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Leave no trace behind
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Outdoor adventures are something that more people should be doing. That’s because it helps improve your physical and mental health. At the same time, traveling allows you to explore more of the world.
Nonetheless, you have to be a responsible traveler if you want to keep on enjoying these majestic places. Here are eight tips you should follow to be a responsible traveler:
Invest in Quality Gears
Many outdoor adventures are exciting, but they also require you to go out of your usually safe bubble. What’s excellent about outdoor adventures is that they most likely ask you to rely on yourself, but it also requires you to rely on your gear.
When you’re out in the wild outdoors, you will have nothing but yourself and your gear with you, so you want to make sure that both are in top shape. Aside from being reliable yourself, you also want to make sure that the gear you bring with you is trustworthy and of high quality.
For example, if you’re going on a hike, you’re probably going to be using trekking poles to help keep you stable and so many more. When choosing to buy one, it’s a good idea to select high-quality ones. If you’re resting a portion of your body weight on your trekking poles, you wouldn’t want to relax your body on poor-quality trekking poles.
It can be dangerous for you while on the trail, and you might get yourself into an avoidable accident. That’s why you should invest in quality gear.
Choose Your Destination Wisely
When choosing your next destination for an outdoor adventure, you might want to be more discerning.
By doing some quick Google research, you’ll find that many popular travel destinations, like resorts and the like, are not the most eco-friendly places. Even if they say they are, you should do a bit of research to ensure that they also walk the walk.
There are plenty of fantastic outdoor destinations that are also sustainable and can also be helping the local community. Unfortunately, many popular travel destinations worldwide take advantage of or bulldoze over local communities. If you want to be a more responsible traveler, you have to take account of that.
You don’t have to worry. You aren’t missing out on many things because more and more outdoor adventure destinations are sustainable. You can enjoy traveling without compromising on your morals.
Reduce Single-use Packaging
When choosing what to bring with you, avoid getting items that have single-use packaging or avoid single-use things overall.
An example of something you might bring with you while traveling that is single-use would be plastic water bottles. You’ll find that there are signs of plastic bottles there, which you hate to see even in the most remote places.
As an outdoors person, you don’t want to contribute to that, and there’s no excuse to because there are plenty of reusable items for things these days. For example, there are reusable water bottles that you can constantly refill, and they can even maintain the temperature of the liquid.
Bring Biodegradable Products
If you’re going to bring any products out into the environment, you might want to get biodegradable ones.
For example, toiletries may feel harmless, but they can also contain chemicals that don’t degrade fast. That’s why you might also want to look into biodegradable alternatives to these products.
If you’re going to use soap or toothpaste, try and avoid being anywhere near a natural body of water, like rivers, lakes, streams, and the like. At the very least, you should be 200 feet away from these natural water sources.
You might not know this, but you can affect the ecosystem in these waters by bringing in these chemicals, even though you didn’t mean to do so.
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Don’t Leave Any Trace
When traveling outdoors, you want to make sure that you leave nothing behind as much as possible. It would be best if you didn’t leave any trace. That’s because the littlest things that you think nothing of might have a butterfly effect on the ecosystem that you’re leaving behind.
For example, human waste that outdoors people generate while outside has had a significant impact on the environment, and not in a good way. Improper waste disposal can hurt the environment as you leave it behind without a care in the world.
That’s why you want to be careful of the traces you leave behind and try to reduce them as much as possible.
Separate Your Trash
You might think to yourself while traveling that fruit peels and food waste should be pretty harmless. After all, they came from the wilderness.
However, even this type of trash is not something you should throw on the ground carelessly. Whatever waste that you produce, you should bring it back home with you until you find a way to dispose of it safely.
While you’re at it, you should bring three separate bags to organize your waste into garbage, recyclables, and compostables. It would be more convenient that way once you find places that take care of the waste that you produce.
Choose Local Guides
Local guides are a much better alternative when you’re looking for outdoor experts while on your adventure.
What’s great about local guides is that they have more insider knowledge of the go-to spots that not everyone might know about. At the same time, they can tell you more nuggets of wisdom about the locality.
You’re also helping the local economy instead of enormous corporations that certainly don’t need your financial help.
Choose Human-Powered Outdoor Activities
When seeking outdoor adventures, you want to make sure that everything is human-powered.
Engines make a lot of noise and use up fossil fuels. Therefore, try and engage in outdoor activities that don’t rely on these disruptive tools as much as possible.
Exciting yet sustainable adventures are an excellent way to enjoy the outdoors while taking care of it. It also ensures that you are making as little impact as you can. So, the next time you travel, make sure that you keep the tips listed above in mind. That way, you can call yourself a responsible traveler.
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