It can be difficult to keep your sustainable home practices when you travel, but avoiding unnecessary waste is something you can actively continue whilst holidaying...
I have just returned from a trip to the U.S.A with my partner, and I can say that I encountered a few difficulties trying to keep up the practices I do to live better at home whilst on the road.
When you arrive in a new place, it always takes a few days to get adjusted and figure things out, which can easily break your routine. Even if your familiar with the place your going, I find that for the first few days of holidays you just want to relax and that probably includes living in a different manner to how you may usually.
Many of us will take at least one holiday somewhere each year, but after a few days of adjusting, you can definitely make your holiday have less impact on the planet by doing small things when and where you can.
After adjusting, I set few green goals for my trip. The first was to walk and catch public transport as much as possible when no car was necessary. The second was to buy locally made goods if I would be buying things (which on a holiday is pretty likely). The third, was to not waste food.
So these seem pretty basic, and easy to do, but travelling can throw many unexpected things your way, and sometimes something like not wasting food, for example, can be difficult. In fact, I found it to be one of the most difficult things of all.
My partner and I stayed in hostels and found accommodation through AirBnB, so we could do a lot of cooking for ourselves on the trip, but lets face it, on a holiday you are bound to eat in a few restaurants and this can be where the problems arise.
I suppose it depends where you visit, but the U.S.A is renowned for everything being 'bigger' and 'better', including portion sizes, which really threw me at first.
At home I usually cook for two, and always watch to get the right portions, whether that means making more to have as leftovers for the next days, or getting it just right for that meal. In America, in some of the restaurants we visited a portion for 1 person could easily feed 2, or even 3. No joke.
This happened to us one day in a Mexican restaurant, and luckily we were already heading back to our accommodation after lunch so we took the extra food with us for dinner. However, this is not always the case. Perhaps you were having a quick lunch before going to a tourist attraction that may or may not let you bring in the food. This can be a difficult situation, or maybe you were just on your way for a big afternoon of walking.
So of course the solution to big portions is to take the extra food with you and save money on not buying dinner, but if it isn't possible, then you could change your ordering approach. The Mexican restaurant was by no means the only time we received massive portions, so after realising the trend, my partner and I started ordering just 1 main plate and perhaps a starter to share. We felt much happier doing this and no food was wasted. Avoiding wasteful fast food venues is also a good idea.
It may take a few days to figure these kinds of things out, but once you do, like we did, it can be easy to start following a less wasteful travel path for the rest of your trip.
Another aspect of the journey where we had to be careful not to waste food was doing grocery shopping for the times we would cook for ourselves. We passed in quite a few different places which meant staying 2-3 days in each, and so getting the quantity of shopping right was essential in not wasting food.
We would plan exactly what things we would need and for what meals, for example 2 dinners and 2 breakfasts and eating either leftovers for lunch, or lunches out. This really helped, and often if we had things leftover, they were things we could bring with us to our next location like garlic cloves, bread and pasta. It is definitely much easier to control food waste when cooking for yourself, so if you have the opportunity to plan your travel that way so you are not always eating out then I recommend it.
Of course there are many other things you can do while travelling to help the environment, like buying locally made goods, catching public transport, and another really important one, avoiding buying plastic water bottles. Invest in a good water bottle before you go away and fill it up each day before you head out, this will really help in avoiding thirsty situations where you have to buy plastic bottles.
All in all, relax, it's your holiday, just keep the same mindfulness you employ at home.
