Traveling with Juliet Kinsman’s The Green Edit
A pioneering voice in sustainable travel brings us a smart, fun and accessible guide for a positive impact getaway.
Over the last few years, Juliet Kinsman has become one of the leading ambassadors for green travel, so it only feels natural to feature her slim but powerful The Green Edit: Travel as the second Heyterra book of the month.
The subtitle, “Easy tips for the eco-friendly traveller,” says it all. This book lays out one practical tool after another, guiding readers through the process of a more responsible trip from planning all the way to activism on the ground. Despite its wealth of information, the book’s small size makes it easy to zip through pre-departure, bring along for further reference, or pass on to a friend. And, of course, the print version is issued using FSC-certified paper.
On the Heyterra platform, we often talk about the importance of doing prior research in order to lessen the negative impacts of our travel. Kinsman, who also covers responsible travel as Condè Nast Traveller’s sustainability editor and has since published the The Bucket List Eco Experiences: Traveling the World, Sustaining the Earth, makes this project much less daunting. She doesn’t hit the reader over the head with guilt or dig into flowery or overly technical language. She simply weaves the facts in with digestible actions everyone can take, from what to leave at home (single-use anything) to what to leave space for in your suitcase. She offers a helpful list of “twin” destinations, the alternative option to an overtouristed place (Treviso instead of Venice, for the Italophiles). She lists which certifications to look out for when booking hotels and other services. She even includes a handy “Address Book” including a juicy rolodex of organizations and other resources to draw further inspiration from.
Even with the best of intentions, becoming a more responsible traveler takes time. As Kinsman says herself in the opening pages, “The problem is that the effect of our actions can feel intangible– as though it’s a drop in the ocean. But each drop has a ripple effect. Even if you only taken on board one or two tips from this book, just those could make a difference to a family somewhere soon, and countless of their relatives in the future (13).” We couldn’t agree more.
Nobody can transform completely overnight but building these steps into our travel routines at a realistic pace will go a long way to benefiting our environment and the communities we visit around the planet.
Overlapping Heyterra values with The Green Edit quotes
Why we travel: “Holidays are a valuable time to engage young 'uns with nature and culture, but in a relaxed way.”
On offsetting: “Planting trees is a wonderful thing to counter carbon, but shouldn’t be considered an easy offsetting fix.”
Keep it local: “Leaving a place better than we found it is a good guide to gallivanting.”
Getting around: “How we get from A to B whether in our daily lives or when we travel, is seriously significant.”
As with any source of information in the rapidly developing sustainable travel movement, some details might not be completely up to date. But the core message running through these pages still rings truer than ever, providing an informed, achievable framework for change on the individual level.
