A new era in responsible travel? The Local Travel Movement and what it means to Loco2Travel

“Safe but Soulless” reads Ethan Gelber’s diagnosis of conventional modern travel (see here). A world of guide books, disassociation and irresponsible economic behaviour. Whilst we may buy Fairtrade at home and carry a bag-for-life around a farmers market in South London, we often proceed to get drunk, eat from McDonalds, and flout cultural norms in host countries when on holiday… Hmmm, anyone else smell hypocrisy?

Well, in short, yes! And in fact the newly formed Local Travel Movement is showing that there are a whole host of like-minded travellers and organisations out there that not only recognise the importance of authentic local travel, but are prepared to put their name down in support of it.

In less than a week the Local Travel Movement has snowballed, and there are already over thirty partners in the tourism industry who are entering into long overdue dialogue about how responsible tourism affects us all. From Couchsurfing, whose ethos of cultural exchange, friendship and a place to rest your head has long been awarded our respect, to Ger to Ger, whose Mongolian expeditions showed me that authentic travel sometimes means eating an offal lot of goat, it is already clear that going local is becoming global.

Here at Loco2 we’re not just about conserving CO2, and while we’re prone to a little soap-boxery when it comes to opting for lower emission transport, we’re also keen to emphasize that overland travel makes the journey itself part of the adventure.

Continue reading this article on the Loco2Travel blog