Where is our Wanderlust Taking Us?

In the third of a four-part series on travel, Jorden and Kimberly head abroad, considering the top tourist destinations, whether to visit by land, sea, or air, and just how big of an impact our choices have on the planet.

More people than ever are traveling abroad, and Americans are adding to the numbers, with 48% currently holding a valid passport, contributing to the tourist bucks that accounted for $10.9 trillion of the global GDP and 357 million jobs in 2024. From the most visited cities to the top international airport arrivals, destinations ranging from amusement parks to the world’s most popular landmarks, Jorden and Kimberly consider the impact that tourist traffic and climate change have on these destinations and how countries are coping, along with what airlines and cruise lines are doing (or not) to be more green.

Key Topics Jorden and Kimberly discuss include:

• Which country rules as King of Tourism

• What the most popular tourist destinations have that the others just don’t

• Why international flights are less terrible than domestic legs

• How airlines attempt to be sustainable despite less commitment to SAF

• Why public transportation will always be the greenest option

• How cruises are even worse for the ecosystem than we thought

• What Norway is doing to balance the scales of its dependence on tourism and protect its sights
  

Recommended Resources

• Top ⁠tourist cities⁠ worldwide

• Top ⁠international arrivals⁠ cities

• Most popular ⁠country⁠ destinations

• Most ⁠sustainable⁠ destinations

• All about ⁠cruises⁠ and ⁠Norway’s⁠ new policy

• Alternative ⁠fuels⁠ and SAF and ⁠fees⁠

• Excellent small group travel companies (⁠Exodus⁠, ⁠Intrepid⁠)

• Kimberly’s Substack ⁠newsletter post⁠

Episode Transcript

KIMBERLY

Welcome to this episode of Sustainable Planet. I'm political scientist Kimberly Weir and my co -host is Jordan Dye, a guy who knows an awful lot about sustainability issues.

JORDEN

Hi Kimberly, thanks for joining us. Today we're kicking off a two -part series on domestic travel, a booming industry that's projected to top $1 trillion by 2027. Whether you're road tripping Route 66, braving the crowds at Disney, or heading to a national park, one thing's clear, more of us are traveling closer to home. But we have to ask ourselves, how sustainable is this surge? In the first episode, we're talking about the journey itself, where we're going and how we're getting there. And how do we balance bucket lists with the climate crisis? So, Kimberly, if you could take a free all expenses paid trip anywhere in the U .S. or Canada, but you had to get there using the most sustainable travel method possible, where would you go and how are you getting there?

KIMBERLY

There is no question in my mind immediately when I saw this question and you read it. You could have asked me right here on the spot and I would have had the same exact off the top of my head answer. It would be Banff National Park. No question. Like I have wanted to go to Banff for so long and that's your own backyard. So envious.

JORDEN

I take for granted. Yeah.

KIMBERLY

And I have wanted to go there for ever since probably I found out about it. And I love winter too. And I love snow. And so for me, ideally, I will go in, you know, February, which is really hard getting anybody else to go with me because most of my friends want to go to beaches and islands and so forth and not, you know, winter in Canada in February or any other time winter for that matter. And so I was thinking about that. And for this episode, I discovered that there's still a lot of rail travel. And so I think the most sustainable way I know that there, well, it's not convenient, of course, right? So in this instance, and that's one of the big trade -offs when we start talking about this stuff is, well, were we willing to make the trade -offs or not? And so I, one time Michael and I had been going to conferences in Chicago for many years and I looked into taking Amtrak because I know there's an Amtrak that was running from Cincinnati to Chicago. It left. from downtown at like midnight and it was one and it was got to Chicago at four in the morning and that was it. And, and so that's the thing is I would sustainably do it. I mean, it was just me, especially someday I'm probably just gonna have to suck it up and go to Banff by myself. And I'll probably love it because I do a lot of travel on my own. I always meet people, right? There are always people.

JORDEN

Well, I was gonna say, and you have me here. So I can actually get you to avail yourself of what's right outside your front door.

