What are the benefits of slow travel?

Rather than cramming as much as you can into your two week vacation, the onus is around taking time to really enjoy your surroundings. This means doing a lot more walking, cycling or going on a boat so that you can feel more immersed in the experience. It is also the more eco-friendly approach to travelling, with people opting to take more environmentally friendly methods of transport, switching planes for trains, walking instead of going by car.

This is one of the key reasons that many millennials are now choosing slow travel for their holidays or gap year travel. It also fits into the mindfulness approach that is also growing in popularity. It centres around living in the moment and letting your mind fully attend to the space you are travelling through.

Good for the body and mind

Another great benefit of slow travel is that it allows you to really recharge your batteries. If you have a week’s holiday that is filled with rushing around, facing airport delays, visiting theme parks and other exhilarating attractions, you are probably having lots of fun but you are not relaxing your body and mind. Slowing the pace right down, going for walks in the countryside or along the beach is a much better way to rejuvenate, especially if you have a demanding job or lots of family responsibilities.

Slow travel is also about choosing travel destinations that have a slower pace. If you were visiting Ireland, for example, choosing to stay somewhere quiet and remote in the countryside or coastal areas enables slow travel. Going for a long weekend around Dublin’s nightlife and cramming in a bit of shopping is much less likely to have the same health benefits of a few days of walking or cycling.

Less technology, more nature

Many people love to visit bustling cities like New York as their dream trip but more people are seeing the benefit of slow travel. Instead of booking that busy US city break, a trip to stay in a national park, enjoying hiking, kayaking, horse riding and similar activities is now the first choice of people looking to ‘escape’ from their busy lifestyle. As technology and virtual living becomes more the norm, people are choosing holidays that allow them to get closer to nature, in a less technology focussed environment.

If you are thinking about taking a trip to the US, whether it is to see the sights, or to slow things down and experience the benefits of slow travel, then remember that you need to apply for an ESTA. The US ESTA application only takes around ten minutes to complete and gives you travel authority for a trip of up to 90 days in the US.

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The information they found was very telling – and the issues lie with the food system as a whole, all over the world. Roughly half of the world suffers from food poverty and cannot get adequate nutrition, and the other half suffers from health issues related to overeating and an unhealthy lifestyle. In addition to that, our food system is unsustainably damaging the environment (something that scientists refer to as the “anthropocene” is just this, in fact, and covers the fact that we are leaving a human impact on the planet). There are a number of things we can do to mitigate the damage we do to our surroundings, however.

The diet they’ve suggested that people take up involves a few key points and is based on being very good for both your health and also the environment as a whole. A few key points that are taken into account are:

• Less meat and fish – meat consumption is limited. You might only have a serving of meat perhaps once a month, and a small serving of fish once a week.
• Fewer eggs and less dairy – a maximum is 250gr of milk products are allowed per day, and only a couple of eggs in a two weeks.
• Very little sugar. Plenty of vegetables, depending on what is available in someone’s local area.

The basis of the diet involves sustainability – there’s no point in a purely health-based diet that doesn’t take into account what is available in a sustainable way. Less meat involves using up fewer resources (land, water, etc…) but your protein will be made up from more sustainable sources – perhaps a serving of nuts or chickpeas instead of beef. Options are available for all tastes – it just requires a re-think of our food priorities. It’s better for the environment, and it’s better for our collective health. Maybe you can give it a try?

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New furniture is costly and often will just be contributing to landfill waste over time, either due to throwing away old furniture or just wearing out new pieces – so why not refurbish something “pre- loved” and give it a space in your home? This is the idea of upcycling – recycling something by making it better than it used to be. This way of decorating your home is sustainable, eco-friendly, and budget- friendly.

Large furniture

Large items normally made from wood such as bedframes, wardrobes, chairs and tables, and storage boxes can be expensive to buy from new. Buying them secondhand can be much cheaper, and if they’re structurally sound then you simply have to sand them, and then pick a colour and coat for them. If you like the look of raw wood, wood wax and stains are an affordable solution to making the furniture look new but natural. If you want something to stand out a little more, you can give it a lick of paint or varnish. Plus, with vintage looks being back in fashion, you might find a gem to really tie your room together.

Cloth and Fabric

If want to add a pop of colour to your home, finding a really nice fabric for a cushion, seat, curtains, or other furniture is a really good idea. The easiest project you can try it to sew your own cushion covers – it’s just a square with buttons or a zip and is a great beginner’s project. If you’re feeling a little more ambitious, you can tackle something like a chair or sofa reupholstering project.

Although you might want to leave this to the professionals, it’s completely possible for somebody to manage this by themselves with a little research and a lot of elbow grease! You can give old furniture a new lease of life by stripping the fabric off, giving it a good clean (steamers are great for this!) and then giving it a fresh new colour and pattern in your new fabric.

