Breaking news! See our entry - tip #6 - which provides a sneak peak into a brand new product that Senda Essentials are set to announce on the 16th of Feb 2020 and release later in the year.
We are passionate about sustainability at RY and we're always looking for ways to improve in this area, so when we came across the Senda Essentials range, we were absolutely blown away!
Not only do founders Hayden and Carla create quality, stylish, reusable products, but they also have amazing advice on how to travel the world while leaving as little impact as possible behind.
We were lucky enough to sit down with Hayden where he shares his top 5 tips for travelling sustainably and we may have thrown in a pretty exciting tip 6, so make sure you read on.
We dream of travel, it’s our passion, our purpose and with 1.4 billion international arrivals worldwide last year, it’s safe to assume we aren’t the only ones feeling this way.
Thoughts of new flavours, exotic words and foreign traditions make many excited with anticipation. For others, it’s the idea of fresh coconut water and relaxing in warm tropical waters. Whatever the reason we cross the world to retreat ourselves, it shouldn’t crowd our better inhibitions of responsible travel.
We’ve put together our top 5 tips to become a more sustainable traveller on your next journey:
1. Offset Your Flights
Living in Australia, travelling and planes are somewhat synonymous. Planes though have a huge carbon footprint, the aviation industry accounting for 2% of global CO2 emissions. So when other forms of transport are not available, look at the small cost to offset your emissions through one of the many schemes investing in sustainable solutions to reduce future emissions.
2. Book Eco-Certified Accommodations and Tours
Do your research before leaving home and find out if the country you’re visiting has an Eco-Certification Program. If they don’t, try to support businesses that have sustainable practices in place and protect the environment.
3. Support Local Economy
Buying locally crafted souvenirs, eating in locally-owned restaurants and buying your fruit from small business are all easy ways to support local economy, whilst also getting to know the people who call it home.
4. Use Public Transport
Once you have arrived at your destination, try to avoid Taxis/Ubers and choose public transport to discover the area. We have countless memories sharing conversations with friendly locals on buses and trains. Not only will you better experience another culture but you’ll be reducing your carbon footprint.
5. Ditch Single-Use Plastic
Last and most importantly, reduce your single-use plastic consumption.
The more we travel, the more we’ve seen nature’s destruction at the hands of our own misuse of resources and until starting our plastic free journey it was difficult to appreciate how we can all contribute to being part of the solution. With nearly a million plastic bottles sold per minute and 8 million tonnes of plastic waste entering our oceans each year, the damage being caused is irrefutable.
Twelve months since the launch of our signature Travel Essentials pack, a combination of truly practical Essentials designed to enable a path for plastic free travel, we’re working hard to evolve.
Although promoting the refusal of single use plastic with practical Essentials like a Foldable Water Bottle, waterborne pathogens are still found in over 105 countries and water safety is a major concern of the international traveller. We acknowledge the many circumstances that require a greater Travel Essential to eradicate single use plastics and have developed a Universal Purification Device we intend to crowdfund in March 2020 to meet this imperative need.
It’s a great privilege of all travellers to be informed and it’s vital for our future to start playing a more important role.
Try implementing these 5 tips into your next retreat and help protect our home, our planet, so 40 years from now those after us can marvel it too.
6. A tip from us here at Retreat Yourself: As we publish this article, Senda Essentials are gearing up to release their crowd funding campaign for their new Universal Purification Device as mentioned in tip #5, which will absolutely revolutionise the way you consume water when travelling!
See below for some more information on the new device. They’d love your support to get this off the ground - keep an eye on their social pages & website for more details.
Discover the range of Senda Essentials products online at https://sendaessentials.com/ and for an exclusive RY Discount, use code RY20 at checkout for 20% off storewide (Expires 1st June 2020).