What is Sustainable Travel? A Simplified Guide
A concise guide to sustainable travel terms and what responsible tourism actually means in practice.
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Travel is one of the most rewarding ways to experience the world, but it’s also easy to unintentionally cause harm. We’ve loved exploring the world over the last few years, but we haven’t loved all that we’ve seen along the way. From over-touristed beaches and plastic pollution to wildlife exploitation and communities pushed out by rising costs, tourism can create serious problems if we’re not careful with our impact.
It’s taken us a long time to publish this post because we wanted the information in it to be perfect. But the truth is that sustainable travel isn’t about being perfect – it’s about trying to be better. Sustainable travel is about making choices that minimise harm and maximise benefits for the places we visit, so as clichĂ© as it sounds, it’s a journey. It’s not just about eco-friendly hotels or reusable water bottles, it’s about considering the impact of your decisions on the environment, local communities, and the economy.
We’ve realised that travel isn’t just about seeing the world, but that it’s more rewarding to leave it better off. In this post, we break down exactly what sustainable travel means, why it matters, and how you can make your trips better for yourself, the planet, and the people who live on it. We’ll cover practical steps, examples from real destinations, and tips you can use on your next trip, so you can explore responsibly without feeling like you’re giving anything up.
What is sustainable travel?
Sustainable tourism is designed to minimise the negative impacts of travel on the environment, society, and economy while maximising positive contributions to local communities and ecosystems. In other words, it’s about exploring the world responsibly, so that tourism today doesn’t harm the ability of future generations to enjoy the same places.
“Tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities”.
United Nations World Tourism Organization
More Sustainable Travel Guides
The three pillars of sustainable travel
It wasn’t until we started travelling that we were even introduced to the concept of travelling sustainably. It took years for us to fully wrap our heads around what sustainable travel means and all its components, but the UN World Commission on Environment and Development established three key pillars which simplify it.
The main pillars of sustainable travel are:
- The environment
- Societies
- The economy
Environmental
The environmental pillar focuses on protecting the natural world – the land, oceans, wildlife, biodiversity, and natural resources found on Earth. It’s about reducing your environmental impact, like pollution, conserving resources, and leaving ecosystems healthier than you found them.
Social
The social pillar refers to respecting and supporting local communities, and societies like indigenous or resident people. Sociocultural factors include protecting local culture, traditions, and rights, while making sure tourism benefits the people who live there.
Economic
The economic pillar is all about money, where it goes when it’s spent, and who it benefits. Economic sustainability ensures that tourism benefits the destination financially, rather than funnelling money back to international corporations.
Why sustainable travel matters
Sustainable travel matters because every choice you make as a traveller has ripple effects on the environment, on local communities, and on the economies of the places you visit.
Tourism is huge – it accounts for around 10% of global GDP and jobs. When tourism isn’t managed carefully, it can have really negative consequences.
Fragile ecosystems like coral reefs, rainforests, and mountain environments can be damaged by pollution, overuse, and poorly planned development. Plastic waste, for example, is a huge problem – the United Nations Environment Programme estimates that around one garbage truck of plastic enters our oceans every minute. That affects not just wildlife, but the health of oceans and communities that rely on them.
Tourism can also create social and economic challenges. In some destinations, up to 50% of tourism income for developing countries is lost through import leakage instead of supporting local businesses and communities – a phenomenon known as tourism leakage. Cultural tensions can arise when visitors don’t respect local customs, and the commodification of traditions can turn meaningful heritage into just another tourist attraction.
On the flip side, sustainable travel allows tourism to be a force for good. When done right, it protects the environment, supports local communities, and ensures the places we love to visit can continue to thrive for generations to come. Little decisions, like staying in locally owned accommodations, supporting small businesses, and choosing tours that treat wildlife ethically, might feel like small actions, but collectively they make a significant difference.
Simplifying sustainable travel terms
There are many different ways to describe sustainable travel and it can be confusing to understand the difference between descriptions that are very similar. We’ve already defined sustainable travel, but here are some frequently used terms often used to describe travel in a sustainable capacity.
Responsible Travel
Responsible travel is more personal than sustainable travel, although the term is often thrown around just as much. It focuses on the choices you make as a traveller (your responsibility), like how you behave, what you spend your money on, and how you treat local communities and ecosystems. Rather than focus on organisations, responsible travel embodies a sense of personal responsibility and focuses on how you can individually travel more sustainably.
Responsible tourism is about “creating better places for people to live in and better places for people to visit”.
Centre for Responsible Travel
Regenerative Travel
Regenerative travel goes a step further than sustainability. It’s not just about maintaining resources, but leaving places better than you found them. Regenerative practices might include volunteering for habitat restoration, supporting projects that rebuild ecosystems, or staying at initiatives that actively contribute to environmental or social recovery.
