Travelers who are turning their backs on airplanes

(CNN) – A few years ago, Charlotte Wolf returned from a trip around the world and counted the number of flights she had made. “I think I made about 80 flights in a fairly short space of time,” this 29-year-old told CNN Travel today.
For Wolf, seeing that written figure forced him to think hard. “I was a big polluter,” she says.

Wolf had never given much thought to the impact of flying, but this was a turning point, so he gave up flying.

“I haven’t been on a plane since.”

To solidify his decision, Wolf signed a pledge not to fly in 2020 organized by Flight Free UK, a campaign group promoting alternative ways of traveling beyond aviation, unaware that air travel was going to be banned for much of that year and the next.

By the spring of 2020, air travel around the world had stopped.

Global air travel typically represents around the 2% of all carbon dioxide emissions. The data from the Global Carbon Project suggest that even in December 2020, when some travel was resumed, global aviation emissions were still 40% below 2019 levels.

As the skies emptied of airplanes, the term “staycation” became ubiquitous. And even as international travel resumed at irregular intervals last year and this year, many travelers continued to seek the thrill of their vacation closer to home amid the uncertain global landscape.

Looking ahead to 2022, covid-19 remains a threat, but borders continue to reopen and international travel is a constant again.

But while many count the days until they get back on a plane, other environmentally conscious travelers, like Wolf, insist on not flying forever.

Rethink the norm

Wolf, who resides in England, does not consider his promise to avoid air travel to contradict his desire to explore the world. “I still like to travel a lot, I will continue traveling, only that I will use alternative means,” he says.

Wolf’s partner is also committed to a no-fly lifestyle. In the summer of 2020, the couple traveled to the south of France by train, a trip they repeated last August. They also recently spent a weekend in Edinburgh, avoiding cheap flights to Scotland in favor of northbound train travel.

In the long term, the couple hope to one day be able to travel from the UK to Japan via the Trans-Siberian railway.

However, although Wolf wants to avoid flights, he does not rule out getting back on a plane.

Wolf has dual citizenship, British and American, and part of his family resides in the United States.

“When I was younger, I used to go to New York about five times a year, whereas now I think I would be happy going every five years for an essential reason,” Wolf explains.

Right now, Wolf thinks it would be acceptable to fly to see them every half decade, for example. It would also fly in an emergency. But he will not fly again for leisure.

Wolf admits that this commitment is easier to make because he has already traveled a lot.

“I think it’s a privilege, and I think I wouldn’t expect people to do it if they hadn’t seen the world,” he says. “I am very lucky to have fulfilled my wish list at my age.”

Wolf also understands the lure of low-cost airfares versus expensive trains, and suggests that there should be a broader review of travel costs.

She is also aware that as a freelancer it is easier for her to take the “long way” on vacation, and suggests that there should be government-backed incentives to encourage people to travel by train.

“Obviously, if you go to France by train [desde el Reino Unido], it is a round trip day for the trip, whereas if you fly it is a bit different. So I think we’d be interested in looking at things like incentives in paid jobs, where you get more annual leave, if you can show that you take a low-carbon option. “

Although Wolf doesn’t expect everyone to follow in his footsteps, he does tag his travel photos with #flightfree. He wants to “get in on that dialogue” and show people how easy it is to travel from the UK to Europe, and beyond, by train.

Movement without flights

Flight Free UK has been inspired by the Swedish “Flygfritt” (flight-free) movement, which grew in importance in 2019, around the time the Swedish term “flygskam” (shame to fly) entered common parlance. Flight Free UK encourages people to sign an annual pledge not to fly for a year, as Wolf did.

The campaign group is also part of Stay grounded, a global network of organizations founded in 2016 to encourage the abandonment of air travel.

While Flygfritt may have been a buzzword in the last five years, for Flight Free UK director Anna Hughes, shunning flights is not a new phenomenon: Hughes took his last flight 12 years ago.

“I have done so many adventures without flights and many very exciting trips without flying that I do not feel like I am missing something in the least, I do not see it as a sacrifice, I see it as a positive aspect of my lifestyle,” says Hughes to CNN Travel.

Was the 2018 IPCC report and his harsh conclusions prompted Hughes to be more vocal about his commitment to avoiding aviation.

