Your Sustainable Travel Suitcase - Here’s What You Need To Pack

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Satisfying your wanderlust and planting your footprints firmly around the globe does not mean that you have to leave a negative environmental footprint from your travels. Reducing your carbon footprint and choosing sustainable alternatives to lower your impact is possible, even while traversing the world and exploring new places.

Here are some of the items you can include in your sustainable suitcase to help you travel sustainably!

Water Bottle With Filter

Depending on where your travel plans take you, there may not be reliable, clean drinking water available at any moment. Having an on-the-go water filtration system lets you open up your travel options to new places, while avoiding lugging around heavy and wasteful bottled water. A water bottle with a filter lets you draw water from any source, including lakes, rivers and ponds, and confidently drink that water without worry of contamination. James, an eco blogger at PaperFellows and BoomEssays explains the value in having this item packed with him, “Having a great reusable water bottle with a built-in filter means my travel options are blown wide open! I can jump in my kayak and go as far as I please, without thinking about where I’ll be able to find water!”

Bamboo Toothbrush

Did you know a plastic toothbrush can take over 400 years to break down and decompose? If you’re taking a disposable plastic toothbrush with you on your travels, that brush is going to still be on this earth long after your plane has touched down back home. “I used to go out and buy a new plastic toothbrush before each trip I took, until I realized how incredibly wasteful and unsustainable I was being!” says Meagan, travel writer at StateOfWriting and EssayRoo. Bamboo toothbrushes are not only made from naturally grown plants, but they aren’t plastic, so they’ll actually decompose!  

Quick-Dry Towel

While moving from place to place, the last thing you’ll want is a damp, musty towel stuffed into your luggage. Not only does it need to be washed more frequently, but it will also slow down your travels, or lead to you having to wash your entire suitcase full of clothes. A quick-dry towel can be a little pricier than a normal cloth towel, so it may be a bit of an investment to get a good quality one. But, you’ll almost instantly see the benefits!

SteriPen

Water is life, but if you’re travelling remotely or to a location where the only drinkable water is bottled, you may want to keep a UV light sterilizing pen, like the SteriPen, in your suitcase. Of course, if the name of the game is sustainable travel, you will want to avoid purchasing bottled water if at all possible. But, you’ve got to make sure the water you’re consuming is safe as well. SteriPen checks off both of those boxes, sterilizing any water quickly, for your safe consumption. It does not have batteries, so if you’re taking this along with you, you will want to ensure there’s a way to charge the battery via USB. It’s easy to use, compact and lightweight, so it’s not going to take up a ton of space in your luggage.

Sewing Kit

Acting in a sustainable manner means getting the most life out of anything you have and avoiding being wasteful. A sewing kit is extremely helpful in this way, since you can use it to essentially repair any fabric or materials you have, from clothing to blankets and even your luggage. A seam coming undone or a small repair needed should not mean the end of the road for a well loved piece of clothing. And, even clothes that are made from natural materials can take up to 200 years to decompose in the landfill, so the more life that can be stretched out of each piece, the better.

Sustainability and travel do not have to remain separate in their own worlds. It’s entirely possible to bring the two together, so you can enjoy the beauty and excitement that the world has to offer, all while protecting its future.

Emily Henry is a sustainable tourism expert and writer for Essay Service and Academized. She also provides her expertise as a tutor at Dissertation Writing Service.

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