I'm one of those people who believe in free will. In fact, I fully agree with Jean-Paul Sartre's famous idea that man is condemned to be free — even choosing not to make a choice is a choice in itself.
I don't see any reason to justify this belief. I choose not to! So, if you're among the determinists (followers of the great Spinoza or the Ash'arites of early Islam), reading the rest of this article will probably be nothing more than a waste of your time. But if, like me, you believe in our freedom to choose, then let's carry on.
Having free will means having the power to choose. When we come to a crossroads — or several, for that matter — we can decide which way to go. Of course, our choices are shaped by many things: what we know, what we've experienced, the environment we live in, our beliefs, our mental abilities, the time we have, our financial situation, our habits, our values, and plenty of other factors. But in the end, we make a choice, and our lives take a new direction based on that decision.
Unfortunately, technology hasn't advanced enough for us to live in parallel worlds and experience different versions of our lives, each shaped by a different choice (like we see in the TV series Dark Matter). Or perhaps we could live out all those alternative lives, each resulting from a different decision, just as in the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once. Sadly, humanity hasn't quite figured that one out yet. So, for now, we're stuck following the path we've chosen.
When it comes to travel, we're faced with countless choices. Where should we go? How should we get there? Who should we travel with? How long should we stay? Where should we sleep? What should we eat? What should we buy, and where should we buy it? And that's just the beginning. Every answer becomes another part of the travel experience we create for ourselves.
Travel is, in essence, a series of conscious choices we make in response to questions like these. Everything I'll try to explain in the paragraphs ahead comes down to one simple idea:
Sustainable travel isn't about putting up with discomfort. It's about making conscious choices.
Sustainable travel doesn't mean having less. It means having better. It means moving beyond the familiar belief that "the more I consume, the better my experience will be" and discovering a different truth: "the more thoughtfully I choose, the deeper my experience will be."
Everything I'm writing here has one simple purpose: to show that comfort and responsibility can go hand in hand.
So, let's start by defining what I mean by "conscious comfort."
Defining "Conscious Comfort"
When we were children and cried because of a stomachache, our mothers would hold us close and sing lullabies until we calmed down and drifted off to sleep. It was wonderful comfort. But at what cost? Probably a lifetime of back pain for many mothers. Our childhood comfort may well have come at the expense of our mothers' spinal discs! Of course, childhood and ignorance have always been old friends. And, in a way, that's perfectly understandable.
But conscious comfort is different. It's about enjoying something while being aware of its hidden costs. In other words, enjoying the moment without turning a blind eye to its consequences.
When it comes to sustainable travel, conscious comfort means embracing a destination and enjoying everything it has to offer without hurting its back in the process!
To achieve this kind of comfort, we need to make choices that create value for both travelers and the places they visit. Finding that sweet spot, where everyone benefits from tourism, requires a balance between meeting our personal needs and respecting the environment and local communities.
The Difference Between Mindless Consumption and Conscious Choices
Many of us start our mornings with a cup of coffee, and chances are we enjoy a few more throughout the day. But if you've read my article, "What Is a Carbon Footprint? (The Story of a Morning Cup of Coffee)," you might find yourself feeling a little guilty the next time you take a sip!
That's part of the price we pay for awareness. Once we understand the different sides of something, that knowledge doesn't just influence our decisions; it can affect how we feel about them, too.
But being aware of the impact of something doesn't necessarily mean we have to give it up. As I mentioned in that article, I simply can't give up my morning coffee. However, knowing the carbon footprint of a cup of coffee can help me find ways to reduce its environmental impact.
On the other hand, a lack of awareness often leads to mindless consumption. Over time, this can have serious cumulative effects. Put simply, mindless consumption means using more than we need, making choices based on advertising and appearances, ignoring the consequences, and ultimately behaving as if natural resources were unlimited.
At the other end of the spectrum is conscious choice: making decisions based on an understanding of their consequences.
When I know the carbon footprint of my daily cup of coffee, I can better appreciate how much difference it might make to skip one cup or replace it with a locally sourced drink.
Conscious choices put quality before quantity. Buying ten cheap, low-quality T-shirts just because they're fashionable is often the result of clever advertising and media-driven trends. Choosing fewer, but better-made and longer-lasting T-shirts, on the other hand, is one way to reduce the environmental impact of our consumption habits.
Conscious choices also mean respecting natural resources. A desert city is no place for a swimming pool, especially one whose water is replaced every year!
And finally, making conscious choices means considering different options and taking responsibility for the consequences of our decisions.
For example, a one-hour flight could easily be replaced with a train journey that takes a few hours longer — provided we're willing to take responsibility for the world around us.
Rethinking What It Means to Enjoy Travel
We all travel to have a good time. Of course, I'm talking about leisure travel. If someone also goes on business trips just for fun, perhaps their managers should start paying a little more attention!
Just like many other things in today's world, quantity has become a measure of quality. Selling more and buying more have somehow become synonymous with enjoying more. And tourism is no exception. More has come to mean better.
