How to have a greener holiday

It's often the people working behind the scenes of the tourism industry that are creating real change, yet they don't get the recognition. So it is great to see that The Travel Foundation, an award-winning charity set up in 2003 to champion sustainability in the travel and tourism industry, is now shouting about its work to tourists, not just to the people selling the holidays.

In association with many of its partners, including greentraveller, The Travel Foundation is launching Make Holidays Greener Week, from tomorrow, 26 June, to 3 July.

All in all, it is not a big ask – it's about try to do just three things to be greener on your holidays, such as switching off lights in your hotel room, recycling your waste, monitoring water usage in the shower and buying locally produced goods.

Here are a few more of greentraveller's easy green tips on how to have a greener holiday:

Get local train and bus timetables before you travel, by looking up regional websites or greentraveller’s rail guides. Regional transport sites, such as the brilliant Scenic Wales initiative, are often full of excellent local information too, and more up to date than some guidebooks.

Read a phrasebook and learn some of the basic words of the local language. Even if it is just please and thank you. Learning some of the food language so that you can communicate at a market stall is handy too. 

Eat local food when you can. Ask your accommodation provider for information on local markets, rather than just taking off to the nearest hypermarket to stock up for the week.  It might feel like a lot more hassle, but the experiences of local markets are always worth it. Many tourist boards have lists of farm shops too (if they don’t, ask them why not!) where you will often find some of the best hidden cafes too.  

Leonidas at Taverna Limona, Crete, teaching Catherine's children how a violin is made

Engage with local people. In Crete last year, the owner of our villa brought his homemade wine to welcome us. We invited him and his family to share it with us. He later told us that we were the first family to do this in twenty years, which earned us big brownie points, and a lot more of his delicious wine. Don’t be shy, just say hi. 

Nudge your holiday company to act. If you don’t tell holiday companies that you want to go green, then many of them won’t bother, because they say there isn’t the demand. By showing you are interested in supporting local economies, conservation efforts and low carbon initiatives, they will start to make their holidays greener too. 

Greentraveller would love to hear about any green initiatives that have inspired you on your travels. At the end of the Make Holidays Greener week, we will publish our favourites, which you can send via our online form, Twitter or Facebook. In the meantime, here are some of the greentraveller team’s favourites: 

Richard Hammond: "The Green Wave in Copenhagen is a pilot scheme initiated by local authorities where the traffic signals on cycling lanes are synchronised with cyclists’ average speed (approximately 20km per hour), so you can cycle the length of the city without ever having to stop at the lights. Green Waves currently exist from Norrebrogade to the lakes and Norre Farimagsgade to the city centre, with more soon to be installed along Copenhagen’s 40km of cycling lanes. Also it's great to see (at last) the launch of  London’s Cycle Hire Scheme, 30 July 2010”

Catherine Mack : “I love the Isle of Wight. You can start your trip by being met off the ferry by a bike hire company, who will take your bags onto your accommodation, while you set off along its stunning coast, leaving work and stress behind within minutes. Their local food company, Real Island Food Company, which delivers local goodies, from butter to beer, to your accommodation, is also second to none. It is one of the coolest places in UK to do recreational tree climbing, with a company called Goodleaf, worth the day trip alone, and they give discounts if you leave the car at home”.

Anna Shepard: “ I'd like to nominate Trelowarren's incredible wood chip boiler, which is fired up with chippings from the estate’s own coppiced woodland as well as waste wood from a local sawmill.  It is one of the biggest pieces of biomass technology in the South West, contributing to an estimated 240 tonnes of CO2 that the estate saves by employing green technology.”

Jeremy Smith: “The German rail website is more than just a wonderfully effective way of plotting train journeystreeclimbing on the Isle of Wight across the continent. If you are changing trains, you can factor in the amount of time you wish to stay in a city of your request so, for example if you're on the Eurostar to Paris and arriving at lunchtime, you could arrange for your next train to leave three hours later and give yourself time to deposit your bags in the left luggage at the station and head off for a spot of lunch at a nearby brasserie. It's what green travel is all about.”

Philippa Jacks: “While in the Channel Islands I was inspired by the environmental ethos of Jersey Kayak Adventures. Not only does the company minimise its negative impact, by giving discounts to those who use public transport and discouraging the use of bottled water for example, but it also asks customers to pick up any litter they spot while out kayaking, making a positive difference to the coastline."

And don’t forget – please send us your favourite green initiatives, which have not only made a difference to the place you visited, but also made your holiday even better. Send us an email, a tweet, or join the greentraveller group on Facebook. 

Read more about Make Holidays Greener week in this introduction by Sue Hurdle, Chief Executive of the Travel Foundation: Introducing Make Holidays Greener Week.