Over at the Go Green, Travel Green blog, there is currently a week of ‘Shades of Green Travel” entries. What are the shades of green? It’s a simplistic grading scale of just how green a traveler you are. I’d say we fit in with the Kelly green level; we put forward some effort but some things are just too expensive or a pain to do.
So far this week they have shown examples of accommodations, transportation and bottled water, with more to come this week. Using their scale, we’d best fit Kelly green on accommodations and forest green bottled water, preferring to bring our own Klean Kanteen and a SteriPEN. While a bit more expensive, the blight of thrown out plastic water bottles lying all around as garbage in Nepal got us going in this direction. On the accommodations side of things, we prefer hostels and are mildly interested in giving Couchsurfing a try. But there are times when we’d just like some privacy and a tad bit of luxury in our travels. Otherwise we’re fine with camping when we take the truck.
I do have a problem with their listing of transportation. I know they can’t fit it all in, but I consider biodiesel use in a used vehicle superior to requesting a new hybrid be built with all new materials and batteries that will be dead in 2-4 years. It’s not even listed as an option. Otherwise, we’d be in between Kelly and pea green in this regard. We love taking a train and have tended to take public transportation while abroad.
What’s your level of green travel?
Thanks for the links and feedback! Good point about the biodiesel. Looking forward to following your blog.