Confessions of a Guilty Traveler
I have something to confess....For all my efforts at making our household greener and more eco-friendly, I fail terribly in one specific area - TRAVEL.I do feel a lot of guilt about this. Unlike my normal reaction to guilt this guilt does nothing to move me to change this behavior.It all began almost 3 years ago now, when Pop's retired after 36 years of being an elementary school teacher. During all those years of teaching, our traveling was limited to summer and school vacations and holidays. Our vacations were limited and also more "kid" friendly as we had our daughters, Mimi and Libby to consider.Now, post retirement, we have the freedom to travel whenever - meaning not a peak times, but at more "destination-perfect" times, and because my job is pretty flexible we have the freedom to travel A LOT! We're both in great health, so we find ourselves compelled to do a lot of traveling during this time in our lives.We already have quite a few trips planned this year already. In fact Monday we leave on Pop's anniversary present to me - a week in Hawaii.Now, while we're pretty low-key travelers once we reach our destination, I do know that this flying here and there has a significant impact on our world. I just have no idea what to do about it.
I wrote a little bit about off-setting our carbon footprint here, but I feel there must be more we can do beyond funding greenhouse gas reductions by purchasing Terrapass carbon offsets to compliment our travel.What is enough penance for our eco-unfriendly travel sins?Please, send help or advice...Thanks,~ Lita