des­ti­na­tion is mixed with the thought of hav­ing pro­duced a lot of CO2 on the way here. Trav­el is won­der­ful. But wher­ev­er we leave our mark, bathing beach or hik­ing trail, we also leave our eco­log­i­cal foot­print. For­tu­nate­ly, there is sus­tain­able trav­el. That means plan­ning your vaca­tion so that from the moment you pack your suit­case to the moment you dri­ve home, you’re pro­tect­ing the envi­ron­ment and its inhab­i­tants.

How does our vaca­tion harm the cli­mate?

Means of trans­port

We like to fly the dis­tance from our desk to the beach. Espe­cial­ly if we want to set up the deck chair far away from home. The air­plane caus­es the great­est cli­mate dam­age of all means of trans­porta­tion. A round-trip flight from Berlin to Pal­ma de Mal­lor­ca would pro­duce 610 kilo­grams of CO2. If the jour­ney takes you far away, to New York or the Mal­dives, it would even be around three tons. Trav­el­ing by water is sim­i­lar­ly bad. A sea voy­age is fun, until each of a thou­sand pas­sen­gers on an ocean lin­er for a week on the world’s oceans is respon­si­ble for almost 2.5 tons of green­house gas. The ques­tion is: How busy is your mode of trans­porta­tion of choice? In a packed coach, you con­sume much less per per­son-kilo­me­ter than if you were trav­el­ing alone in your car. In addi­tion to the envi­ron­men­tal costs of the jour­ney to and from the des­ti­na­tion, there are the dai­ly trans­port costs at the des­ti­na­tion as well as pos­si­ble excur­sions.

Waste dis­pos­al

It’s vaca­tion, you’re off, you want to put your feet up. In this mode, we also give our sense of respon­si­bil­i­ty a break. We have a habit of treat­ing oth­er peo­ple’s prop­er­ty more incon­sid­er­ate­ly than our own. This is most vis­i­ble in the garbage dumps into which we turn the land­scapes of vaca­tion spots. Mass tourism clus­ters mass­es of trav­el­ers in a sin­gle spot. Most­ly there, where one can lie com­fort­ably tem­pered on the skin or shoot the best pho­to. The result: plas­tic bot­tles, alu­minum foil, dis­pos­able grills in the sand or grass. The throw­aways dis­ap­pear, the dis­card­ed remains. The ones who suf­fer are the locals and their flo­ra and fau­na. In this way we destroy nature and cul­ture, which must be pre­served not only for our trav­el plea­sure.

Resource con­sump­tion

The lax vaca­tion men­tal­i­ty con­tin­ues in our con­sump­tion of resources. A favorite crime scene is the hotel. The place to be served, where every­thing is ready and some­one else cleans up for us after we use it. That comes at a price. Espe­cial­ly for the ener­gy bud­get. Find­ing fresh tow­els every two days costs resources. So does the ful­ly air-con­di­tioned room in Cairo in August, the pool with­in sight of the beach, the watered green areas and the too-small sham­poo bot­tles in the bath­room. The water con­sump­tion in the hotel alone ris­es to over 500 liters per guest and night. By com­par­i­son, we use an aver­age of 127 liters at home.

Tips for sus­tain­able trav­el

1. choose cli­mate-friend­ly means of trans­port

Trav­el­ing by train saves much more CO2 than fly­ing or ship­ping. That’s no secret. But it has even more advan­tages. By plane, you take off and land one Adam San­dler movie lat­er. By train, you trav­el through var­ied land­scapes and make the jour­ney itself an expe­ri­ence. By coach, you can trav­el just as excit­ing­ly and in an equal­ly cli­mate-friend­ly way. Once you arrive on site, you can cov­er dis­tances on foot or on a bicy­cle. This brings you a lit­tle clos­er to the local world. If your dream vaca­tion — in terms of kilo­me­ters — is far away, the plane is of course the only option. In that case, you can ask about air­line offers to com­pen­sate for the emis­sions pro­duced.

2. look for near­by trav­el des­ti­na­tions

Ask your­self: What am I going on vaca­tion for? For some vaca­tions, you don’t have to go far. Wind­surf­ing is said to work very well on the North Sea waves, hik­ing is also the miller’s delight in the Harz moun­tains, and with your eyes closed, along with the right playlist, the veg­an yoga retreat in the city park feels just like being in Bangkok.

3. pack only what you need

The heav­ier the load of your lug­gage, the more fuel your mode of trans­porta­tion will con­sume. Think about what you real­ly want to car­ry before you start your trip. Lighter lug­gage makes you more mobile. You can bor­row items local­ly, and clothes can be washed and put back on. This way, your sev­en things quick­ly become sev­en things.

4. orga­nize your vaca­tion your­self

Choose where you go, how you get there and where you stay. A vaca­tion designed accord­ing to your own wish­es means free­dom. Sure, it’s more work than click­ing the pack­age tour into the shop­ping cart. But sin­gle-hand­ed­ly, you have the option to focus on sus­tain­abil­i­ty. For exam­ple, look for accom­mo­da­tion that has an envi­ron­men­tal cer­tifi­cate. If you’d rather have the all-inclu­sive pack­age, there are trav­el por­tals that spe­cial­ize in cli­mate-friend­ly tourism.

5. sup­port local busi­ness­es and peo­ple

The lit­tle restau­rant in the back alley where you can taste the soul of the region in every bite. The week­ly mar­ket that has exot­ic spices and hand­made trea­sures for you. The hos­tel, run by a love­ly cou­ple, who will tell you the secret hotspots of the city over break­fast. Many coun­tries on your itin­er­ary rely on income from tourists. But when the mon­ey gets stuck in all-inclu­sive hotels run by inter­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions, the locals get noth­ing out of it. If you buy, eat and stay local, you make the val­ue chain more sus­tain­able.

Bonus tip: Improve your vaca­tion bud­get with Wat­ti­fy

Your pig­gy bank is only enough for your bal­cony? A cer­tain crowd­in­vest­ing plat­form can help. Just like sus­tain­abil­i­ty and trav­el, impact and invest­ment go togeth­er. How does it work? Sim­ply invest indi­rect­ly in sus­tain­able ener­gy projects with Wat­ti­fy and use the return to improve the bud­get for your next vaca­tion. At the same time, you sup­port the plan­et you want to explore. Whether it’s a city trip or a world tour, Lake Gar­da or the Gala­pa­gos Islands, wher­ev­er your wan­der­lust takes you — the Wat­ti­fy app is there for you.