Can We Show Our Kids The World Without Harming It?
A conversation with travel journalist and parent Michele Bigley
I find myself swaying at airports. Not just airports, anywhere there is a line really, but I noticed it most recently while waiting to check-in to a flight to Sicily. A slow side-to-side movement. I often did that when my daughter was a newborn. Half to help her fall asleep, half to stay awake myself. Comfort.
I've long found travel a source of comfort: the anticipation, the making of plans, the seeing different places and meeting new people. But I've slowed down the number of trips I've taken. Part of that is COVID; of course, part of it is having a toddler, but even before I became a parent, I was finding it increasingly hard to justify travel while knowing how damaging it is for the planet. Take a flight from the U.S. West Coast to the East Coast. That flight produces at least one metric ton of carbon dioxide. The average amount of carbon dioxide produced by every human each year is about five metric tons (Note: Americans, Australians and Canadians create roughly 3x that amount). And that's just the flight. There are so many other negative consequences of travel.
Yet, there are so many places I want to see, so many more I want to show my daughter, so many things I think you can only learn through travel. How do I choose when to go? Can I show my daughter the world without adding unnecessary harm? I don't have the answers. I don't think anyone does. But I admire the way travel journalist and parent Michele Bigley considers the benefits and the consequences, and I think she does a good job of finding a middle ground. Michele is working on a memoir about learning how to mother our children and ourselves on a warming planet by going out into the world and seeing it. We spoke about balancing the benefits of traveling with the harms, travel tips for parents and what's giving her hope for the planet right now.
The interview has been edited and condensed.
Bridget: Can you share a bit about your background:
Michele: I have been a travel writer since the week I found out I was pregnant with Kai, he's 14 now, and my son Nikko is 10. In non-pandemic times, I'm usually on assignments most weekends, around school breaks so that they can go, and we'll usually spend at least half, if not all, of the summer away.
I was a guidebook writer for a long time. I wrote and contributed to roughly 40 different publications. On my first guidebook, I got to Kauai, and everyone said, 'we actually don't really need another guidebook on Kauai and we definitely don't need another one from some white California girl.' I listened, and of course, I still had a job, a contract, and an advance to write this book, so instead, I said, 'what are the stories we need to tell?' And I started thinking about how to have a lighter footprint. That was my first entrance into responsible travel.
And my whole evolution changed as a writer. It became that anytime I'd get a gig, say I was going to report on Japanese baseball in Japan, I'd also learn about this island near Tokyo built on top of radioactive debris that families hang out on. I got interested in focusing on first sustainable travel, but as that felt more greenwashed has become regenerative travel. My scope as a traveler is still evolving.
Bridget: How do you define regenerative travel?
Michele: Think of sustainable travel as leaving the place as it was when you arrived. Regenerative is trying to make the place better with your presence, but not you deciding what that looks like, letting the people who are there who ideally have Indigenous ties to that place tell you what that looks like.
It's the difference between packing your trash when you go to the beach and cleaning up all the trash you see on the beach.
Bridget: What do you think are some of the benefits of travel for kids?
Michele: It gets them out of their perspective. It makes them able to connect with other humans very, very different from them. It shows them that our way is not always best, makes them more adaptable, and helps them realize they can do many things that they didn't think they could do. And, of course, it makes them more resilient because things go wrong all the time when you travel.
Bridget: How do you balance those benefits with the harm to the environment?
Michele: That's like the question that keeps me up at night. I weigh every decision I make at this point in my life against how detrimental this act will be for the planet versus the benefit. So if it's a weekend in New York just for pleasure and we've already been to New York, and you know I live in California, I probably won't do that right now. Or if someone who's a friend, but not a super close friend, is having a birthday party in the Bahamas for a weekend, that is amazing, And I want to be there, but is it worth the cost of the flight when I do have to fly?
I've researched carbon offsets, and I'm not quite sold on them. I haven't found the organization yet that I truly can advocate for. Since the pandemic, I've only flown once. It was to Hawaii for a story that I wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle about regenerative travel. I took my youngest son, and I researched how many trees I would need to plant to offset our flights and then we physically went out in Hawaii and planted those trees. That doesn't stop the guilt, and that doesn't stop the frustration, but it's one of those costs benefits things that I have to weigh.
Bridget: What are 2 to 3 tips you have for parents or anyone who wants to travel but doesn't want to harm the environment?
Michele: The first would be to think about how necessary the trip is and how necessary the way to get to that trip is. If you find that you need to fly or be in an RV that you have to fill up a lot of gas, in other words, you find that you don't have the most environmentally friendly means to get there, then what can you do to offset the emissions of that trip? If it takes eight trees for the flight you're taking, how do you make sure that those trees that need to be planted are being planted in the place that they need to be planted and not just trusting that some random company that tells you they’re doing it, is doing it.
The second tip is to think from a place of what are you bringing to the table? We can't anymore expect a place to welcome us with open arms, even though so many places are economically hurting from the pandemic. We need also to realize that places are hurting. So what can we do to support those places? For example, when Nikko and I went to Hawaii, we volunteered at an Indigenous ancient fish pond, and we spent the day in water shoes in a mud flat pulling up weeds. And after we left, Nikko said, 'this is the best thing we've ever done when we've been in Hawaii.' Not surfing, not kayaking, pulling up weeds with these other people. We don't realize that those experiences can be the most valuable and defining moments of their lives.
The third tip is to think more deeply about where you're going, how everything connects and how, what you're doing impacts the place you're going.
Bridget: What's giving you hope for the future right now?
Michele: I teach writing at UC Santa Cruz and my students are giving me a lot of hope. They are so engaged, and they're so smart, and they get it in a way that we don't.
Follow Michele on Instagram @michelebigley and subscribe to her newsletter, Our Feet on the Ground from Michele Bigley.
Published:
Here's What the Wildfires Mean for Your Glass of California Wine, for Martha Stewart Living
Parents Can Have a Big Influence On Their Kid's Career Choice But That's Not Always a Good Thing, for Parents.
The Golden Age of Local Grains for Fresh Magazine
Reading: The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read: (And Your Children Will Be Glad That You Did) by Philippa Perry. This was a recommendation as I work on my book proposal, but I'm finding it helpful to understand toddler emotions.
Working: On a couple of pieces related to COP26 aka, the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, which begins Oct. 31 and runs through Nov. 12, 2021. More thoughts on that on my Instagram and in next month's newsletter. Which reminds me that starting in November, I'm planning on publishing two newsletters per month.