Bric a Brac to Beautiful Knick Knacks

Old glass jars, empty picture frames, spare tiles…these are all things you might throw away if you don’t have a use for them. All of these items can be used to make something new and beautiful with a little bit of creativity and the right tools! You can paint picture frames to make a colourful display, use old tiles to make water-resistant décor items (like coasters), and glass jars can be repurposes for display items.

These are just a few examples – but if you look for inspiration online and in your local area, you’ll find plenty of ideas for sustainable upcycling ideas which are better for the environment than buying new, and which will also help your wallet, too!

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In terms of food options, they have multiple options. A breakfast menu, lunch menu, desserts and teas, and even a kid’s menu are on offer from their kitchens. They have a number of options which are vegetarian, some which are vegan, and for those with dietary requirements they also have gluten-free options.

They don’t just incorporate social justice and the arts into their business – they have a solid sustainability record in their business practises. Their oil is recycled for biofuel, and they also make a point to recycle their paper, plastic, glass, and aluminium. Their disposable items are made from recycled and compostable materials, and their food and drink is sourced from sustainable, fair trade, and organic sources. Even their wine and beer is vegan, and their meat is 100% hormone-free. The sustainability even extends to the salads – their salad greens are often sourced from organically-grown local farms.

Looking to try out their food? You can find locations on 14 th & V, 450 K St, Brookland, Takoma, Anacostia, Hyattsville, and Shirlington. Their original store (and biggest bookstore) is on 14 th & V, which opened in 2005. Other stores opened later, first with the 450 K store, and Brookland in 2016 on New Year’s eve as their newest store. This chain is worth trying if you want to not only enjoy delicious food, but also feel part of a community of likeminded people who value social issues and sustainability.

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The company was and still is GOTS-certified, which means every single member of their supply chain is also certified – it’s ethical and sustainable from the bottom to the top. They are also a member of the Ethical Fashion Forum, which aims to support sustainable fashion industry practises. They also work ethically with the factories that produce their garments, offering.

Their range varies from normal everyday wear to more formal party or office pieces. Their fabric is made from either cotton, which is resource-intensive (and which they acknowledge) and also bamboo fibre, which is far more eco-friendly. The benefit of this unusual fabric is that it is much easier to grow, using up ten times less resources than other crops. They also use hemp fibre, rayon, and tencel. All of their fabrics are eco-friendly and organic, and if they use wool then it is from ethically-kept sheep flocks.

Their sustainability does not only extend to the fabrics that they use and their supply chain, which is impressive by itself. Their sustainability also extends to a number of charitable and ethical projects, such as preserving the rainforest Sumatra for the orangutans, providing financial support to the Tibet Relief Fund, the Sunrise orphanage in Kathmandu, and a number of prior charitable causes to help others around the world.

You can be sure that in addition to looking fashionable with high-quality tasteful pieces, you will also be making a very solid ethical choice by supporting a brand which has sustainability in its ethos from beginning to end.

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Barocco focuses on the lack of sustainability in jewellery production, and on the damage that it causes to the environment. The pieces are produced in local foundries in England, and are made from recycled valuable metals such as bronze, silver, and gold. Their production process is lost wax casting, which involves creating the model of the jewellery in wax, which is then coated in plaster or clay. This clay then has the molten metal poured into it, melting the wax, and creating a perfect copy. This is less resource-intensive than industrial casting. The natural aesthetic of the Barocco jewellery even extends to the subject matter – some of their jewellery is cast from natural items such as bones, nuts, or even fruit.

They also aim to support ethical labour – they use local foundries and pay local living wages, fairly supporting their producers. They refuse to use low-quality production and also make sure that all of their business model supports this ethical business. With a mining and jewellery-making being a historically dubiously-ethical business model, it helps for a company to do their best to counteract this. Being sure that your jewellery doesn’t contain, for example, blood diamonds, also means that you are reassured that your jewellery choices are safe and sustainable. This is a major concern for many people, so it’s worth taking into account.

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Reduce and Reuse Your Containers

Cutting down on the containers is your first step to making more sustainable cosmetics choices. You can purchase glass pots or dispensers which can contain any of your cosmetics. If you’ve gone through the extra step of making your own cosmetics you can put them in these containers too and have little to no impact environmentally, too. The best thing is you only need to purchase these once – there are no repeats every month. If you don’t want to buy generic jars, you can purchase from a company that packages their items in glass packaging and bottles – this is easily cleaned and reused.

Find a Refill Station

When you’ve purchased a reusable container, you can then take it to any store that will give you products on a mix-your-own basis, or from refill packs. The refill packs might be made of plastic, but they’re usually less resource-intensive or more easily recyclable. This also brings into the equation the second “R” of the reduce, reuse, recycle motto. Some of the stores and suppliers even let you formulate your own products, including adding your own scents to them or making custom products for your skincare requirements.

With the rise of sustainability as a priority, some people also make their own cosmetics such as blushes, eyeshadows, or lipsticks, and all of them can be made at home without needing to create more waste. If you can make them at home once, you can simply repurchase the ingredients (such as lip balm, or colour pigment) and make them again. Some companies, such as Lush, also have a policy of giving you one free refill for every so many empty containers that you bring to them.

