Staying Fit
When travelers adopt more sustainable practices, they can help protect and renew the places they love to visit. But sustainable travel is more than taking steps to protect the natural environment. It also includes empowering Indigenous and local communities to lead the tourism industry.
There are several ways to get started traveling sustainably. Here’s how you can make trips better for the environment and the communities you visit.
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When and where to go
The first thing to do is choose a destination that’s taking steps to protect and regenerate the environment. Sonoma County, California, for example, is leading the way among U.S. destinations in making its wine country more sustainable. Sonoma Sustainable Tourism Observatory is the only U.S. location that’s part of the United Nations International Network of Sustainable Tourism Observatories, whose mission is to create more sustainable tourism for its partners. Mexico’s Yucatan region; Barcelona, Spain; and Antigua, Guatemala, are also part of the observatory network.
Sonoma County, which is home to more than 400 wineries, routinely deals with drought and has to mitigate the effects that up to 10 million annual visitors can have on a partially rural, agricultural area.
“Do your research to know what places are overvisited,” says Christine Vogt, Arizona State University emeritus professor and the former director of ASU’s Center for Sustainable Tourism. “And if they are, are there better time periods to go? Meaning, you’re going to encounter less people, your presence there is going to have a little bit less of an impact than if you jump on the heap of too many tourists.”
Visiting popular tourist areas during a shoulder season or a low season, when fewer tourists are present, is helpful. Travelers benefit because they don’t wait in large crowds to see popular sites. Businesses can benefit, too, from more steady revenue year-round, says Wes Espinosa, interim executive director of the Center for Responsible Travel.
“In addition, traveling in those seasons often has a positive impact on those communities, who are so saturated in volume in their high seasons that they really struggle to get through the shoulder and low seasons,” he says.
Some places have become so inundated with tourists that residents are asking for tourists not to visit. For example, after Hawaii peaked at more than 10 million visitors in 2019, Native Hawaiians like climate activist and former state Rep. Kaniela Ing began using grassroots campaigns to tell tourists not to visit. Overtourism has caused harm to the environment and wildlife and created economic inequity for the Native community, they say. Honolulu’s city council voted unanimously in 2021 to tear down the Haiku Stairs, a steep staircase on the Koolau mountain range that has been closed to the public since 1987. Trespassers keep hiking the stairs, causing neighborhood disturbances and environmental concerns on the watershed lands. On Oahu, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders experience homelessness at higher rates than other residents due to a rising cost of living driven in part by the state’s tourism industry.
Respecting the wishes of Indigenous and local communities is an important part of making sustainable travel choices.
