save carbon emmissions – Walking without a donkey

I’m championing Slow Travel, blogging about going overland on foot, by train, bus, Bla Bla Car, or ferry. I began in 2016 by taking a boat to Santander from Portsmouth across the Bay of Biscay, and walking around Spain, including from Pamplona to Santiago de Compostella (most of the Camino Frances) which took 5 weeks (approx. 410 miles / 660 kms). Then in 2023, I decided ‘no more aeroplanes for me’.

Pyrenees on the Walter Benjamin Trail 2023

There are several reasons why I’m doing this: the most important two are to avoid producing carbon emissions when flying, and the pleasure I get from being able to feel the ground under me and see the places I’m passing through. Ideally, I would walk, and I’ve done a lot of that, but I generally move between cities on wheels on a method of transport where I’m sharing with other people. I’m concerned about global warming and climate change, and would prefer not to be responsible for making it any worse, if possible.

This type of journey is slower. It takes more preparation time, and is often more expensive too, which means that I must incorporate the travel days into my itinerary rather than adding them on to the beginning and end of a holiday. I have chosen to make this a part of my life and art, and I know how lucky I am, privileged, to be able to do that. I stop off whenever I get an invitation to give Shiatsu, exchanging with people as I go, which means that I often meander instead of going in a straight line.

Toulouse-Matabiau train station between Paris and Girona

Between 2016 and early 2023, I did fly (although I often walked from the airport to where I was staying eg in Dublin), so you will find that info in the older blogs (see below, when I went to Croatia, for example. I flew from Paris to Milan and took buses from there to Zagreb.)