IMHO, the best way to discourage flying for short-haul is to make alternate transport sound easy or appealing.
Many of us are used to thinking of the train as an easy way to go.... But I'm thinking of people like my mother who lives in a place without a train station. For her, taking a train feels unfamiliar and therefore difficult.
If I was looking with my mother at a guidebook for a Java trip, and we wanted to hit Jakarta and Yogyakarta, I'd be delighted to read something like:
"Express trains run from J to Y every 2 hours, and take around 6 hrs. Trains are clean and comfy with dining cars onboard, and standard class (at time of writing) is about $20 (book a few days in advance at www.x.com). They go from station X in the SE of J (20 min by taxi from the city centre) and arrive at Y's main central station."
If I read that, my thoughts would be "okay, that sounds easy, and answers all my mum's likely questions (where do I go, how do I get there, how often, how long, how much, do i need to pack sandwiches, etc.)"
Hi Antonia, yeah, this is the sort of thing I’m considering. I think, especially for first-time visitors, there is also the familiarity of flying, they know how it works etc, while foreign train/bus stations have their own quirks etc. so perhaps needs more introducing.
I think another thing you can do with regards to flying is highlight how long the whole process takes. Most train stations are central and you need to be there only a few minutes before your train. Airports tend to be out of town and you need to arrive at least 90 minutes early (longer during Covid, I assume): so you can say something like "this is a 45-minute flight, or 4.5-hour if you factor in the time taken to reach the airport, wait at the airport, and get into town from the airport. The bus takes six hours and costs a dollar, and you have snack breaks.
I have a piece coming to fruition about responsible travel writing (well, responsible travel), but a few thoughts/suggestions:
Flying is an easy way for you to be green as you don't monetise it (and it's also going to be one of the faster-impact, higher-impact ways), so why not be a bit holier than thou? You could keep the flying section but add a disclaimer about how every time you are flying you are frying the planet and you should be asking yourself if you can do this trip overland. You could drop the flying section or up the disclaimer for routes that really shouldn't be flown (short hops that are easy to do by train/bus: even consider "this is a 5-hour bus ride or 3 tonnes of CO2 to take the plane - which would you rather"). There are routes in VN that simply shouldn't be flown because you can take the train; no one should be flying KL-Singapore; etcetera.
Slow travel is a big part of the picture: people need to take long, slow trips for longer, and stop doing weekends away. If you're going to burn up the planet, better get a long trip out of it. So I think the "48 hours in...." model of travel writing, which is effectively encouraging people to fly somewhere for a weekend, hit the top sights and then fuck off again, needs to have a stake through its heart pronto. (I don't know if you do this or not.)
The cultural stuff is a tricky one to negotiate.
With hotels, I think you can call out bullshit when you see it and highlight negative environmental aspects in your reviews. "This hotel says it's green cos it has a veggie garden. Unfortunately, it's also got private pools for every villa and a coal power energy footprint the size of a small planet. If you don't care about this stuff, the rooms are lovely."
Yeah, think having a section in the flights section saying “these are the routes you should not fly but catch the train/bus/pony/whatever” instead, is a good, easy soft power approach. Now I just have to write them! You know my thoughts on the hotel stuff!
have you looked at making your website greener: using a host that uses renewable energy, simpler designs etc etc.
No I haven’t, hadn’t even thought of that. Great idea. Will add to the list, thanks.
loads on the net about it, there's this for a start: https://www.thegreenwebfoundation.org/
Thank you!
IMHO, the best way to discourage flying for short-haul is to make alternate transport sound easy or appealing.
Many of us are used to thinking of the train as an easy way to go.... But I'm thinking of people like my mother who lives in a place without a train station. For her, taking a train feels unfamiliar and therefore difficult.
If I was looking with my mother at a guidebook for a Java trip, and we wanted to hit Jakarta and Yogyakarta, I'd be delighted to read something like:
"Express trains run from J to Y every 2 hours, and take around 6 hrs. Trains are clean and comfy with dining cars onboard, and standard class (at time of writing) is about $20 (book a few days in advance at www.x.com). They go from station X in the SE of J (20 min by taxi from the city centre) and arrive at Y's main central station."
If I read that, my thoughts would be "okay, that sounds easy, and answers all my mum's likely questions (where do I go, how do I get there, how often, how long, how much, do i need to pack sandwiches, etc.)"
Hi Antonia, yeah, this is the sort of thing I’m considering. I think, especially for first-time visitors, there is also the familiarity of flying, they know how it works etc, while foreign train/bus stations have their own quirks etc. so perhaps needs more introducing.
I think another thing you can do with regards to flying is highlight how long the whole process takes. Most train stations are central and you need to be there only a few minutes before your train. Airports tend to be out of town and you need to arrive at least 90 minutes early (longer during Covid, I assume): so you can say something like "this is a 45-minute flight, or 4.5-hour if you factor in the time taken to reach the airport, wait at the airport, and get into town from the airport. The bus takes six hours and costs a dollar, and you have snack breaks.
I have a piece coming to fruition about responsible travel writing (well, responsible travel), but a few thoughts/suggestions:
Flying is an easy way for you to be green as you don't monetise it (and it's also going to be one of the faster-impact, higher-impact ways), so why not be a bit holier than thou? You could keep the flying section but add a disclaimer about how every time you are flying you are frying the planet and you should be asking yourself if you can do this trip overland. You could drop the flying section or up the disclaimer for routes that really shouldn't be flown (short hops that are easy to do by train/bus: even consider "this is a 5-hour bus ride or 3 tonnes of CO2 to take the plane - which would you rather"). There are routes in VN that simply shouldn't be flown because you can take the train; no one should be flying KL-Singapore; etcetera.
Slow travel is a big part of the picture: people need to take long, slow trips for longer, and stop doing weekends away. If you're going to burn up the planet, better get a long trip out of it. So I think the "48 hours in...." model of travel writing, which is effectively encouraging people to fly somewhere for a weekend, hit the top sights and then fuck off again, needs to have a stake through its heart pronto. (I don't know if you do this or not.)
The cultural stuff is a tricky one to negotiate.
With hotels, I think you can call out bullshit when you see it and highlight negative environmental aspects in your reviews. "This hotel says it's green cos it has a veggie garden. Unfortunately, it's also got private pools for every villa and a coal power energy footprint the size of a small planet. If you don't care about this stuff, the rooms are lovely."
Yeah, think having a section in the flights section saying “these are the routes you should not fly but catch the train/bus/pony/whatever” instead, is a good, easy soft power approach. Now I just have to write them! You know my thoughts on the hotel stuff!