Eco-Friendly Travelling – 15 Top Tips on How To Be More Sustainable

Last Updated on 7 Nov, 2025

I LOVE talking about travelling, and if you’re here reading this, then you probably love to travel, too. But whilst I love to travel, I’m also conscious of the impact it can have on the planet. I love to research and I love to plan, and I’ve recently spent a lot of time researching the best tips for eco-friendly travelling. I have compiled a list of 15 tips so that you too will be able to be more eco-friendly, sustainable and environmentally-conscious while travelling the world!

There’s a lot of information here you might want to refer back to, so why not bookmark this page for future reference? (CTRL + D on Windows, Command + D on Mac)

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. This means if you follow a link to a product/service and purchase it I might receive a small commission. This helps me to keep creating content for this blog, so thank you!

Getting There

1. Slow Travel is Eco-Friendly Travel

What is slow travel? Slow travel is an approach to travel that is the complete opposite of “do as many things as possible in a certain amount of time”. Instead, it is about slowing down and connecting to the places and cultures that you are visiting. This in itself can lend itself to more eco-friendly travelling, with more time spend exploring one place and less short trips taken, with the end result of less CO2 emissions.

Plus, trying to pack as much as you can into one trip can be exhausting! I’ve DEFINITELY had trips like that where the holiday has been spent racing from one thing to another (and I still didn’t get everything done!). You don’t need to tick off every single thing on a trip bucket list. Anything left over can be a great excuse to come back in the future and enjoy more of the local culture.

2. Avoid flying if you can!

If you really want eco-friendly travelling, then don’t fly at all! Whilst there are ways to reduce your CO2 emissions if you are flying, which will be discussed in the next section, the simplest and most effective way is to avoid adding up those airmiles. If there is an alternative, then take it (although most types of transport contribute to climate change, so it’s about making the best decisions that you can).

Often, alternatives are cheaper, too. When I was travelling through Thailand, I took an overnight sleeper train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai which was significantly less expensive than if I’d flown. Plus, I got to experience sleeping on a train which I’d never done before, and got to see amazing views as the sun rose the next morning before arriving in Chiang Mai. Taking the slow route can have many perks 🙂

When you’re actually at your destination, if you can use public transport and walk that’s always better for the environment than taking a car, especially when you consider congestion in busy cities. If walking and public transport is an option that’s open to you, then take it!

3. If flying, take the direct route

It’s obvious that flying causes a lot of CO2 emissions. It’s important to be conscious of how many flights you are taking, especially if you are spending a substantial amount of time travelling. This includes stopovers (layovers), which make the journey last longer and require more fuel and therefore results in more CO2 emissions. Plus, airplanes use the most fuel when they’re taking off and when they’re landing. So always choose a direct flight if you can.

As well as avoiding stopovers, try and avoid lots of short distance flights, especially if the journey can be taken by an alternative method, such as by train as mentioned in the previous section.

Another tip for reducing your environmental impact when flying is to choose flights with the lowest CO2 emissions. When you use flight search engines online, the best ones for the environment are often indicated – so pick these! Some airlines and flight search engines also have an option for carbon offset when you’re booking your flight.

Flight Search Engines For The Best Eco-Friendly Travelling Options:

• FlyGreen – will offset your flight’s carbon emissions for free
• Fly-Eco – plants or saves enough trees to remove 100% of the CO2 of your flight for free
• Glooby – will find you sustainable flights AND eco-friendly hotels
• Skyscanner – allows you to identify eco-friendly flights

4. Use e-Tickets and Boarding Passes

Most airlines will now let you skip the paper boarding pass and do it all digitally on your phone.

The same goes for bus journeys and train journeys, and it will save you time and hassle trying to find a printer while you’re on your travels, especially in the more remote parts of the world. Eco-friendly travelling made easy!

Eco-Friendly Accommodation

5. Stay in an Environmentally Conscious Hotel

When you’re researching a hotel to stay at, check the website for sections about the environment, sustainability or responsible travel. For hotels that make the effort to reduce their environmental impact, this should be clearly displayed on their website.

There are also search engines online that allow you to search specifically for eco-friendly accommodation!

Hotel Search Engines For The Best Eco-Friendly Travelling Options:

• Book Different
• Eco Hotels
• Transat
• Kynder
• Kind Traveler
• Bouetco

If you’re looking for something more budget-friendly, Hostel World has compiled a list of eco-friendly hostels around the world.

When you are staying in your accommodation, whether eco-friendly or not, make sure you employ the same energy-saving practices as you would at home by taking short showers, turning off the lights when not in use, and turning off the air-conditioning when you’re not in your room.