KIMBERLY

can actually get you to avail yourself of what's right outside your front door. And so, yeah. And so I would do that for me. I would do that. I would suck it up and do that and then connect somehow to the Canadian rail system and make my way across. And I think it would be fantastic. And I would happily stay at a sustainable eco lodge. I am not a prissy person. I do not need to be pampered. And in fact, when I go places, I sometimes have ended up. in hotels for various reasons or resorts or something that are that are like way make me feel really uncomfortable I don't like people like turning down my bed and wait feeling like people are waiting on me even though you know we pay people to do this so yeah no question my answer Banff is is it it's it's funny I was actually I was out just at a research retreat a couple weeks ago in Banff

JORDEN

yeah no

KIMBERLY

question my answer Banff

JORDEN

is is it it's it's funny I was actually I was out just at a research retreat a couple weeks ago in Banff I was there last year and there was no cell phone service. It's 15 minutes off the main highway in my country, no cell phone service. But thankfully, because the G7 was in Banff this year, they put in two new cell phone towers. So we got the amazing. But I am always struck because I was there with a lot of people from Toronto and grad students for international grad students who have never been. And just the like the wonder and the amazement as they're staring at it. And it always makes me feel a little almost uncomfortable because I was like, oh, yeah. This is really pretty, I guess, but I see it all the time. I do think that there's something amazing about Banff because, you know, Canada, for a very beautiful, you know, wild country, we got all the way across the country and it wasn't until we hit Banff that we decided, wait, we need to protect this and make sure that it doesn't get disturbed. So Banff is actually the first national park in Canada as well. So something we're really proud of here. I think the transportation questions are really interesting way into travel because tourism is really only two centuries old. And it's really transportation that drives the invention of a tourism industry with with the Industrial Revolution and the steam ship and the train kind of really kicking it off and then coming into. I think everybody knows the story of, you know, finally getting vacations and then tourism as a concept really being pushed by a luggage company is one of my favorite kind of. silly stories of how this all plays together. And so I think that like now when we think of like low cost airlines and people really driving tourism there, it's still just a continued story of how transportation is shaping this.

KIMBERLY

I think that it's really interesting, too, that that that also was a big factor in more domestic transportation, more domestic vacationing, especially with the introduction of the personal automobile really, really spurred growth. And so we know that domestic tourism has steadily increased in most places in the world and in the United States and Canada, steadily increased over the last 30 years. And then even very quickly in 2023, returned to pre -pandemic growth trends and has continued growing since then.

KIMBERLY

Spending in 2022 was $918 billion. You mentioned the other part of travel spending is expected to hit $1 trillion by 2027. And so that's, I mean, we see a lot of money going into this because, yeah, of course, people want to go to BAM. People want to see these amazing things and have these experiences. And in fact, AAA projects that 72 .2 million people will travel over at least 50 miles. Over the upcoming 4th of July weekend, so for this week, because it falls on a Friday, so people are taking advantage of the week before and after, you know, so to get the most days off, which I'm going to mention is also Jordan's birthday. So very exciting, even though he doesn't get the fireworks in Canada for this. He'll have to cross the border for that.

JORDEN

I love knowing that 300 million people are throwing me a birthday party. And so 72 .2 million people will also be traveling for you,

KIMBERLY

72 .2 million people will also be traveling for you, Jordan. And Florida is the top domestic destination, without question. It had a record -breaking year in 2024 with over 41 million visitors. And so these are the places, you know, like in Florida is also a top international. For international tourist destination as well, too. People want to go to Florida.

