Conscious travel pumps us full of unique memories

Conscious, real travel does all of this, pumping us full of unique memories. It releases us back into our everyday lives, a little more relaxed, tanned and more knowing. Sustainable travel is a form of travel that unites our explorer: the urge to explore and experience with the awareness that we have a responsibility for our environment. This responsibility also and especially remains in our free time. “A New Normal” of travel.

The long journey to Lesbos by land and sea

My friend and colleague Hannes decided on exactly this type of travel last year. Instead of clicking a quick flight ticket, he set off on the long land and sea route to the Greek island of Lesbos on his sabbatical in January 2020.

When Hannes arrives on Lesbos to start his work at the Refugee Camp, he and his girlfriend have had a long, exciting journey: 14 hours on the ICE and night train from Berlin via Munich to Venice; one and a half day crossing by ship from Venice to the Greek port city of Pakra; three hours drive to the Greek capital; a short metro ride from Athens to the port city of Piraeus and a night ferry ride to Mytilene on Lesbos. Just the listing of the numerous stops makes me very tired. But when Hannes talks about the trip, he doesn't talk about exhaustion or exertion.

The many stopovers invite you to slow down

Instead, he talks about the cozy night trains of the Austrian Federal Railways, which are actually the old outsourced night trains of the Deutsche Bahn. He raves about the forced deceleration on the ship trip to Greece, during which he was able to sleep wonderfully in the bunk. Besides that, there was so little to do here that he could finish a book with nothing but the sea in sight. He remembers the scenic view on the train ride to Athens along the Gulf of Corinth and the Gulf of Megara. And talks about playing cards on the deck at night during the ferry crossing to the last island that separates the EU from Turkey - and also about the queasy feeling of being in those waters where so many asylum seekers risk their lives. Finally, he talks about how important it was to him not to start his volunteer work on Lesvos with a greenhouse gas-heavy flight.

Hannes did not want to start his voluntary work with a flight that was heavy with greenhouse gases

The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) According to the limitation of the global heating to 1,5 ° C can hardly be adhered to. Accordingly, the minimum target is that each of us only causes one tonne of CO2 emissions per year in order to prevent the triggering of irreversible climate tipping points. A average: r Germans: r currently carries 10 times that amount at. Flying is by no means the only cause of greenhouse gas emissions, but it has enormous savings potential for the individual "CO2 consumption" of a human. A return flight from Berlin to Lesbos alone emits 990 kilograms of CO2 per passenger and thus takes up a large part of the fictitious annual budget (source: atmosfair.de). It is therefore not surprising that Air travel increasingly critical be questioned, especially on short journeys for which there are simple land routes. Hannes does not look back on a strenuous long-distance journey, but on a tiring research that lasted longer than the 3-day trip itself.

Inspiration with a beer after work

Back then, he told Dom and me over a beer after work how long he and his girlfriend tossed and turned different options, compared prices and laboriously clicked from one booking portal to the next - and repeatedly asked ourselves whether the environment was really affecting them so is important (of course she was and they didn't give up).

We were impressed by their stamina and thanked them with a beer. Finally, we wondered what we could do to stop planning sustainable travel from being an ordeal. And that's how the idea for NoMoreFlights.com, a travel platform that inspires land travel, was born that evening.