If a hotel's breakfast buffet offers a greater variety of hot dishes, we call it a fantastic breakfast. If the hotel has three swimming pools, we consider it a good hotel. If there's a bathtub in the bathroom, we think it's worth paying more for. If we fly to another city every weekend for a two-day getaway, we consider ourselves frequent travelers. If we buy thirty cheap, Chinese-made fridge magnets from a souvenir shop in Barcelona, we feel we've done a great job shopping for souvenirs. And apparently, the only way to claim we've seen Rome is to jump into a taxi, race around all the city's must-see attractions in a single day, and tick every one of them off our list!
Maybe I've exaggerated a little, but a large part of what passes for travel these days looks pretty much like this. People buy package tours and head off on their holidays, all chasing the same experiences. Everyone wants a photo of themselves in front of the Colosseum, just so they can add it to the billions of other Colosseum photos already flooding Instagram, preferably as quickly as possible.
And the saddest part? We've actually convinced ourselves that this is what enjoying travel means!
But the real pleasure of traveling lies elsewhere, in the simple things our modern world has somehow taught us to forget: the pleasure of slowing down, connecting with local people, tasting authentic food, discovering untouched natural landscapes, and having unique experiences that can never quite be repeated.
These are the real pleasures of travel. In fact, they can be part of what makes life worth living.
Ask anyone who works eight hours a day, spending their days working hard just to earn a living, what all that effort is really for. Chances are, their first answer will be peace of mind.
Well, then why don't we look for that very same thing when we travel — especially when we've already paid for the privilege of taking a break?
Small Choices, Big Changes
If you bring a reusable water bottle on your seven-day trip to Rome, you'll not only save money on buying bottled water every day, but you'll also probably prevent at least 14 plastic bottles from ending up in non-biodegradable waste.
If you pack a cloth shopping bag in your backpack and use it for everything from fruit and snacks to travel souvenirs, you could easily avoid using at least two plastic bags a day.
If you switch off the air conditioning every time you leave your hotel room during your week-long stay in Phuket, Thailand, you could save a considerable amount of electricity — perhaps as much as a small household in the same city uses!
If you eat at local restaurants and food stalls in Hoi An, Vietnam, instead of McDonald's or Burger King, you'll not only reduce your meal's carbon footprint and spend less money, but also put your money directly into the hands of local businesses.
If you buy something from a local coppersmith in Yazd's Copper Bazaar, you might help keep a traditional craft and a small business alive, even if only for another month.
And if, instead of carving your name and your girlfriend's or boyfriend's name into the trunk of a 300-year-old tree, you simply stop for a moment, admire it, and take a photo to remember it by, you might leave a little more of nature behind for future generations!
Many of our small but conscious choices can have surprisingly big effects, especially when thousands of people make the same decisions instead of just one.
There's a Persian saying that goes:
"Drop by drop, a river is formed."
Examples of Conscious Comfort in Travel
I'm not going to give you a checklist of things you should do to make your travels both comfortable and responsible. The idea here is to highlight a few choices and explore some examples that might encourage travelers to think a little differently and make their trips more responsible.
Let's say we're looking for a place to stay. The first step is to consider accommodation providers that manage their resources more responsibly. We should look at things like energy consumption, water management, waste reduction, and support for local communities.
There's no need to act like an environmental inspector or turn our holiday into an official audit! It's enough to pay attention to the efforts a hotel or resort makes in these areas. It's also important to understand that luxury and excessive consumption are two different things. High-quality services don't necessarily require unlimited use of natural resources.
And once we've chosen our accommodation, we should use what it offers responsibly. Every hotel room comes with a bathroom and a shower, but hotel management can't exactly control how long we spend standing under the hot water, can they?
Another important aspect is getting around, both when travelling from home to our destination and when moving around once we get there. Choosing how to travel is a conscious decision in itself.
Opting for public transport instead of private vehicles is often the better choice. It usually has a smaller environmental footprint and can also make our travel experiences richer and more authentic. A responsible traveler takes the environmental impact of different transport options into account before making a decision.
The first few times we make these kinds of choices, they might require a little extra thought and attention. But with practice, this way of thinking gradually becomes second nature. Eventually, we won't have to spend so much mental energy weighing up every single decision.
Another thing worth considering is making slow travel part of our travel philosophy. We travel to get away from the rush of everyday life in our cities. So why turn our holidays into another race, this time to tick off as many tourist attractions as possible?
Learning to value time and experiences over speed adds something special to our lives. It's something you can only truly appreciate once you've experienced it yourself.
We should also try, whenever possible, to make our trips longer and take fewer of them. Instead of visiting Thailand three separate times to explore three different cities, we could go there once and experience all three in a single trip.
Of course, these are ideas to think about, not rules everyone must follow. Not all of us have the time or opportunity to take longer holidays, and plenty of factors influence these decisions. What matters is making conscious choices rather than simply following the recommendations in a travel agency brochure!
The last choice I want to talk about is shopping while travelling. In my opinion, this is not only one of the easiest areas to make a difference, but it can also bring some real economic benefits to travelers.
Believe me, there's a difference between buying a meaningful souvenir and shopping just for the sake of it. Your fridge has only so much room for cheap, identical magnets, so please manage that valuable space wisely!
