FOREWORD: Ted and I don’t use our blog as an income stream, and we don’t insert ads or affiliate links. When we go on a cruise, or take an escorted tour, we review OUR specific experience; that review is not an endorsement, but a way for us to look back and evaluate value for money when we plan subsequent experiences. Of course, we’re thrilled to have folks following along – and if our experiences are helpful, or inspiring, so much the better.

I get a LOT of travel company emails. They’re not spam – I’ve signed up for them all. After all, we never know when a destination or itinerary – or deal! – might be exactly what we’re looking for.

In yesterday’s email was a newsletter from Wheel & Anchor, a Canadian-based travel company that offers an array of “slow travel/long stay” options among their offerings.

We haven’t used them (yet), but I’ve found the company founder’s communication style as compelling as their tour descriptions.

Gordon’s covering letter topic this time was one that is often on our minds: the environmental impact of our particular nomadic lifestyle, which – while not luxurious in the movie star / jet-setter realm – definitely leans more toward luxury travel than it does to backpacking hosteller.

I really appreciated his perspective – enough that I thought it was worth keeping by adding it to our blog.

(It is reprinted here with his permission, along with a link to his company website https://www.wheelandanchor.ca/)

Edition #359 (November 16, 2024)

Dear Fellow Traveller,

Greetings from Luxor, Egypt !

Sustainability is a word you run into a lot these days. Companies everywhere want to assure us that they are sustainable, or they are doing something sustainable, or that they are engaged in sustainability efforts of one kind or another, or at least they will be by 2030.

It can get a little much, and a little meaningless.

Let me tell you what I think about sustainability as it relates to travel: It’s all local.

There is no reasonable definition of “sustainability” that includes air travel. Planes burn a lot of fuel, and because its emissions are high in the atmosphere, its effects are multiplied. If you really want to be sustainable, you shouldn’t fly.

You also shouldn’t have kids. 

Think of the carbon repercussions of bringing a whole new person into existence, with maybe 85 years of carbon emissions that go along with that.

Definitely unsustainable, and probably unforgiveable.

But if you, like I, think that travel can be a positive good in the world, maybe emitting a bit of carbon on your way toward some of that good isn’t all that bad. 

(I understand there may be some upsides to having children too.)

When I say that sustainability in travel is all local, I am not talking about the policies hotels and other accommodations have implemented to reduce the amount of laundry they have to do, and staff they need to employ to do it. These are fine, but in practice they have more to do with saving the hotel money than having a comparatively measurable impact on the environment.

While I am certainly not suggesting not to do it, the only time it makes any real difference at all to make an effort not to change your sheets or towels is in places with limited water supply. Do a little research before you go (islands and deserts usually have limited supplies for example), and comfort yourself accordingly.

The kind of sustainability that makes the most sense to the people we’re visiting, and the only kind that you can have a genuinely positive effect with, is economic sustainability. 

We can do our part in making tourist economies economically sustainable. We do this by buying things locally, whether it’s silk scarves or papyrus scrolls; we can do it by buying little things along the way – like coffee at a little roadside stand, and water and snacks – rather than bringing them with us, or stocking up if we’re on a riverboat, or in a hotel that provides it for free.

And we can tip.

We’ve discussed this before in this newsletter, and we’ll discuss it again. In many tourist economies, tipping is the single most effective thing you can do on the ground to ensure your visit is a net benefit to the place and people you’re visiting.

It is not uncommon for us to visit places where average monthly incomes come in under $500. Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Cambodia, Egypt, even the Dominican Republic all belong to the under-500 club. 

In economies like these, a $5 tip can make a substantial difference to the homelife of the person you’re giving  it to. And for what it’s worth, it’s better to put cash in people’s hands than to buy them something. You may think you know what they’d like, or what they need. And maybe you do. But maybe you don’t. But you know who definitely does?

Them. They do.

We don’t think too much about the effect our buying habits have on the economics of our hometowns. And for most of us, though they do matter, they matter a good deal less than they do in many of the places we travel to. And even when we’re travelling to relatively wealthy areas – in Europe, say, or East Asia – the people we’re dealing with are often not from the top two-thirds of the economic ladder.

We at Wheel & Anchor love it when our members ask what they can do in places we visit, and donations to schools, of money or supplies, are great and appreciated, and we encourage people to look into what’s needed in the places they plan to visit.

But for those who don’t like doing too much research before taking a vacation, money – not big gobs of it, just $5 here and there, on goods, services, and tips – is a remarkable way to ensure you’re moving through the world in ways that make it a measurably better place to live in, for all of us.

Gordon Dreger
Founder, Wheel & Anchor