Eco-Friendly Eating & Drinking

 

 

 

 

 

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6. Avoid Bottled Water (If Possible)

Click through above for the Water-to-Go bottle!

Get 15% off Water-to-Go products with the code: PAGV15

The amount of single-use plastic bottles that are consumed annually is shocking: 500 billion! (Source – Plastic Oceans). Even more shocking is that 91% of plastic isn’t recycled (Source – National Geographic). So it’s more important than ever to reduce the amount of single-use plastic, and this includes disposable water bottles. In some countries the water from the taps is not safe to drink. Instead of buying bottled water all of the time, invest in a good quality reusable water bottle with a filter in it! Some of the best options around are:

• Life Straw – a water bottle with a filter that filters bacteria, parasites, chemicals and microplastics! It doesn’t require any batteries and is a much easier alternative to using water purification tablets. The original LifeStraw did not filter viruses, but now it does! | Buy at Amazon UK
• Water-to-Go – this is the brand of water bottle that I used when I went travelling around Thailand and Indonesia, and it served me well! It has a time-strip on it that indicates when the filter is due to be changed, and can filter 130L or for 2 months before it needs replacing. The only downside when I went travelling was that I found drinking through the straw a bit noisy, and it leaked a bit when the bottle was on its side. However – I bought my bottle in 2018, and in 2019 Water-to-Go redesigned the bottle and now there’s no more leak issue! | Buy at Water-to-Go and remember to use the code PAGV15 to get 15% off!
• GRAYL – this water bottle is slightly larger which is great for carrying more water with you on hikes and days out exploring before having to refill (710mls), and will remove bacteria, micro-plastics, chemicals and waterbourne viruses. | Buy at Amazon UK
• LARQ – a self-cleaning purifying water bottle. More expensive than the other options but sleek and comes in a range of tasteful colours. It has a rechargeable battery that lasts 1 month and is insulated, which is perfect for keeping cold drinks cold in hot weather. | Buy at Current Body

Please note that no travel water bottle can purify sea water, but will work for taps, lakes and rivers. Remember to take replacement filters with you if you’re going travelling for longer than 2 months!

7. Eat Local

Buying local means your money goes straight back to the community. A good way to practice sustainability when travelling is to eat at small businesses rather than going to the brands that you already recognise (like McDonalds). As a bonus, you get to try something new. It might be one of the BEST meals you ever eat, and you’re helping the local economy and reducing the CO2 emissions of your food that hasn’t had to travel thousands of miles to get to where you are.

Local markets and street food vendors are great for this, and you’ll find a wide selection of meals from the local culture. You also get to see your food being cooked right in front of you which is something I always enjoyed when I was travelling Thailand. An extra tip for eco-friendly travelling is to bring your own reusable tupperware such as a reusable lunch box, so you can get your food served in that rather than packaging that will get thrown away.

8. Eat Vegan!

The single most important step you can do to reduce your carbon emissions is to go vegan. Eating vegan food while travelling is easy with apps such as HappyCow which let you search for nearby vegan food. I’ve used the app in every country I’ve travelled to in the past 5 years!

If you’re not vegan, then think about eating less meat while travelling, so you can reduce your carbon footprint and help save the planet! It can also reduce the risk of you getting food poisoning in developing countries, as the majority of food-related illnesses are from meat and fish that has been poorly preserved. If you want any tips on how to go vegan at home as well as abroad, my blog is packed full of them. You can view all vegan posts here.

To help you start your vegan journey, read: How To Go Vegan: The Ultimate Guide

9. Avoid the Buffet

Whilst it can be exciting to have so many different food options available to you at once, there is so much waste that comes from a buffet. If you’re in a hotel, they often overstock on produce because they don’t want to run out of food for guests, so a lot is thrown away. Instead, opt for buying meals that you’ll be able to finish, or take away food in a reusable lunch box to eat the next day.

Eco-Friendly Activities & Sightseeing

10. Skip the Animal Tourism

What is animal tourism? Animal tourism is tourism that exploits animals for human entertainment. It doesn’t benefit the animals that are involved, and it often harms them. This includes posing with tigers, elephant rides, zoos, bear performances, and any other animal show or experience that is for human entertainment. It isn’t always clear that the exploited animals are suffering, because that would be bad for business.

There are approximately 3,800 captive elephants in Thailand, and thousands more than that across Southeast Asia (Source – National Geographic). The reason that they are captive is for tourists to sit on top of them, strapped to a seat on their back, and for them give rides to the tourists several times a day. When not giving rides to humans, these elephants are chained in a stall, and this is the life of a captive elephant every day for 50-70 years.

