As eco travelers, we know how precious and beautiful our world is, and most likely, we are very aware of the issues that our planet has to face. We might have already seen some problems like pollution or destruction of nature as the death of coral reefs or deforestation. And as we have seen this, our passion for helping our planet and the desire to travel more consciously and eco-friendly grows stronger. In this blog post, we share the eco travel essentials that we always bring with us, helping us make no plastic waste and be more eco-friendly overall.
Eco travelers have their own Cutlery-Set
Our first eco travel essential is a cutlery-set. It saves so much plastic waste, especially in countries where you eat a lot of street food like in Asian countries. Besides, it’s super practical to have your own cutlery with you when you make pick-nicks along the way, for example, in public transportations or on the road-side. Our cutlery set is from Pureosophy.
Enjoy coconuts with reusable straws
When traveling in the tropics, for us, the best thing is to watch the sunset at the beach every night, and what makes it even better is sipping a fresh coconut with our favorite stainless steel straws. When eating out, it happened a lot to us that when we ordered a juice or drink, they brought us a plastic straw, so we decided to tell them “no straw” please when we ordered and use our own instead. Skipping a straw might be a small thing, but it’s a big change if more people and especially eco travelers do it!
"It's only one straw" said 8 billion people
Shower like an eco traveler with soap bars
Most Shower creams and shampoos come in plastic bottles. It’s always annoying to travel with too many liquids; those are the two reasons we choose to bring soap bars. They are such a practical swap for traveling, make zero-waste, and usually, it’s easy to find a new one when yours is finished. It’s best to buy a little container to store your soap inside.
Use a filter water bottle – the most important gadget for eco travelers
We all need to drink water every day and wherever we are. But there are 1 Million plastic bottles thrown away every minute, and over 60 Million of these are ending up in landfills every single day.
In most countries of the world, it is unfortunately not yet possible to drink water from the tap. But buying water in plastic bottles is really bad for the environment as well as for other people. Usually, the big industries are taking the water to sell in countries where it’s much needed. We don’t want to support any of this, so we decided never to buy bottled water again. But what to do instead!?
There are different kinds of brands you can buy water bottles with an inbuilt filter. We traveled with a bottle from Lifestraw for years and were always happy with it. But the filter has to be changed from time to time, which generates plastic waste as well. We now have a self-cleaning filter bottle from LARQ. It has an inbuilt water purification system that uses UV-light to eliminate 99.9999% of harmful bacteria and viruses in 60 seconds. We are thrilled with this choice for our own health and the health of our beautiful planet. It’s the most important eco travel gadget!
Use a reef-friendly sunscreen to protect the ocean
About 63% of the ingredients of a conventional sunscreen are harmful to our health as well as for the environment. Especially the reefs are suffering from the chemicals that we bring to the water using these sunscreens. It’s about 14 million kilos of sunscreen that ends up in the world’s ocean every year, which causes coral bleaching. So if you buy your next sunscreen, make sure it is one that is reef friendly. That means it is free from synthetic chemicals, preservatives, and perfumes. Also, it is significant for the reef that the Mineral UV-filter is a Non-Nano Zinc Oxide.
Always bring a reusable shopping bag & cotton bags
Our favorite way of grocery shopping while traveling is by going to the local markets to buy fresh veggies and fruits and looking for a Bulk-Store to buy all kinds of things like rice, quinoa, granola, nuts, and more plastic free instead of going to a usual supermarket. That’s why our cotton bags and mesh bags are essential for us. Also, it’s great to have a cotton shopping bag to carry your food, which saves many plastic bags, and a cool reusable shopping bag like this one from Pureosophy definitely looks better than plastic as well, right!?
Wash with laundry strips from Tru Earth
One of the recent finds that we love is the laundry strips from Tru Earth. Finally, a laundry soap that has no plastic packaging is sensitive to the skin and has no harmful ingredients for the environment. Besides they are great to travel with because they don’t use a lot of space in your luggage. Just put one strip to every laundry. The smell is great, as well!
Wear eco-friendly sunglasses
