I told my wife I wanted to write about my guilt of traveling so much, and she laughed and said she didn’t think I had any guilt. That is a little bit true, I handle my guilt just fine, but it doesn’t mean I don’t think about it. And honestly, its probably better described as “awareness of how our actions/decisions impact others”, as “guilt” can be a loaded term. There are legit reasons for these feelings, and it enters into our big lifestyle and traveling decisions. We are gone from our families for months at a time, and we are doing that while seeing the effects of climate change all across the world while traveling in carbon emitting vehicles. I do think about both of those aspects quite a bit.
We have 2 adult boys that we are now both college graduates and have left the nest long ago. They don’t really need us much anymore but we are still their parents and worry about them a bit. And we just plain miss them. It is not as easy to be starting out as it was when we were young. Buying a house is much harder for most young people because prices are so out of whack in the US. There are also non-financial life occurrences that happen to everyone and we are not there to be parents. We talk on the phone regularly and still hang out with them during summers or when we are back for holidays. They still listen to our advice, and sometimes follow it, but it isn’t the same as being in the same town and seeing them every other Sunday for dinner. But I know they are going to be fine and they know it as well. We are also looking forward to traveling with them in the next few years. They are great traveling partners and we enjoy being with them. In fact our biggest guilt with our kids, is that we are not able to spend more time with them and have fun together.
We also have parents and other family that we don’t see very much. My parents and M’s mom are now in their 80’s and are fairly healthy and financial stable. They are active and have friends, hobbies, and their yards look way better than our garden ever did. They currently don’t need us much, but we are worried that could change as they grow older. We both have brothers that live close to our parents and I know they would do the majority of the work if something changes. Our brothers and sisters-in-law are awesome and tell us not to have any guilt about not being there most of the year. But we still think about it. There will probably be a time in the future when we will need to revise our travel plans to help out with parents. And just like our kids, we do enjoy hanging out with our parents, and more guilt comes from not being able to just spend time with them as much as we used to.
We also have a bit of guilt about how we are contributing to the world’s environmental problems. In Seattle, we have been seeing warmer temperatures, and rain in the summer seems increasingly rare the past few years. We hear the same story of climate change from people all over the world. It isn’t the same as it used to be, and people are having to adapt. We have heard from locals everywhere, that fishing, farming and other jobs are in danger in Asia, Mexico and in Europe. In South Africa, we visited a penguin rehabilitation center where they told us it will be just a few years before the penguins die out because of increased water temperatures affecting fish routes. I am a birder and see the affect that habitat changes are having on many different species. I think everyone in the world needs to take responsibility on this, and for us as world travelers, it brings a bit of guilt. We are trying to be good… but we are still guilty.
I eat meat. I eat seafood. I eat cheese. I really like it. I know it isn’t good for the world. I have guilt. My boys are both vegans and don’t understand how I can continue to eat animal products when I know what they are doing to our environment. Part of exploring the world to me is trying everything that is good in the world and to me a lot of that is interesting and diverse foods. I understand that is being a bit selfish, so we are trying to change our habits. Cows are the biggest environmental issue- so we eat a lot less beef. I will eat more fish burgers and chicken burgers these days than hamburgers. I know most cheese comes from cows too, but I really like cheese. I will try to better – but in many cases, I will choose to live with the guilt.
Everyone knows gas powered cars are bad. When we are in Seattle, we live next to a light rail station so we can do most of our transportation on trains, bikes, buses or foot. One of the reasons we moved to the city when nearing retirement is so we could use our car less. We still like to visit friends and family in other cities, as well as explore the Pacific Northwest, so we do use a car once in a while. An electric car might be in our future, but for now, my first preferred mode of transportation at home is always bike.
When traveling farther, we prefer going to another continent, and the most energy efficient way to do that is still flying. We know flying is worse than driving a car every day, but we accept this guilt to have the lifestyle we do. We try to fly as little as possible once we get to our destination – when in Europe, it is easy to take electric trains everywhere, but in other parts of the world it isn’t as easy. Our upcoming trip to Central America and South America is going to have a lot of buses and shuttles, but we are also going to be making quite a few flights. We tend to choose a flight over a 12 hour bus ride. We took a 11 hour train from Chang Mai to Bangkok last year that wasn’t the most comfortable. We took a lot of ferries last year in Thailand and Malaysia. Those boats were slow, crowded, not scenic and powered by multiple smelly outboard motors. I’m not sure that they were better for the environment than a 737, so I might choose flying on some of those routes next time if that is an option.
One option instead of flying is to take cruises. Many of our traveling nomad friends take repositioning cruises at the end of the season so they can cost-effectively cross oceans without flying. We have meetups with other nomads and really enjoy a couple of hours sharing travel stories so it would be fun to join these folks on a week long cruise to get to know people better. But this is a case where the guilt is too much for me. Cruising is way way worse than flying on the environment. They say that the 3 boats that are idling in Seattle most of the summer are emitting more carbon than all of the cars in Puget Sound. Until they find a way to plug the ships in while docked, we are going to have to live with smog in Elliot bay during cruise season. I have also heard similar stats about ships being worse than cars in Europe. I’m not sure if those stats are true, but I’m with Hasan Minhaj who says that “When you do the research, everything secretly sucks”. I hated to watch his cruise ship show on American Patriot. Not only are cruises terrible for the environment, but they treat the workers horribly. I just can’t get on a cruise ship ethically. But that’s just where I am – somehow I can accept my carbon footprint on a plane, but can’t do it for boats. I’m fine with other people making their own decisions and try not to judge. Just like my kids forgive me for eating meat and cheese (or maybe they don’t, but they keep that to themselves). Maybe it will change when I get older and my body can’t travel the way I do now.
I hope this post doesn’t make it seem like I am a miserable person that is saddled by emotional baggage of traveling. I do accept the guilt most of the time and am out there living my best life during the time I’m on this earth. And just like other travelers we’ve met, everyone balances the pros and cons of different decisions, and finds compromise where possible. We are having fun traveling, and I hope my children will have the same opportunities when they are in their retirement.
This can be an interesting conversation. But ultimately like you say, we each have to find our own balance of doing what we think is the right thing. This is a great plot point towards the end of the show “The Good Place” where they acknowledge how impossible it is to be purely good and only support sustainable businesses and always do the right thing in every situation. But doing the best we can is a good start!