At NomadMania, sustainability is not just a catchphrase, but a guiding principle that lies at the very heart of our travel ethos. We believe that travel can be a powerful force for good, and as avid explorers, we recognize our responsibility to protect and preserve the world’s diverse landscapes, cultures, and communities. With a deep appreciation for the beauty and richness that global travel has to offer, we are equally committed to ensuring that our journeys leave a positive and lasting impact on the destinations we visit. Our passion for sustainable travel drives us to seek innovative ways to minimize our ecological footprint, support local economies, and foster meaningful connections with the people and places we encounter.
We asked our travel tribe what “sustainable travel” means to them, so let’s hear directly from the NomadManians who make our community vibrant and inspiring.
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Peter Ormand
I’m of an age that I can still remember travel before the Instagram and Ryanair era – when it was easy to find places that felt, if not undiscovered, at least untouristed. Travel today feels unsustainable. The world’s most famous sights groan under the weight of international mass tourism and many less well known sights around the world have seen an explosion in domestic tourism as more and more people have entered the middle class.
How does the conscientious traveler behave in a way that is more sustainable? I don’t think there are easy answers but a few thoughts to consider: 1. Be aware of your impact wherever you’re traveling. Tourism can be a force for ill as easily as a force for good. 2. Act like a local – take public transport, eat in locally owned restaurants. Respect local norms and customs. 3. Actively choose lesser known destinations. Nagoya over Kyoto, El Salvador over Costa Rica. A rich, rewarding experience can be had almost anywhere. Finally those of us who have had the privilege to travel the world have an obligation to demonstrate empathy and acceptance in our interactions with others, and to advocate for peaceful coexistence.
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Yui Pow Redford
Sustainable travel, to me, is traveling with a consideration and respect for the environment, for nature, for wildlife, and for local cultures and leaving every place we visit in as good a condition or even better than we found them so that our children and their children will be able to enjoy them too.
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Johnny Ward
For me personally, travel changed my life, it became my vocation, my job. Sustainable travel for me meant that I ‘owed’ the travel world so much for giving me everything I have, so when I do some of my group trips, we do it as a non-profit, renovating schools, building playgrounds etc before we go on to explore the area”
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Wyatt Maktrav delos Reyes Bedural
For me, it’s about protecting the environment and choosing activities that will not harm the animals.
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Leon Hochman
For me, Sustainable Travel is always looking for a harmony between man and nature, respecting the environment as well as cultures, religious beliefs and helping the well-being of people according to the possibilities of each one.
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Rachel Davey
Sustainable travel to me is about making choices that have a positive impact for the planet, people, and animals.
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Zach Forbes
To me sustainable travel means loving your hosts and leaving the destination better than you found it. To not litter or make a mess is obvious, but just like you I am a diplomat for my nations. The best part of travel to me is people and it’s only sustainable if we love and respect them like any neighbours at home.
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Pia Dina Montemayor
Sustainable travel for me means being a responsible traveller, as simple as carrying my own refillable water bottle, using reusable canvas tote bags, joining walking tour and maximising using land transport (when crossing the border if it is available in certain countries) rather than taking flights.
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Justine Kirby
Sustainable travel doesn’t harm the environment and preserves or enhances the nature of the places we visit and the communities that call those places home. It also nurtures our curiosity and fuels our desire to see and better understand more of our world.
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Samer Kawar
It’s all about respect and self-awareness – understanding the impact that your travel has, both on the communities you visit and on the planet as a whole. Little, common-sense choices like hiring local guides, staying in planet-conscious hotels, and patronizing locally-owned businesses can make a big difference over time, especially when multiplied by the actions of like-minded travelers.
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Anna Carlehed
To me, sustainable travel means to do my very best to take social and environmental responsibility wherever I travel. This impacts not only the means by which I travel but also how my travel and visits impact the people and the places I go to.
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Junart Kim Nieva
Sustainable travel is about helping the world become a happier, safer and richer paradise to navigate, all while living the dream of exploring it. When local economy is supported, natural surroundings are conserved, and cultural heritage are preserved, everybody wins.
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Ed Hotchkiss
When traveling, we use public transportation and walking as much as possible, minimize the trash we leave (most developing countries do not recycle), take as few plastic containers as possible, never litter, avoid bottled water as much as practicable and employ local people and businesses whenever possible. The planes we fly for long distances are usually full, thus minimizing our individual carbon footprint.