“I decided that it was not enough to do my thing, I had to encourage a lot of other people to do the same.”

It’s difficult to judge the success of Hughes’s campaign, he admits, due to the context of the covid-19 pandemic: Flight Free UK didn’t launch until 2019.

Covid-19’s impact on the Flight Free movement is also difficult to quantify, Hughes says. But as he begins to encourage people to commit to 2022, he says there are “two different kinds” of travelers.

“There will be a lot of people with that pent-up demand for travel,” he says. “On the other hand, there will be a lot of people who will have recovered a bit. The fact that they have been forced to stay in the country may have opened their eyes to some of the things that we have around the corner.”

Hughes and his team try to celebrate and promote the idea of ​​the return of conscious decision-making around travel.

“The covid took away the possibility of choosing this year, we have been forced to stay on the ground due to the pandemic,” says Hughes.
“Going forward, could we make these decisions voluntarily? When the travels come back, can we freely choose to explore in another way? Because the climate crisis is as big a crisis as the pandemic, if not more.”

Hughes is also in favor of change from above: She favors a tax on jet fuel to curb cheap flights.

And while Hughes is skeptical about the possibility of concrete changes in the aviation sector in the wake of COP26, he does believe that individual actions could lead to broader change in industry and governments.

Hughes makes the comparison with the growing pervasiveness of veganism in the UK. She became vegan around the time she gave up flying. A decade ago, he says he got stares at restaurants when he asked about his vegan options.

“Now they give me a menu,” he says.

“If enough people do it, if customer patterns change, then the industry responds.”

America’s Vision

Flight Free UK also has an American sister organization, which is also part of the worldwide Stay Grounded movement.

Dan Castrigano of Flight Free USA explains to CNN Travel that the American movement is smaller than its European counterparts, as it is hampered by the lack of rail infrastructure in the United States.

But while turning down aviation when traveling within the US can be more difficult, some Americans still try.

Betsy Thagard, 59, recently traveled from California to Chicago to visit family, largely by train.

“Two years ago was when I declared for the first time that I would not fly,” says Thagard. “So, of course, we couldn’t travel anywhere for 18 months, because of the covid. So this trip I’m on was the first one I’ve made since I made that statement.”

Although the switch from plane to rail meant a longer trip and more planning, Thagard says he has enjoyed seeing America by train.

“I’ve been flying around for decades to see [a mi familia]So deciding not to fly was a real life change for me, but I love it. “

However, Thagard says he had to make a leg of the plane trip.

“There was only one train that went from Charlotte [en Carolina del Norte] to Birmingham [en Alabama] and I left at three in the morning, “he says.

Thagard didn’t feel comfortable waiting alone at a train station at this hour.
“So I had to fly that leg, and that was very disappointing,” he says.

That’s why Thagard hopes the US government will expand the country’s rail network to make it easier to avoid planes.

Travel slowly

Although Thagard traveled a lot when he was younger, he says there are some destinations he hasn’t visited, and says he might have a hard time going to these places now, given his commitment not to have to fly.

“I always wanted to go to New Zealand, I always wanted to go to Prague, now I am never going to go to those places, unless I can find a boat to take me, because I know I would not enjoy it, knowing that I am destroying the very places that I wanted to. see when flying there, “he says.

Thagard says that this saddens her a bit, but that she is willing to appreciate the beauty of California, where she lives, and the surrounding western states.

“I have all kinds of places that I can go to in the western United States that are as beautiful as anywhere else in the world. So you start to focus on your local places, what can we do to keep our local places beautiful, instead of having to fly to another place, to see someone else’s beautiful local place. “

Also, Prague may not be impossible forever. When Thagard retires, he hopes to cross the Atlantic on the Queen Mary 2, and then explore Europe by train.

Like Wolf in the UK, Thagard knows that it is a privilege to be able to take time to travel by train or boat; In addition, she is a freelance worker and can manage her own time.

But Thagard wants to encourage other people whose jobs and lifestyles allow them to adopt so-called “slow travel.”

“The trip, going from here to there, is part of the pleasure of the trip. It is not just an unpleasant step that you have to take to get to another place,” he says.

“It is important that the trip is fun.”