At Travel Life Adventures we believe in truly impactful and meaningful practices that go beyond just sustainability and into regenerative practices for land, people, and culture. It is vital to begin thinking about restoring the health of our planet and not just maintaining it.
Regenerative Practices For Travelers
The journey to regenerative tourism practices is a process that takes place throughout the travel process, and repeats over and over again for life. Here are a few ways you can practice regenerative sustainability while you travel.
- Shopping Green: As you begin to pack and gather supplies it is important to consider how what you purchase impacts the planet. Here are some tips for shopping
- Re-purpose what you already have: Chances are you have something already that can fill a variety of needs. Try to make due with what you already have before you buy something new.
- Ask Around: Your community is a wealth of items. Ask around to people you know if you are lacking something you need for your trip.
- Buy Smart: When we do have to buy something new it is important to take into consideration what it is made of, how it is made, how long will it last, do I really need it. For example, purchasing bamboo products such as tooth brushes can reduce the impact of plastics on the Earth.
- Carbon Offsetting: This is a good practice to reduce the impacts of travel, especially flying. It is also important to not stop here, as carbon offsets don’t totally eliminate pollution, they redistribute it. But as part of a totally regenerative travel program, Carbon Offsets are great.
- Mindful Choices In Partners: As you begin to plan your trip and potentially hire guides, lodges, or experience providers it is important to ask the right questions and ensure that those you hire are practicing sustainability.
- Ask for any guide or hotel you hire to provide you a summary of their sustainability practices. The more travelers who ask for these type of things the more places will be forced to have them ready to present.
- Inquire specifically about the wages and working conditions of any staff, guides, or other workers and ask to be shown that they are being paid a fare wage and are kept safe while they work. This is where sustainability takes a step closer to regenerative practice. Ensuring the equitable treatment of workers improves the lives of communities and can impact many generations as conditions for workers improve over time.
- Clean Travel Practices: You can make mindful choices as you travel to reduce your impact and to promote regeneration of land and culture
- Come prepared to clean your own water from local sources as much as you can. There are a few ways to do this, such as bringing a SteriPen, tablets or drops, or using a filter. This is safe to do almost anywhere in the world if you take the proper precautions. This can eventually eliminate single use plastic bottles which have a huge negative impact on the planet.
- Choose locations mindfully and take into consideration what impact tourism in general has on the place.
- Is the land able to handle mass tourism practices?
- Are the local communities engaged in tourism creation and maintenance?
- Do the activities I am participating in harm animals?
- Can I choose a location that is less traveled to spread out the positive and negative impacts of tourism on the destination?
- Understand the value of connection as a way to restore land and culture. By choosing our travel activities and locations mindfully, tourism can play a role in empowering local people to live how and where they choose, and to prevent the loss of traditions to modernization. When we mindfully connect with ourselves, with others, and with something larger than ourselves we are more in tune with the needs of the place and how we can support it.
- Continued Community Support: How can my regenerative travel practices carry on after my adventure is over?
- Create meaningful connections and seek to deepen those connections after traveling.
- Rely on local contacts, organizations, or partners to guide your long term support. It is important to allow local knowledge and leadership to guide your ongoing support.
- Educate you community on your experience and tell the story of the people and place in a responsible way.
- Regenerative Philanthropy: Deep, meaningful connections inevitably lead to a desire to help. It is important to do this responsibly.
- Research and understand how you can most benefit local communities that you have connected with. This requires more effort and more research but at the end of the day will make more of an impact.
- Make connections with local leaders as you travel and rely on their guidance to direct giving.
- Continue to be an active participant in any charitable giving that you do. Don’t make it a one off activity, true regenerative tourism is ongoing and active.
- New Choices: Allow your travel experience to alter the choices you make in your daily life.
- New ways of interacting with others both locally and abroad
- Deeper understandings of how our choices each day impact people all over the world.
- Continued education and learning around travel choices and how future travels can be more sustainable.
What are they?
“These are the guiding principles and minimum requirements that any tourism business or destination should aspire to reach in order to protect and sustain the world’s natural and cultural resources, while ensuring tourism meets its potential as a tool for conservation and poverty alleviation.”
How are they used?
“The Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) Criteria and Suggested Indicators for Tour Operators were created in an effort to come to a common understanding of sustainable tourism, and are the minimum that a Tour Operator (a provider, operator, and/or seller of travel products) business should aspire to reach.”
Criteria That TLA Is Working On
Goals For TLA In Using The GSTC Criteria
In the coming year we are planning to build out our roadmap for creating a more robust program to ensure our tourism practices are not just sustainable but regenerative as well. Stay tuned to see what is coming.