We all love traveling and sharing our experiences on social media, but are we responsible travelers? Not really. Tourism is ruining so many beautiful places and with some easy changes in your travel style, you can save the world. I know a lot of people going on holiday, and they think they are the kings/queens for the week and they don’t care about the consequences of their actions, but don’t be one of these people! These tips are mostly effortless and won’t cost you extra money to do it.

Why you should care to be a responsible traveler:

• You probably want to show these beautiful places one day to your children, but if we continue like this, they won’t be there anymore or they will be damaged.
• Your favorite travel destinations can be closed from the public. So you will be unable to visit (like Boracay island, Philippines)
• Walking along a beach full of trash is not enjoyable
• Locals let you into their home when you visit their country, you should respect that.
• There is no worse thing than revisiting a place and see it completely ruined.
• Animals and people can be hurt, without you realizing it.
• Traveling is a big part of global warming, we have to stop it.

1. Do not litter, never, I mean NEVER

I cannot even understand why people litter. Let me tell you something. the empty packages don’t weigh anything. If you had the energy to take a bottle full of water, taking home the empty bottle cannot be too big an effort for you. It is not so difficult! And people who cannot see a rubbish bin right in front of them, they should get their eyes checked.
For all the smokers out there, I am not smoking, but even I know that portable ashtrays exist.

2. Support the local economy

There are always big, well-known companies and small local companies. When you choose a local business, you actually support locals. When you choose a big company, you support one already rich person. It is true for all kinds of services: car rentals, hotels, restaurants, excursions, shops…Most times you get a better price. When I arrived at Corfu, Hertz car rental company’s office at the airport had cars for 50euros per day and they needed booking in advance. I walked not more than 5 minutes from there and found a 100% local company offering cars for 25 euros for a day. Supporting the locals saves you money and boost the economy.

3. Research before you visit animal attractions

So many things to say on this topic! First of all, if you think you will do any animal-involved activity on your travel, you have to do research before. Read blogpost, TripAdvisor reviews, articles about the topic, and make sure no animal gets hurt during the excursion. It mostly happens in poor countries like Thailand, where people expose animals for some extra money, but I’ve seen it in other places too. Don’t support these greedy people and choose more ethical options to see animals.
Examples: elephant riding got very famous on social media, but the elephant’s spines are not made to handle the human weight. Only go to sanctuaries where they don’t allow you to ride elephants.
There is the Instagram famous beach of Aruba with people feeding flamingos. Did you know that the flamingo’s wings are actually cut, so they cannot fly away? I would not pay a cent to support this.
In a nutshell, think about the consequences of an excursion. Make sure you don’t enter an excursion which equals to an open-air circus

4. Don’t feed wild animals

First of all human food is not good for wild animals. Second of all, they are taught to catch their own food. Do I need to say more?!

5. Reduce your plastic use

We use so much plastic. Here are some ways to reduce single-use plastic while traveling:

• Use a reusable water bottle. You can buy it literally anywhere and you can just fill it with water from the tap if is drinkable or from a water dispenser. Did you know that there are water bottles with filters inside, so you can fill it from a waterfall, river, or the tap and it filters the water to make it drinkable?
• Say no to plastic bags at supermarkets. It occupies no space to pack your own shopping bag
• Say no to straws all the time. If you like to drink with a straw take your own reusable metal straw.
• Take fruits with you on a day trip instead of chips and other unhealthy options. Fruit doesn’t come in plastic and you don’t even have a chance to litter. Plus you stay healthy
• Instead of buying a travel-sized package of shampoo, shower gel, just buy small plastic containers and fill it in from your big shampoo bottle, You can use it for years and you even save money.

6. Don’t take anything from nature

A lot of people think it is nice to take sand/seashells/rocks as a souvenir, but you shouldn’t. What do you think, what is left if everyone takes a small piece of it?
On the island of Fuerteventura, there is a beach called Popcorn beach, and a lot of people are trying to take the popcorn shaped algae home. Thankfully the airport is scanning the suitcases and they fine people for taking them home.

7. Don’t waste food

Besides the obvious fact, that wasting food means wasting money, there are some other concerns. The majority of waste food ends up in landfills and then breaks down to produce methane and carbon dioxide emissions, which contribute to climate change.