JORDEN

Yeah, no, it's really it's always interesting as a Canadian. Like I just I think, you know, for any American listeners, those numbers kind of just seem normal. But putting in perspective for, you know, as a Canadian, both of those numbers, 72 million and 41 million are more. Well, 41 million slightly under the population of my country. Right. So and that's just like travelers going to the population of Canada is going to Florida in a year. And that kind of blows my mind. And we're hitting, you know, 20 billion in domestic spending. And that's up above pre -pandemic levels. So we've actually returned and exceeded pre -pandemic domestic travel. But it's also funny because this has been a big shift for Canada in domestic travel in the last decade. Since 1986, Canadians have basically spent more on international travel primarily to the States than they had in domestic travel. And COVID and then the recent trade tensions with America have really, really shifted domestic travel, though, and spending. So one of the really interesting things that I've seen in my time kind of in this space. is a shift to an understanding, though, that it's actually Canadians that were causing a lot of the degradation of national parks. I know we'll get into this later, but I know from people who worked in the space that they actually thought that would be the opposite, right? As domestic goes up, oh, well, these are Canadians who will love the parks, but that wasn't seen. And then this year alone, we've seen a 15 % decrease to American travel and that increase correspondingly rising to Canadian travel. So I think that that's a really interesting kind of shift and what like how that will play out in sustainability. So we'll get to some of the modes of transportation. But this like how you are traveling and where you're going are really going to drive the impact of your trip.

KIMBERLY

And I've actually seen I've traveled a number of times internationally using Air Canada. There are flights going out of Cincinnati and it's like it's sometimes it's a big pain in the butt because then I have to basically travel and connect as a domestic. through Canada, if I'm going from like Toronto to Montreal, I also have to check and recheck bags and stuff and it's a nightmare. But I do like Air Canada a lot. So here's a little plug for Air Canada. But I, so I was on, on their email list and getting there and they have lots of, lots of specials, inter -Canada link specials. Like, I mean, a major airline that's got like budget airline rates for go, you know, go visit Vancouver, go visit, you know, Calgary, whatever. sort of rates. And so I see that as something that's definitely evidence of what you were just describing of what's going on in Canada.

JORDEN

Well, actually, it's funny to mention Canada. Last month, they had to drop down their financial projections for the year because of the amount of decreased U .S. trips.

KIMBERLY

And the same, I just was reading about the United States, too. The decrease in Canadians coming over actually has caused a drop in. Overall hotel prices, domestic hotel prices by 2%. Well,

JORDEN

there you go. So that's a benefit. I got nothing against Canadians,

KIMBERLY

I got nothing against Canadians, you know?

JORDEN

So speaking of, there's lots of places you can go for a trip. I mean, I know we've gotten breaking out here, but do you, when you're thinking of domestic travel, do you have a favorite kind of vacation spot?

KIMBERLY

Well, I have grown to love Chicago over all of these years because we've gone to conference there and it's like going there. It's a very tame city. And so, so you can drive there and not feel like I, so I could run the East coast, right. As everybody probably knows at this point. And, and I, I learned to drive where if you're in the left lane, you're exceeding the speed limit by like 25%. And if you are not going as fast as possible past every single car in the lane next to you, somebody is behind you flashing their headlights. Like that's just how I learned to drive. And so Chicago is an entirely like any any normal human being from anywhere on the planet could rent a car in Chicago and feel totally OK driving as opposed to New York City, where they would probably feel like their life was in danger, like serious danger. Just, you know, rule to anyone who's never driven in New York City, don't ever, ever, ever drive in the left lane unless you mean it.

JORDEN

I've only enjoyed driving in one U .S. city a bunch, but only one did I enjoy. And that was Minneapolis.

KIMBERLY

Because I know you road trip in the States a lot. So you've driven through a lot. So Minneapolis would be very similar to Chicago, I'm sure.

JORDEN

Oh, it's very and it's very Canadian. Like it was like less overpasses, lots of big streets, lots of space. It felt very Minneapolis actually reminds me of an art deco Calgary. They're they're kind of prairie cities. Very. So it was everywhere else, though, when I'm in L .A. driving through or. Like going into Vegas, I'm very much when I'm in the U .S., I drive my car to my spot, I park it and then I'll get around by like other modes for the rest.