Ethical Travel
Ethicality refers to the moral principles of right and wrong, so ethical travel is about doing what’s right, particularly in relation to living beings, like a society of people or species of animal. You’ll most likely hear about ethical tourism in conversations about wildlife tourism, human rights, and community respect.
Overtourism
Overtourism, often caused by mass tourism, happens when a destination gets too many visitors for its environment or infrastructure to handle safely and comfortably. It can lead to crowded streets, damaged ecosystems, rising costs for locals, cultural erosion, and local frustration.
Tourism Leakage
Tourism leakage describes the portion of tourism revenue that leaves the local economy, often going to international corporations instead of benefiting local communities. It’s fuelled by consumer decisions, like people spending money at internationally-owned chains instead of local businesses.
Extractive Tourism
Extractive tourism is essentially the opposite of regenerative tourism. It happens when tourism extracts resources without giving back, often degrading natural or cultural assets. It overlaps with overtourism and tourism leakage, but emphasises damage and depletion rather than the number of visitors.
Ecotourism
Ecotourism is travel that focuses on uniting conservation, communities, and sustainable travel. It’s generally used to describe experiencing nature responsibly, in a way that’s positive for visitors and locals, as well as the environment and animals that inhabit it. Eco-tours typically promote conservation, environmental awareness, and minimal impact.
“A type of nature-based activity, in which the visitor’s essential motivation is to observe, learn, discover, experience and appreciate biological and cultural diversity, with a responsible attitude, to protect the integrity of the ecosystem and to promote the well-being of the local community”.
UN Tourism
Wildlife Tourism
Wildlife tourism is any activity that involves an animal. It can include interacting with animals in their habitats or in captivity, as well as passively observing. Sadly, around 75% of wildlife attractions globally involve some form of animal cruelty or negative welfare conditions. But ethical wildlife tourism prioritises animal welfare, avoids exploitation, and supports conservation, leading to a better experience for the animal, the planet, and you.
Greenwashing
Greenwashing is when a company claims to be sustainable or eco-friendly but doesn’t back it up with meaningful action. Sustainability and similar terms have become unregulated marketing buzzwords used to mislead consumers and unfairly profit from the growing demand for genuinely sustainable travel. Watch out for vague statements like ‘eco-conscious’ or ‘green-certified’ without a trusted, verifiable source.
Community-based tourism
Community-based tourism puts local communities in charge of tourism and ensures they directly benefit economically and socially. This approach often includes cultural tours, homestays, voluntourism, or local-run accommodations.
Slow travel
Slow travel is about slowing down your pace, spending more time in one place, and engaging more deeply with local culture, nature, and communities. It can also reduce carbon emissions by cutting frequent flights and encourage more meaningful travel experiences.
Carbon footprint/offsetting
Your carbon footprint is the total greenhouse gas emissions that you generate. When you travel, this is mainly produced by flights, transportation, and accommodations. Tourism contributes to around 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, highlighting the importance of making lower-impact travel choices.
Carbon offsetting means investing in projects that reduce or remove emissions, like reforestation or renewable energy projects, to counterbalance your impact.
Eco-friendly vs environmentally-friendly
Eco-friendly and environmentally-friendly are often used interchangeably with each other, as well as the term ‘sustainable’, but actually only refer to impact on the ecosystem or environment. Eco-friendly usually refers specifically to products or practices that don’t harm the environment, like reef-safe sunscreen or biodegradable toiletries. Environmentally-friendly is broader but still mainly about general environmental impact, not social or economic effects.
How to travel more sustainably
Sustainable travel isn’t about doing everything perfectly. It’s about being aware of your impact, making better choices where you can, and supporting destinations in ways that benefit both people and the planet.
Just as there’s no perfect way to live sustainably, there’s no perfect way to travel sustainably. Small, consistent actions, like choosing local, independent businesses, visiting responsibly, and considering timing and context, add up.
All three pillars – environmental, social, and economic – need to be considered. As the Global Sustainable Tourism Council defines, true sustainability balances environmental protection, cultural preservation, social benefits, and economic viability. Essentially, sustainable travel is about travelling better, spending smarter, and experiencing places more authentically.
For practical ways to put these principles into action, check out our guide on How to Be a More Responsible Traveller.
Resources and further reading
Core Global Organisations
Environmental & Conservation
Ocean & Reef Protection
Certifications & Greenwashing
Carbon & Climate
Read next:
65 Ways to Be a More Responsible Traveller That Actually Make a Difference
The Dark Side of Travel: Negative Impacts of Tourism
Let’s Talk About Overtourism: What is it & Why is it a Problem?
Let’s Talk About Tourism Leakage: What is it & How to Combat it?
Let’s Talk About Ecotourism: Is It Really Sustainable?
