Ninety-one percent of all adults spend thirteen days each year on vacation, escaping the responsibilities of home and work to relax and reenergize.
Vacations can be a great way for families to reconnect and enjoy time together in different surroundings. However, where we go, how we get there, and what we do once we reach our destinations can be detrimental to the planet and our pocketbooks.
Air travel
One of the worst things you can do for the environment is to fly. Even if you reduce, recycle and reuse in every other area of life, the toxins your travel releases into the air will quickly outweigh other conservation actions.
Why is air travel so bad? For one thing, it is rapidly becoming the largest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions. These toxins can be more damaging to the air and ozone layer because they are released at higher altitudes than ground-level emissions. In fact, their impact is three times greater than road vehicle emissions.
Imagine your family lives in Morehead City, North Carolina, and decides to take a cross-country road trip to San Francisco, California. If you drove a carbon-producing SUV from coast to coast, it would release only half the emissions of a single, one-way flight of the same distance.
When planning your next getaway, choose a destination closer to home that doesn’t require an environmentally damaging flight. Staying closer to home also means less stressful travel and more time for fun!
Parks
For your next vacation, consider visiting a nearby state or national park. They offer spectacular scenery, serene settings, and great outdoor activities—an affordable, close-to-home vacation is often the least stressful one. Many state parks offer discounted rates for state employees and teachers.
By the Numbers
To get to their vacation destinations, 82 percent of Americans drive, 15 percent fly, and only 3 percent take a bus, train, or boat. Only 5 percent of the world’s population has ever flown in an airplane.
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ABOUT NANCY SLEETH
After a spiritual and environmental conversion experience, Nancy Sleeth and her family radically altered their footprint, reducing their electricity use to one-tenth and their fossil fuel use to one-third the national averages. Along with her husband, Matthew (author of Serve God, Save the Planet), Nancy now travels throughout the U.S. speaking and writing about faith and the environment.
Prior to heeding this environmental calling, Sleeth served as communications director for a Fortune 500 company and as a high school and college educator and administrator. Sleeth is a graduate of Georgetown University and holds a masters degree in journalism. She is the author of Go Green, Save Green: A Simple guide to saving time, money, and God’s green earth, the first-ever practical guide for going green from a faith perspective. Nancy and Matthew are the parents of Clark Sleeth, who is preparing for a calling in missionary medicine, and Emma Sleeth, a student at Asbury College and author of It’s Easy Being Green (Zondervan, Spring 2008). Nancy is also the Program Director at Blessed Earth (http://www.blessedearth.org), a faith-based environmental nonprofit.
You can find out more about Nancy Sleeth at http://www.nancysleeth.com.
Cliff B. says:
I would like to challenge the concept of inefficient air travel. The new Airbus A380, the world's largest passenger plane, carries over 500 people. You can find its statistics all over the net. It states that it uses 3 liters per 100km per passenger. If you convert that to gallons and miles and travel across the US...the result is 80mpg per passenger and 31.25 gallons to fly a person 2500 mile cross country. If you drive 2500 miles, in an average CAFE standard 27mpg car, you would use 92 gallons, or in a gas sipping Prius at 48mpg, you would still use 52 gallons.
By flying, you would also arrive 5 days earlier.
We prefer stay-cations, as there is much to be found locally. New hikes abound and the costs are low. The carbon footprint is much less than any fossil fuel option.
Nancy Sleeth says:
It's not just about gallons of gas, but even that is open to discussion. For consistency, if you are assuming a full airplane, then you should assume a full Prius. With four passengers, that is 10.5 gallons per person. Also, with the airline hub system, it is common to fly hundreds of extra miles out of the way. Most flights from anything but hub cities involve a plane change. Coming up and down uses the most energy. And then there is the issue of emissions. The emissions that are let out in the atmosphere are significantly more harmful than those put out by a car on the ground.
Cliff B. says:
Good logic.
Also, reflecting on your article, the charming SUV market was so profitable for the automakers because the SUV is classified as a truck, and thus exempt from smog controls. I don't know why a truck should be exempt...probably for the same reason that George gave a tax credit up to $100k if you buy a diesel truck over 7000lbs....and $4,000 if you bought an electric car.
My preferable means of travel is the sailboat, wood-construction, and over land it would be the Citroen 2CV.....2 cylinders, 4 people. The englishman, Harold Bate, and his Hillman running on chicken manure off-gassing is clever, but not very convenient.
Based on your calculations, there is a lot to be said for rail travel, and it is definitely more relaxed.