Holly Tuppen: How to travel responsibly

Sustainable-travel expert Holly Tuppen shares with Bryony Cottam her tips on how to travel responsibly

In 2008, Holly Tuppen set off on an around-the-world trip, travelling by any means but flying. What had begun as a collection of possible hiking and cycling routes, which Tuppen had marked out on a large wall map, soon developed into a single 20-month journey. ‘We started to explore sailing, joining a cargo ship, longer train journeys and also longer walking routes.’

Today, Tuppen is a sustainable-travel expert who has worked with travel companies such as Exodus and the Long Run, a travel writer and the author of two books: Sustainable Travel and Slow Travel Family Breaks. It was only during that globe-spanning journey, however, that she began to understand how slow travel benefited the places she visited, while also reducing her carbon footprint. 

Although the concept of sustainable travel isn’t new – the term ‘ecotourism’ first appeared in the 1980s and the US-based Centre for Responsible Travel was established in 2003 – it has only recently entered the mainstream. ‘It’s really accelerated since the pandemic, in particular,’ says Tuppen. ‘I often used to pitch stories to editors who would just turn around and say, “We don’t cover sustainable travel.”’

There’s also a lot of different and new terminology (eco, sustainable, responsible, slow, nature-positive, positive-impact and regenerative, to name a few), which Tuppen agrees can be a bit of a minefield for travellers. ‘I think it will continue to evolve because the needs of the people and the places that we travel to are changing all the time,’ she says. ‘We’ve moved on from trying to minimise our impact and leave things as they are because, actually, things aren’t great as they are right now. We need to be looking at how we can have a positive impact on the places we visit. This is where words like “regenerative” have come in.’

Tuppen believes it’s unrealistic to expect every holiday to make a huge contribution to the places we visit. ‘Sustainable travel isn’t one-size-fits-all,’ she says. ‘It’s more about being mindful of the choices we make, almost like having a menu of options in your head. If you know your carbon footprint will be high because you’re flying, you might think about how your money could support local people or conservation projects once you arrive, or you could try to eat locally sourced sustainable produce.’

For many travellers, budget-friendly travel isn’t synonymous with sustainable travel, but Tuppen says there are a lot of misconceptions around the costs involved. ‘It doesn’t always have to be as expensive as maybe the travel industry would like us to believe,’ she says. ‘Shoestring travel, particularly old-school backpacking, is often a more sustainable option. It’s when you get into luxury travel that there’s this perception that you need to pay a premium for it to be sustainable.’ 

Even then, Tuppen says, a lot of the sustainable-travel opportunities we hear about – whether it’s a forest ecolodge or a wildlife experience – have the budget for PR agencies and media exposure. There are plenty of smaller, sustainable accommodation options and travel experiences, as she reveals in Slow Family Breaks. ‘We discovered that simply by swapping the Eurostar – which is so expensive – for the ferry to Dieppe, and starting our train journey from there rather than Paris, it could save us about £1,000 when travelling overland as a family of four,’ she says. 

Although budget-friendly sustainable travel might require a bit more planning, Tuppen says it’s easier than you might think. ‘Crossing oceans on a sailboat is obviously pretty epic, but it’s actually a bit easier than most people might think.’ She points to websites such as Crewseekers, which pairs up would-be sailors with boat captains looking for inexperienced crew members. Her next trip, to Berlin, will be on the new crowd-funded European Sleeper, one of an expanding number of new night train routes across Europe.