By choosing locally made products instead of imported goods, we can support the economy of the communities we visit. The same applies to food and drink. Instead of heading to Starbucks, McDonald's, Burger King, or one of the many other international chains, we can explore local cafés and restaurants.
In every destination, there are craftspeople who have spent centuries creating beautiful things by hand. Today, many of these traditional crafts are at risk of being forgotten or disappearing altogether. By simply buying one of their products, we can help keep these skills and traditions alive.
Of course, we shouldn't forget that some products are so harmful to the environment or unethical that they simply shouldn't exist in the first place. Items made from elephant ivory, rhino horn, or other animal teeth should disappear from the production and trade markets for good — even if someone tries to sell them to tourists as symbols of local culture!
And one final thought: buy something that brings a story about the place back home with you. Something that, every time you look at it, brings a little piece of that story back to life.
The Role of Technology in Conscious Travel
When we talk about sustainable travel, perhaps nothing gets criticized as much as modern life and technology. And to be fair, these criticisms aren't entirely unfounded. Many of the problems we face today are the result of one-sided, consumption-driven progress that has gradually found its way into almost every aspect of human life.
But technology can also open many doors to a better world.
Perhaps the most valuable thing technology offers us today is access to information. It allows us to explore an enormous amount of knowledge, which, when used wisely, can help us make more informed choices. Modern tools and methods for evaluating and rating accommodation providers, airlines, brands, and other travel services can be valuable guides when making decisions.
These days, it's hard to find someone who doesn't use at least one or two useful apps in their daily life. Many of these apps are designed to make public transport easier to use. They give us quick access to transport information and services, help us understand routes and timetables, and allow us to plan our journeys more efficiently. With a little planning, we can avoid wasting time and resources as much as possible.
There's just one thing we shouldn't forget: the idea is to use technology to make our travel experiences richer and more meaningful, not to consume more!
Sustainable Travel as a Lifestyle
Thinking that we'll suddenly become conscious and responsible travelers just by stepping into a tourist destination is wishful thinking. Someone who lives their everyday life as a full-time consumer can't magically turn into the Mahatma Gandhi of tourism the moment they arrive at their destination!
But if environmental sustainability is already part of our lifestyle, travelling sustainably becomes much easier. Trends and fashions are often used by the market to encourage people to consume more. But there's no reason we can't use the same tool to promote positive values. Why shouldn't sustainable travel become the next big trend? In fact, this shift is already well underway in many countries and cultures.
Of course, getting there is a real challenge. It's not an easy road. Let's be honest: people's resistance to awareness and change can sometimes be much stronger than we imagine. But that's no reason to give up trying.
If we turn the values of sustainable living into everyday habits, we'll naturally carry those same values with us when we travel. Our trips can reflect the way we relate to the world around us. And our conscious approach to travel might even become an attractive source of inspiration for others — especially when we're willing to swim a little against the tide.
Sometimes, being different is exactly what makes us stand out and encourages others to try a different way of living, too.
Once small, conscious choices become lasting habits, we no longer have to struggle with every decision. Awareness gradually becomes part of the natural flow of our daily lives. And eventually, we may reach a point where making an irresponsible choice feels harder than making a sustainable and thoughtful one.
The Traveler as a Guest, Not a Customer
I don't think any of us would show up at a friend's housewarming party planning to loot the place and take everything they own! We don't carve our names into their sofa, leave fruit peels on the carpet, light a bonfire in the middle of the living room, or throw rocks at their adorable cat. So why should we behave any differently when we're guests in someone else's city or country?
For a long time, the tourism industry has treated travelers simply as customers. Perhaps, from a business point of view, it feels there's no other way to make a profit. But as travelers, we can choose to be guests rather than customers. And who knows? Maybe if enough of us start thinking this way, the tourism industry will eventually move beyond simply serving customers and rediscover the true meaning of hospitality.
A good guest sees local people, nature, and the culture of a destination as part of the travel experience. Unlike the colonial powers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a guest doesn't visit a place to plunder its resources. You have no idea how hard I'm trying not to name those colonial countries here!
In short, being a good guest isn't complicated: show respect, leave a lighter footprint, learn more, and leave something positive behind.
Perhaps all we need to do is think of travelling, somewhere in the back of our minds, as being invited to someone's home for a family gathering. If we do that, many of our decisions will probably become more thoughtful and responsible on their own, without the need for a long list of dos and don'ts.
Redefining What Makes a Good Trip
A good trip isn't one where we consume the most. It isn't one that follows a set of ready-made clichés, either. And it certainly isn't one that big travel companies have designed and packaged for us.
A good trip is one we consciously shape for ourselves. It's about getting the greatest possible enjoyment out of our experience, while staying mindful of the choices we make.
A good trip is one that leaves a place just as beautiful and full of life as it was before we arrived.
And perhaps it all begins with a simple change in the question we ask ourselves. Instead of asking, "What can I take from this place?" we start asking, "What can I take away with me, and how can I leave this place a little better than I found it?"