Recycle, if nothing else!

If you can’t keep all of your cosmetics and skincare in your reusable jars, you can at least pick companies which will consider this problem before they actually sell you the product. Lush, for example, handmake all of their products and sell them in 100% recycled plastic packaging, and have a bring-in scheme to encourage you to bring back your containers, so they can be disposed of ethically. Garnier, a large producer of skincare, also partners with Terracycle to help consumers dispose of their used cosmetics packaging.

When you look into the options, making your cosmetics and skincare sustainable takes a few steps, but the end result is a much less harmful impact due to your self-care regimens.

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Meat has a specific flavour – it has an element of fibrous texture, it has fats, it is savoury and it is strong. If you cook it anything less than medium-well then it also “bleeds” when you bite into it. It’s hard for vegetables and non-meat options to measure up to that, at least in terms of giving the same experience.

Beyond burger is one such example of a replicated meat product, which comes from plant proteins. It uses 99% less water in production than creating a meat burger, due to the effort and water that goes into raising livestock. Sustainability in raising animals for consumption is a topic of huge importance in the food industry, and the beyond burgers aim to tackle that by producing a burger that looks and tastes like real meat, can be bought just like any other burger.

Beyond Burger are not the only brand making waves in the food world with meat alternatives – Danish company Naturli’ created a meat substitute available in the UK and Denmark which “bleeds” like a real burger, and also sell a minced “meat” for meatballs. Other supermarket chains in the UK such as Tesco and Iceland produced their own meat- free ranges for sale as well.

So is this just a passing fad, or will we be seeing more of these products as time goes on? The likelihood is we’ll see a lot more people taking these products on as part of their diet. Vegetarians, flexitarians (those who lower their meat intake to eat more vegetarian food but who don’t restrict it completely), and vegans are all on the rise. Wanting to improve animal welfare and sustainability doesn’t mean that people don’t want to eat nice food. For many the inability to eat burgers, meatballs, or having to think of new recipes for their weeknight meals which use meat (like Bolognese sauce) is one reason why they won’t try a meat-free diet, so these products make it a lot easier.

With agriculture causing 15% of all emissions, which contribute to global warming, and animal-rearing taking up half of that 15%, it would make a tremendous difference to the environment. Even if a customer’s concern isn’t the environment, but instead animal welfare, health, or just to try something new – it’s pretty clear that these products are going to be taking off even more in the coming years. The financial predictions seem to agree – the plant-based meat industry is set to exceed a value of $6.3 billion by 2023. Keep an eye out for more meat-alternatives to keep on-trend with this new, improved, sustainable product.

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The food starts with the farms – they use organic produce from sustainable farmers, and one third of their menu is vegetarian or even plant-based. The meat they use is good quality as well, coming from local farms in Vermont, where the cows are raised ethically. Their turkey is cage-free, too. If you’ve decided to stick to a flexitarian diet and still eat meat, chains which offer this sort of ethical meat production.

Meat off the menu? They stock the beyond burger, a plant-based meat alternative burger, and plenty of other non-meat options, too. Burgers, salads, and even shakes can be made vegan or vegetarian.

Their sustainability does not extend only to their food, but also to their packaging. Opting to avoid less eco-friendly packaging alternatives such as Styrofoam containers and instead choosing to use packaging made of recycled material, recyclable materials such as paper or carton, they have made their cups and bags and containers significantly more eco-friendly than they might otherwise be.

When considering an eco-friendly burger and fast food place, Bareburger is the one you might want to consider when buying food in various locations. Their stores are primarily located in New York, but you can also find some in Ohio, Atlanta, and even in Tokyo and Dubai. Wherever you might be, you know you can probably find something great for the environment – and you!

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A staycation is the more environmentally conscious option, as you will not be contributing to pollution due to plane fuel. You not only reduce your environmental impact by using less air fuel, but you will also support the local economy by finding local businesses. Supporting local products will lead you to find things you never even knew were there. Perhaps you will learn to appreciate your local area in a way you hadn’t before?

Staycations, or even just travelling within the country, can be great for your wallet as well as for the environment. As you don’t have to pay for the same expensive travel costs (or not quite so many). The ultimate budget and sustainable staycation is a camping trip – especially if you live near the countryside, where you can hike out. If camping isn’t your style, then try and take the time to support a local hotel or bed and breakfast – they’ll have tips for getting the most of the area and will probably know of a few things to do that you had no idea about!

The best staycation, though, is the original. Taking time to yourself and taking leave from work will leave you feeling refreshed and ready to handle everything, even if you’re not going anywhere special. Just staying at home is the most environmentally-friendly thing you can do, as it takes no travel time or money at all! See what options you have next time you are planning a quick break, and see if it might be worth just exploring your town, county, or even somewhere else in the country.

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