It is possible to volunteer with animals and get some amazing experiences if you use ethical organisations and charities, but it requires careful research. There is an enlightening article written by National Georgraphic that is well worth a read. If you’re ever unsure, err on the side of caution and don’t go ahead with an experience if you think it could be harming or exploiting animals.

Also be cautious when you’re buying your souvenirs. Make sure it’s not made from ivory, tortoise-shell or any other animal parts such as animal hides.

11. Book Eco-Friendly Tours

If you want to explore a new country with a tour rather than DIY-ing the travel route yourself, then pick a environmentally-conscious tour operator. There are load of them all around the globe.

Environmentally-Conscious Tour Operators For The Best Eco-Friendly Travelling Options:

• Adventure Alternative – mountain treks.
• Intrepid Travel – worldwide trips.
• One Seed Expeditions – expeditions worldwide.
• And Beyond – luxury sustainable safaris.
• Jumbari Family Safaris – “eco-safaris” in Africa.
• Rickshaw Travel – North America, Central America, South America, and Asia.
• Earth Changers – ‘transformational’ tourism

12. Leave No Trace

I’m sure this one seems obvious but it’s worth saying – leave nothing behind, and have as little an effect on the destination you’re visiting as possible. This ties in to the section below about sustainable necessities, but take reusable water bottles and your own bamboo cutlery. Not everywhere has great waste disposal, so keep your waste on you for when you get back to the hotel or somewhere you can properly recycle or dispose of packaging.

Make sure you do not remove any plants that you come across, and stay on designated trails and footpaths. Go out and explore but be a responsible traveller.

Sustainable Necessities

13. Avoid Single-Use Plastic

You know those tiny shampoo bottles you get in fancy hotels? Skip them.

Over 1 trillion single-use plastic bags are disposed of each year worldwide (Source – Plastic Oceans) and yet it’s SO easy to use a reusable bag! Take a tote bag with you, or a reusable carrier bag, and say no to plastic.

14. Lighter Luggage

If you’re flying, heavier suitcases mean more weight on the plane and more fuel is used. Plus, if you’re planning to backpack around the world, then lighter is obviously better for you as you have to carry it everywhere!

My absolute FAVOURITE backpack is the Osprey Fairview 40. I LOVE this backpack. It’s big enough to pack everything in but still small enough to meet carry on requirements without having to check my bag in. This means once the plane lands and I arrive at the airport, I can just go through security and leave, rather than having to wait around for my bag to turn up at baggage reclaim! This also helps save on money as you don’t have to pay the extra cost to check in your bag, leaving you with more money to spend on experiences (or cocktails).

Plus, as an additional benefit, the bag is designed specifically for the female body (I’m quite small when it comes to having to carry a huge backpack!) so it feels so much comfier than the other backpacks I have tried.

There is also a men’s version of the same backpack called the Osprey Farpoint 40.

15. Use Eco-Friendly Necessities

Before you even leave your house to travel across the world, you can make a difference by packing eco-friendly travel products.

• Reusable straw
  • In just the US and UK, over 500 million plastic straws are thrown away every single day! (Source – Plastic Oceans). If you don’t want to pass on the straws entirely, then it’s a much better alternative to take bamboo or metal straws with you for when you’re sipping on cold drink beside the pool. | Buy Bamboo Straws on Amazon UK | Buy Metal Straws on Amazon UK
• Reusable food containers
  • Collapsible containers are a great way to save on space. Make sure you get a reusable lunchbox for countries with amazing street food (looking at you South East Asia!). | Buy Collapsible Silicone Lunch Boxes on Amazon UK
• Reusable cutlery
  • As well as a reusable lunch box, get some of your own cutlery to replace the flimsy plastic cutlery that you usually get with takeaway food. I’d recommend a bamboo cutlery set which rolls up into a handy and space-saving essential piece of kit. Some also include a reusable straw! | Buy Eco-Friendly Bamboo Cutlery Set on Amazon UK
• Bamboo Toothbrush
  • It’s light, avoids plastic, vegan and recyclable – perfect for eco-friendly travelling. Remember to take more than one if you’re going on longer travels. | Buy 5 Pack of Bamboo Toothbrushes on Amazon UK
• Reusable Make Up Wipes
  • These should be used even when you aren’t travelling, because make up wipes are awful for the environment which take decades to break down. And the ones that are flushed go to landfill. A much better alternative for the environment are reusuable make up remover pads made from bamboo, which is what I use on a daily basis. | Buy Bamboo Reusable Make Up Remover Pads on Amazon UK

What do you think about these tips? Are there any that I’ve missed off of this list that you can tell me about? Let me know in the comments below! 🙂

Header photo: Photo by Ren Ran on Unsplash

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