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Whee…it’s Earth Day, a Hallmark holiday for green living.  Just like Valentines Day is the one day a year we’re all expected to be lovey-dovey and buy heart shaped chocolates and flowers for our sweethearts, Earth Day is the day we clean up our local parks, turn off lights, forego the hairdryer and the car in lieu of air drying and walking…all of which is just great, but we only have to do it today, right?!

Forgive my cynicism.  I appreciate all the folks who are turning out today to volunteer and to do their part for the earth, I do.  But I would much prefer Earth Day to be more of a New Years kind of holiday – a day to make resolutions about the days and months ahead about what all of us can personally commit to doing on an ongoing basis to maintain and improve this precious place for generations to come – to make sure our grandkids can learn to snorkel amidst the coral reefs and know that polar bears still exist beyond bedtime stories; to carry on the conservationist ways of our grandparents’ generation (my grandma reuses Ziplocs and tinfoil until they are no longer recognizable as such and has been composting since before the word was invented); to get our kids out into nature as often as possible, to keep our public lands clean year around, and to take long term measures to reduce our dependence on non-renewable energy resources.

When it comes to travel, I’ve often heard folks say that they are at the whim of the airline they fly, the hotel they stay at, etc. But you do have a choice when it comes to those providers, and some are far better than others when it comes to eco-friendly practices.  If you just do a little research before you make your travel bookings, you can figure out, for example, which hotels have sustainable practices in place. Or if you don’t have time for research, or would simply prefer to stick with the company that awards you all those loyalty points, you can easily offset your trip’s carbon footprint in a couple clicks.

You could also take a much more active role in making good with the communities you visit and thus the earth as a whole by volunteering while you’re traveling. Whether you take one day out of a seven-day itinerary to help clean up a local park or stock shelves at a food bank, or devote an entire vacation to the cause of your choice, from caring for landmine victims in Cambodia to studying global warming in the Arctic, there are a ton of options and sweat-equity is the absolute-best way to feel good about traveling.

In an era when travel gets villainized not only as a major global warming contributor but also wasteful spending in a time of necessary thrift, it’s essential that we remember the good that can come from travel, and the rising voluntourism tide can go a long way to fend off those claims. But so can some basic concepts: like the power of a handshake, or a hug; the memory of the nose-full of salt water you got the first time you played in the ocean or the sense of awe you get when you stare out over the vast expanse of the Grand Canyon (talk about pictures not doing things justice…); the connection you feel with someone with whom you share nothing—not language, not culture, not world view--in common except your humanity when you stand side-by-side digging a well to provide clean water for a tiny village, guarding a nest of sea turtle eggs on the beach in the middle of the night, or playing soccer with orphans in a shantytown. Those moments leave no doubt in my mind that travel is not only not the villain, but it is absolutely part of the long-term solution for saving the planet.  

So happy Earth Day, I suppose. But I’ll be much happier when it trumps January 1 as the primary resolution-making holiday. Aren’t most of us too hungover on New Years Day to think clearly anyway?