As we all prepare for the holiday travel season, few people feel the effects harder than those in long distance relationships. Friend of IT Amy McKeever responds to a recent roundup of articles that question her travel habits.
I swear I'm not a bad person. At least I thought so until my travel habits became entangled with my relationships.
You see, I'm an avid traveler, and all of my immediate family members live far away. But the nail in the karma coffin? I'm in a long-distance relationship.
What all of this means, as Barron YoungSmith pointed out in his recent - and, I hope, satiric - Slate article, is that my carbon emissions are single-handedly choking our planet. YoungSmith postulates that people in long-distance relationships are responsible for millions of metric tons of CO2 each year and, to be good stewards of the environment, we should break up. He buttresses the argument by insisting that dating locally is better for our social lives anyway.
Now, I can easily set aside the insinuation that I'm anti-social. After all, anyone in a LDR can tell you that we get out way more often than most of the couples we know who only hang out with each other. I'm also used to others not getting why I would put up with this kind of relationship. I'll just note, as Salon's Tracy Clark-Flory did in her rebuttal to YoungSmith, that most people don't decide to be in a long-distance relationship because they need the frequent flier miles.
What I worry about more than any of these things is whether my passion for travel has earned me a one-way ticket to Dante's inferno. According to reader comments on Clark-Flory's article, yes. I am a glutton for travel. It's one of the seven deadly sins.
OK, I can cop to that. But can I be redeemed?
I swear I'm not a bad person. At least I thought so until my travel habits became entangled with my relationships.You see, I'm an avid traveler, and all of my immediate family members live far away. But the nail in the karma coffin? I'm in a long-distance relationship.
What all of this means, as Barron YoungSmith pointed out in his recent - and, I hope, satiric - Slate article, is that my carbon emissions are single-handedly choking our planet. YoungSmith postulates that people in long-distance relationships are responsible for millions of metric tons of CO2 each year and, to be good stewards of the environment, we should break up. He buttresses the argument by insisting that dating locally is better for our social lives anyway.
Now, I can easily set aside the insinuation that I'm anti-social. After all, anyone in a LDR can tell you that we get out way more often than most of the couples we know who only hang out with each other. I'm also used to others not getting why I would put up with this kind of relationship. I'll just note, as Salon's Tracy Clark-Flory did in her rebuttal to YoungSmith, that most people don't decide to be in a long-distance relationship because they need the frequent flier miles.
What I worry about more than any of these things is whether my passion for travel has earned me a one-way ticket to Dante's inferno. According to reader comments on Clark-Flory's article, yes. I am a glutton for travel. It's one of the seven deadly sins.
OK, I can cop to that. But can I be redeemed?
I think so. Look, there's no question that mass tourism can destroy
ecosystems as well as local cultures. Michael Kelly, a Vancouver-based
tourism planner, points to the burgeoning tourism of Easter Island as an example.
The Polynesian island, overwhelmed by tourism, has been challenged by a
lack of water, lack of accommodations, vandalism of its historical
sights and food supply issues. All this even though it was a lack of sustainability that led to the collapse of the Island's original society hundreds of years ago.
"They kind of hope that tourists will stop coming there, actually," he said.
But they won't stop coming. So, in Kelly's opinion, Easter Island locals and the government of Chile have to work together to manage tourism to the island in order to make it more sustainable. And visitors also have the responsibility to practice environmentally and culturally aware tourism, according to the Easter Island Foundation. They can do so by spending time getting to know the island rather than racing across it.
Sustainable travel, then, was born out of the desire to do no harm to communities like Easter Island - or at least minimize the harm. It's why I make my boyfriend walk everywhere when possible and why we always respect the local culture. This is one important step toward redemption for travelers like me.
But it's important to remember as well that tourism can do more than no harm. Tourism, when carried out responsibly, can benefit a community. When visitors do take their time to get to know a location, they spend money on local businesses. Although tourism has been a source of conflict for the Hopi of Arizona, according to Kelly, many of them still welcome visitors so that they can continue to make a living selling crafts. So when my boyfriend and I meet up for a holiday, we dine at hole-in-the-wall restaurants and shop locally.
There are also other ways that travel can positively affect a community. If it's done right, Kelly said, tourism can support infrastructure development and heritage preservation in a community. After all, if the history of a place is what brings in the tourists, that creates an incentive for smart communities to save their historic buildings and maintain and authentic space. Without the economic benefit from tourism, these communities might otherwise let their historic sites rot. Our history ought to be at least as important to preserve as our environment.
So, in the end, responsible travel is a balancing act. I'm not so sure I would be saving the world if I decided to date locally and never leave Washington, D.C. - in fact, these isolationist principles may actually do more harm than good. On the other hand, a breeze-through cruise to Easter Island may not help the local economy at all. So when my long-distance boyfriend and I do plan trips, we should reward places that practice historic preservation, and spend our money at local businesses. In other words, we should try to counteract our harm with our help.
But I have to admit that YoungSmith is right about one thing: We should definitely not plan to stay long-distance forever. But who does?
Photo: YACHT via the Intelligent Travel Flickr pool
"They kind of hope that tourists will stop coming there, actually," he said.
But they won't stop coming. So, in Kelly's opinion, Easter Island locals and the government of Chile have to work together to manage tourism to the island in order to make it more sustainable. And visitors also have the responsibility to practice environmentally and culturally aware tourism, according to the Easter Island Foundation. They can do so by spending time getting to know the island rather than racing across it.
Sustainable travel, then, was born out of the desire to do no harm to communities like Easter Island - or at least minimize the harm. It's why I make my boyfriend walk everywhere when possible and why we always respect the local culture. This is one important step toward redemption for travelers like me.
But it's important to remember as well that tourism can do more than no harm. Tourism, when carried out responsibly, can benefit a community. When visitors do take their time to get to know a location, they spend money on local businesses. Although tourism has been a source of conflict for the Hopi of Arizona, according to Kelly, many of them still welcome visitors so that they can continue to make a living selling crafts. So when my boyfriend and I meet up for a holiday, we dine at hole-in-the-wall restaurants and shop locally.
There are also other ways that travel can positively affect a community. If it's done right, Kelly said, tourism can support infrastructure development and heritage preservation in a community. After all, if the history of a place is what brings in the tourists, that creates an incentive for smart communities to save their historic buildings and maintain and authentic space. Without the economic benefit from tourism, these communities might otherwise let their historic sites rot. Our history ought to be at least as important to preserve as our environment.
So, in the end, responsible travel is a balancing act. I'm not so sure I would be saving the world if I decided to date locally and never leave Washington, D.C. - in fact, these isolationist principles may actually do more harm than good. On the other hand, a breeze-through cruise to Easter Island may not help the local economy at all. So when my long-distance boyfriend and I do plan trips, we should reward places that practice historic preservation, and spend our money at local businesses. In other words, we should try to counteract our harm with our help.
But I have to admit that YoungSmith is right about one thing: We should definitely not plan to stay long-distance forever. But who does?
Photo: YACHT via the Intelligent Travel Flickr pool
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Could be worse, you could have a long distance relationship with an inhabitant of Easter Island! Good piece!