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Dennis Pilones
Immersion is the best form of sustainable travel. It is the best way to appreciate local culture, test local cuisine, integrate with the locals from a grassroots level, and get first-hand travel tips. Best of all, you’re directly helping the local economy. Sometimes, you gain long lasting friendships.
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Eugene Petrus
For me, travel sustainably means reducing the impact on local communities and also on the cultures, trying not to influence them. As well it is also the carbon footprint we need to think about. That’s why I mainly travel by car.
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Billy Offland
For me sustainable travel is about understanding the state of the world and then understanding how important our duty as travelers is to act responsibly towards it. Our actions will then tend to preserve those destinations we love for future generations whether that’s cultural, environmental or anything else. I’m always aware that it is not just trying to minimize my negative impact but also trying maximize my positive impact whenever I travel.
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Alfred Millar
Perhaps the best way to travel more sustainably is to consider slow travel. By moving around in a slower pace we can contribute more to the local economy in that area while also decreasing our carbon footprint by foregoing flights and other means of transport that are not that environment-friendly.
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Orest Zub
There are many ways to travel sustainably and one of them is to go and stay locally. For example, now I’m standing this weekend just outside of my city, in the west of Ukraine, in a pretty nice rural village.
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Thomas Buechler
Sustainable travel means whenever possible join the locals in their favorite way of public transport. Mostly buses and collective taxis. Leave small footprints behind. I did Africa, South America and Asia like that. Also crossing Afghanistan. It is possible when you have time only. Plus a strong desire to take the planning into your hands.
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David Yang
Sustainable travel to me is using local operator and mass transportation system when available. Also travel with a group instead of solo as that also reduce carbon imprint.
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Per Besson
Sustainable travel is the visitor leaving the locals behind with dignity, and maybe even a smile, so the next visitor will be welcomed with open arms.
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Jacquelyn Kunz
For me, sustainable travel means considering the needs and circumstances of host communities and the places that we are visiting. Whether it be visiting war zones, areas suffering from food insecurity or places with environmental issues, we need to make sure we aren’t causing a burden with our presence.
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Jørn Bjørn Augestad
Sustainable travel is the travel you do inwards, to get to know yourself and the effect you have on others around you.
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Ruy Costa Lima
My choice of career did not help sustainable travel. That being said, I do try to give some of my travel budget to companies that have at least some sense of the impact they have on the environment and the communities where they operate. Travel is a privilege. It has consequences. Sustainability is not only about the environment. Sustainability also involves what type of benefits it brings to the communities we travel to, be it social, educational, economic, etc. Many companies have a social or environmental mission published. That for me is a good start.
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Jack Goldstein
I support locals. Wherever I go, I like to immerse in their culture, and since I usually prefer to go with a private guide, I opt for local companies that can take me beyond the normal tourist attractions, often developing friendships that get me invited to their homes for a more intimate experience of what that place is. I also have the habit of taking with me a few plastic bags (where legal 😊) because they always come in Handy to collect my garbage.
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Eleonora Gromov
Sustainable travel is to try and understand as much as possible about a place you are visiting. With every place visited, you get a new piece of a huge jigsaw puzzle. “Earth” – a puzzle which nobody will ever entirely complete.
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Roy Amog Baja
For me, sustainable travel is when you travel unluxuriously.
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Raiiq Ridwan
Sustainable Travel is firstly being aware that my travel has adverse effects on the environment and likely on the communities that I visit. Having this awareness is the first step in wanting to minimize the damage my travel may cause to the planet.
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Ted Nims
For me, the purest example of sustainable travel is the “leave no trace” policy of Antarctica and certain parks.
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Janie Coffey
Sustainable travel means to me, a combination of the big and little things we can do to impact the world less, as we travel. This can be little things like bringing your own shampoo so you don’t use 1/3 of a little plastic bottle that then gets thrown away, to as large as thinking of which airlines sincerely work to manage their carbon footprint the most and supporting them. For me I pack as light as I can, am super conscious of toiletries as well as not taking things I do not need, like the little amenities kits they sometimes give out, unless I plan to use what is in them. It means not buying a bunch of “things” that I really won’t use when I return home. It’s just being conscious of my footprint as I traverse this big giant blue sphere.
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Juliano Crema
Sustainable travel is the awareness necessary that we all should promote as frequent travellers inspiring everyone to protect the mother earth in every single corner of the globe , everywhere matters !! –
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Ric Gazarian
Sustainable travel to me means a win-win for all parties. That includes the traveler, the providers in the local market, and the environment. That includes everything from working with a local guide, staying in a locally owned hotel, eating at local restaurants and buying carbon credits for the flights we take.
