Green Your Beach Trip
Are you going to the beach this summer?
There are people in the world that criticize the very act of traveling because of the “carbon footprint” produced by getting to a faraway destination.
I’m not ready to give up travel, but I starting thinking about what changes we could make in order to be more eco-friendly on vacation.
Here are a few strategies from our last beach trip:
- we will bring our cloth diapers
- we will bring our own cloth napkins. This will cut down on paper waste during meals.
- we are bringing 2 slow cookers so that we can make meals but no one has to slave in the kitchen while everyone else is frolicking on the beach. This will save natural gas by not using the stove, and save gasoline by not driving to restaurants. It also saves time and stress!
- we are NOT using “travel sized” toiletries. These result in more throw away containers.
The slow cookers were so great to have. My favorite day was when I made slow cooker lasagna! We had lots of leftovers so maybe we should have bought less sandwich fixins and just had leftovers at lunch time. There always seems to be the pressure to eat all of the left over food when we pack the car to leave at the end of the week.
I prefer to “pack light” and do laundry once or twice while on vacation. It just helps me not to stress out about running out of clothes, since I can’t predict how many outfits the boys will each go through in a given day. Especially Deeds. He is a messy eater and a fearless explorer.
This is easy to do if you are vacationing in a condo, but even when we are in exotic places there has always been SOMEWHERE to either have laundry done or do it ourselves. We did laundry three times in Bali!
If you are planning a beach trip, please view the Cosmetic Safety Database to check the 2009 Sunscreen Guide to make sure yours is free from hazardous chemicals. I think that is a good thing to know!
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12 July 2009, 11:29 am
I agree that doing laundry while on vacation makes packing a LOT lighter, and we do this too… We did have a challenge one time in Paris. We found a public laundromat, but we could not figure out how to run the machines! There was one other person in there, but she only spoke French, and alas, we do not. It is a fun story for us; we still laugh about our feeble attempts to get those machines running.
12 July 2009, 1:16 pm
I disagree about the travel sized toiletries- as long as you refill the containers from bigger bottles, they can be very handy!
12 July 2009, 1:56 pm
That’s true, sometimes there are airline liquid/gel restrictions.
I was thinking of a car trip vacation…
12 July 2009, 3:12 pm
You’ll have to share your slow-cooker lasagna recipe…I never thought of doing that, though I have made mac and cheese in it and it was great.
We will also be bringing our cloth diapers when we visit the beach at the end of the month, and I even have reusable swim diapers. And of course the reusable stainless steel water bottles prevent the need for disposable ones.
13 July 2009, 3:43 am
Sure, you leave an economic footprint while traveling…but traveling is one of the few good reasons to do so. We do the same thing though - cloth diapers (swim and regular), bring our own food without plates (we can hold our sandwiches!) and whatever else.
Thankfully, for us the beach is very close by!
13 July 2009, 1:41 pm
I love traveling!! I think that traveling expands your mind by meeting new people and seeing new things. It also makes your appreciate the wonderful world in which we live. No one can stop this wandering person!!
I had not thought of the cloth napkins idea. We might start doing that since we also usually do laundry at least once on our long trips.
I actually do use travel size bath items when traveling. If we had used a partial soap or shampoo at a hotel then I take it with us to use later on the trip or at home. I like trying different products so this is a great way for my family to do that.
Also I had purchased travel size refillable bottles for a trip to Europe several years. I fill up the reusable containers for our trips. When we get home, we use up whatever is left. Both my kids know how to get the small amounts in the bottom. You just add a little water, put on the lid, and shake well.
I love your blog! It is always fun to meet other people who love traveling!
13 July 2009, 10:03 pm
Great post…. We love to travel and you gave me new ideas -like the cloth napkins thing, I , too had never thought of that one. We usually bring food and a slow cooker (it’s amazing what you can cook in there - just look online), and do laundry. We had trouble once in Ireland when we were doing a B&B tour, couldn’t figure out the right coinage.
Happy Travels!!