If you are an eco-conscious person and you love sustainable tourism, you will probably have made some considerations to respect the environment even on vacation .
For example, you will have chosen to reach your destination with a less polluting means of transport than others, you will be informed about where to rent a bicycle for small journeys and you will have chosen to stay in a structure that supports eco-friendly policies.
In any case, whatever your destination, the means by which you will reach it and the place where you will be staying, there are 5 things you can do before departure, to respect the environment and also save some money .
Eco Holidays: unplug everything before leaving
Many electronic devices in the home continue to consume energy even when they are turned off. To avoid this, simply disconnect all electronic devices and appliances that you do not need to keep on before you leave .
If they are connected to switches, it will be sufficient to deactivate them, otherwise it will be necessary to switch off any power strips or to pull out the plug directly.
In doing so, in addition to reducing energy consumption, electrical devices will be preserved from problems that may be caused during summer storms.
Eco holidays: reduce the consumption of the fridge and freezer
There are appliances that you avoid disconnecting, at the top of the fridge and freezer list. In fact, you can take advantage of your vacation to empty them, defrost them, clean them and leave them empty and off, especially if the period of absence will be quite long.
Otherwise, to save energy, it is advisable to lower the refrigerating power of the refrigerator and freezer.
Eco holidays: don't leave the plants
If there are plants on the balconies and / or terraces of the house, do not let them die during their absence. The ideal would be to have a person of trust to go and water them, from time to time, but if this is not possible, it is necessary to gear up before leaving.
If you only go away for a few days, simply place a bottle upside down in the ground or fill the saucers with water, so that the plant slowly absorbs the necessary water.
If the absence is longer it will be necessary to think of some slightly more sophisticated irrigation methods, which will be evaluated based on the duration of the holiday.
What is meant by responsible tourism?
Eco holidays: choose the right products
On vacation, you know, when you go to a place that you don't know, it's not easy to find immediately what we need and, therefore, even when we are very attentive to the choice of natural products with low environmental impact, we risk taking the first which happens to us under the eyes because we don't know where to go to buy our usual products.
To prevent this from happening, there are two solutions: start at home already equipped with vegetable oils, sunscreens, low-impact anti-mosquito repellents, or inform us before leaving where to buy this kind of products in our holiday destination .
The web will be of great help to find all the information we need.
Eco vacation: the suitcase
Okay to bring us our favorite vegetable oil and our natural mosquito repellent, but be careful not to overdo purchases, especially with those not strictly useful: the superfluous is never echoed .
Therefore, before leaving, we draw up a list of the things we need, trying to adopt solutions that do not have an excessive environmental impact and avoiding disposables as much as possible.
Here are some examples of eco objects that we can pack:
- cotton bags, to avoid using plastic ones to store shoes, linens etc.;
- a water bottle, so as not to buy water bottles every day;
- a soft plastic bib, if we have small children, not to buy the disposable ones; it will be enough for us to wash it under running water at every meal and it will last far beyond our children's childhood;
- a shopping bag, to keep always with us, so as not to always have to resort to plastic bags.