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Luisa Yu
Sustainable tourism, as related to the environment, the economy, and communities, has more benefits than negative impacts. It makes destinations better for people to live in or visit.
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Gina Morello
There are many ways to travel sustainably. One example of sustainable travel is to seek out and support local programs when traveling that support empowerment of local people. A good example of this type of program is the Ploughshare Women’s Crafts Training Center near Gondar, Ethiopia. The goal of the center is to provide training to unmarried mothers, divorced women with no means of support, and other disadvantaged women so that they can support themselves. The shop sells crafts that the women have made. So I took a tour, met some of the ladies, and purchased some crafts knowing that the money goes to support the ladies and the center.
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Yosh Dimen
Sustainable travel is reducing your carbon footprint and minimizing negative impact on the environment and local community. While not all best practices are easy for everyone to follow, every traveler can contribute in their own way, from taking the train/bus instead of the plane for shorter distances (or traveling on foot or bike instead of the car/cab) to ditching single-use plastics to supporting the local economy.
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Gustav Rosted
I love to travel overland. Whether it’s visiting all 19 provinces of IRAQ, driving all around Turkey or doing 6 months straight without flying in West Africa. It’s always fun and challenging to travel in a sustainable way.
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Petro Marais
When it comes to travel and my footprint in this world I would say that despite my lifestyle being inherently selfish, a large part of it would be very communal via traveling full time. I don’t maintain a permanent residence, I’m a minimalist now with very few possessions and just the mere existence being in this world has a footprint. Having a base and extra resources it becomes very tempting to indulge in products we don’t necessarily need but want. Products that would have traveled from afar to get into your home. Products that will eventually end up in landfill. Through travel many services I am using are already operating regardless whether I show up or don’t. Perhaps I am a statistic keeping the demand there but as far as my preferred travel style is concerned I overland whenever it’s possible. Travellers are usually the first to be blamed for being unsustainable yet in reality we are living in a capitalist society driven by consumerism with poorly made products that have a short lifespan.
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Dondon Bales
It’s about making conscious choices on how I’m going to go about my travels in such a way that I minimize the adverse effects on the environment and maximize the positive impact on the communities I visit.
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Boris Kester
For me, sustainability means mostly preserving local cultures & also lessening the impact of travel so that future generations can continue to enjoy traveling around the world.
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Ildikó Szabó
What sustainable travel means to me: think global, act local. I’m trying to support as much as I can the local communities by staying at local guest houses whenever I travel, also taking the public transport, or ofcourse walk whenever is possible. My extra tip would be: if the tap water is drinkable, take your own refillable water bottle, preferably BPA-free, so you’re also environmental friendly.
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Gunnar Garfors
It’s all about making conscious decisions with the way you travel: modes of transport; how you spend your money; the speed you travel. Travel doesn’t even need to be to far flung destinations, it is as much about exploring your home country or home region or neighbouring country.
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Mette Ehlers Mikkelsen
Sustainable travel to me is about both the big strategic picture of global leadership and the small tangible choices we all can make individually. Strategically to me we need the UN world goals. We need NomadManias focus on sustainability and the partnerships created to increase the awareness of those most traveling. We need companies such as hotel chains and airlines to invest. The practical to do’s for each traveler are in using Iocals as guides, eating and staying where it benefits the local community, limiting use of plastic, not breaking corals etc. To me as well, we need to address the issues of the growing population in the world as well as this is what makes me the saddest when I travel. To me, therefore, improvement of the level of education and women’s rights are unavoidably linked to sustainable solutions in general. Thus I appreciate when I get to engage in, as an example, empowerment of women entrepreneurs.
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Kostiantyn Liorek
It’s travel to places like small towns, eating in local restaurants with good local food, drinking local beer and support small local business.
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Slawek Muturi
For me, the more benefit stays local and the less damage we do to the global environment, the better. My answer is overland travel by buses, mini-buses, boats, hitch-hiking and other local transportation. I admire those cycling or walking even more.
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Yannik Graf
Sustainable travel isn’t just about using the right mode of transportation or supporting specific local charities and such. If you decide to use your time and resources to travel to remote places, you shouldn’t ever do it just to tick something off your to do list. You’ve only really visited a new place if you learned something new while there. A deeper understanding of a culture, history or local politics should always be part of why you travel. Take it slow, stay long enough for more than snapshots of “grammable” places and nice food. Some people would love to travel but can’t, if you’ve been blessed with the time and resources to travel, don’t waste it clout chasing.“
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