8. Check your sunscreen

This is mostly for people with water activities. First of all, you should wash down any sunscreen before swimming with animals like sea lions, dolphins, whale sharks…Second of all, if you are doing any kind of water activity, you should invest in a reef-safe sunscreen. Coral reefs are damaged by normal sunscreen and they are a very important part of nature. While coral reefs only cover 0.0025 percent of the oceanic floor, they generate half of Earth’s oxygen and absorb nearly one-third of the carbon dioxide generated from burning fossil fuels.

9. Offsetting your carbon footprints

If you are traveling on a plane more than 2 times a year, you have to know: you leave a serious carbon footprint behind you. Traveling by plane is not good for the environment, so avoid it whenever you have another option (train/bus..). If you cannot avoid using planes, you should set your carbon footprint off. There are some airlines like Ryanair which gives you an option to offset your carbon footprint by paying extra while purchasing a ticket. Triplt is a great application for organizing your travel and it tells you exactly how much damage you did to the environment.
Free version: Since spending money on the environment is not an option for most of you, the free version is to pack lightly and travel hand-luggage-only. Less weight on the plane means consuming less fuel, so you are doing something good, plus no checked-in baggage fees.

10. Respect the country’s culture and laws

Before visiting a country, you should do a little research on their culture. In some countries, it is rude to show up on time for events. Some countries can understand hand gestures completely differently than you. In Argentina, you can get arrested if you are topless on the beach. Hungary never cheers with beer. It is rude in Georgia to make a toast with wine. Be very careful with these things and make sure you dress properly for the country.

11. Your words/pictures matter

It doesn’t matter how many followers you have on Instagram, if you are showing something bad about a country, you can jeopardize tourism. Think about the consequences. Do you really want to give a bad reputation to that place? Do you really want to discourage people to visit that place? Even if it is not on social media when you go home and you tell your friends that you didn’t have the best time, they will tell their friends, and the circle goes on. So be careful.

If you live in a touristic place and experience something unpleasant like trash on the beach: It doesn’t make sense to post it on social media, you won’t make a difference like that. The only thing you do is discouraging people from visiting the place.
Some things that can actually work: picking up the trash instead of making videos/photos and uploading them on social media. Report the problem to the local government and request a change (like banning single-use plastic, fine people from littering..). Organize beach clean-ups once in a while. Try to make people aware of the consequences of littering.

12. Refuse to change towels/bedsheets every day in a hotel

A lot of hotels offer daily cleaning and change of towels/bedsheets, but it is bad for the environment. Hotels use a lot of chemicals to clean everything and it is up to you to reduce them. Some people developed the habit to throw hotel towels on the floor daily just because someone will change them. Let me tell you, with the same effort you can hang the towel and it gets dry until the next time you use it! Ask yourself the question: at home how many times do you change your towel, bedsheets? It is recommended to change towels after 3 use and bedsheets after 2 weeks. You can refuse cleaning by putting the do not disturb sign or ask at the reception.

13. Dine-in instead of taking away

This helps to reduce the use of plastic, cartons, etc. Anyway, it is always more enjoyable to eat in a restaurant than in your hotel room.

14. Don’t go all-inclusive

All-inclusive hotels utilize too much plastic. They even give out cocktails, beer, and wine in plastic cups. It is better to go self-catering or only have breakfast: This way you are not relying on the lunch/dinner opening hours of the hotel, you have more flexibility to explore the area, and you can support local businesses in the town instead of big hotel chains.

15. Go off-the-beaten-path (avoid overtourism)

There are some places like Paris, Thailand, Barcelona, Venice, Santorini suffering from over-tourism. They got pretty popular among tourists and now everybody wants to go there. To save these places, it is better to actually skip them or only spend a day or 2 there and then go to lesser-known places. Instead of visiting Rome or Barcelona try Budapest and Prague this time. It will surprise you how much cheaper they are and at least as beautiful. Last year I visited Greece, but instead of the popular Santorini- Mykonos island hopping, I visited the Ionian islands: Corfu, Lefkada, Kefalonia, and Zakynthos. Not only I spent less money, but also I didn’t have to deal with crowds. Visiting lesser-known places has benefits for everybody.

Thank you so much for reading this blog post. I hope you already did at least half of these advices. For me, it is very important to save nature. I love to travel and I want to respect the earth. If you want to know more about me, don’t forget to follow me on social media.

-Anita