KIMBERLY

And that's actually most cities now are to the point where they're equipped that way that really are trying to work harder to allow people to have more public transportation. especially because especially with las vegas so many people fly like that's a fly destination it's in the middle yeah unless you're coming from california it's really not convenient i was gonna say the last time i drove there i had to drive through a place called death valley to get there so i can understand why people don't but i mean if you have never been to death valley i do highly recommend it that's a place i would really like to go and haven't been yet but i could spend we could spend lots of time just talking about these destinations because i love to travel and jordan loves to travel and

JORDEN

was gonna say the last time i drove there i had to drive through a place called death valley to get there so i can understand why people don't but i mean if you have never been to death valley i do highly recommend it that's

KIMBERLY

a place i would really like to go and haven't been yet but i could spend we could spend lots of time just talking about these destinations because i love to travel and jordan loves to travel and So you love to travel. So, yeah. So in the United States, the top destination for certain is New York City. And almost 14 million people a year go to New York City. And the next city is Miami. And it is like way far behind at only 8 million. And then after that, Las Vegas and LA. I mean, so New York City is without question a top tourist destination. And I actually lived in New York City for a bit. And I mean, it's totally worth it. And I love to answer your previous question more. I love Boston, too. I mean, there's never really a city I've been to that I think I wouldn't mind spending some more time here, though I've never been to Las Vegas. And that's part of the reason why I don't think I would ever come away from Las Vegas. I think I want to spend more time here.

JORDEN

I love it. So it's a first it surprised me that Las Vegas wasn't higher because because I think of it as just a tourism city. It was my on my last I've been there a couple times for like weekend trips. My last one we were driving was the first time I had driven through Vegas proper, like the city. And the first time I thought, wait, I guess there is an entire city here that has to like still function. So that was the funny things of how you think about about things. We have the top Canadian cities, obviously probably unsurprising to most people, Toronto and Vancouver. If you're thinking of a Canadian trip, I recommend Vancouver over Toronto. Just for the ocean, you can't really beat it. But the thing I think here is when we're looking at those big cities, the impacts of tourism to a bigger city, I think, can be absorbed a little bit better than some of the smaller cities that become boom and bust cities around like their economy around it. And I think that it's an interesting tension when thinking about traveling to some of these regional places, the actual like. the almost tourism trap. You know, we talk about resource traps and stuff that economies can get in. But I think for some of these smaller locations, the annual influx, which keeps the town going, but then also drives massive pressure on local resources, on waste management, that some of these bigger cities can handle a little bit better because it's more set up for it.

KIMBERLY

Especially if they're not already sort of set up as seasonal. towns anyway. I mean, there are plenty of places that are seasonal and they're used to that. But for cities that expect then to have these continued tourist dollars coming in, that can be, I mean, the pandemic is a perfect example of what happens when that dries up really quickly. I was surprised to see that Washington, D .C. was number 13 in North America in terms of destinations because there's so much to offer there with only 2 million people a year. It actually ranks lower than Montreal, which surprised me because Montreal is a little more just sort of distant. You know, Washington, D .C. is on the belt. Like you can't get from on the East Coast without sort of tripping over Washington, D .C. So I was surprised to see that so low on there. Especially because there are so many free things to do there. Like all of the Smithsonian are all free. All the monuments are free unless you pay to go up in the Washington Monument. You know, I think that's not free or I think it actually is free anyway.

JORDEN

Yeah, I do. That's the one. So yeah, it's a dollar or something,

KIMBERLY

a dollar or something, maybe to book it or something. I think it's actually still free ish. I don't know. But, but this also, I was surprised to see that in terms of all of North America, that. Cancun was number five. And that's not just like the Playa del Carmen, the coast and all of the resorts. That's like the actual city of Cancun is number five on this list. So that ranks even higher than the Washington, D .C. and Montreal and Vancouver and like all of those other places. I'm really surprised to see that. And Mexico City also hits number 10, is at number nine.

JORDEN

Yeah, the Mexican ones didn't surprise me so much. As somebody who's taken like four vacations to Washington, D .C., I was definitely a little surprised. Those are the life moments that remind me that, yes, I am a nerd and I can't get around it. But no, I wasn't surprised to see the Mexican ones higher and then higher than the Canadian numbers. Mostly, again, even like Canadian domestic tourism is lower, right? When you have America and Mexico kind of right there, I think it draws it in. So, I mean, the fact that it's just Cancun, the city is I think is probably the surprising part, but not that that many people are going to Mexico.

KIMBERLY

Yeah. Well, I was thinking, too, to your point that there are actually more Mexicans than there are Canadians anyway. So there are also, I mean, Mexico is an emerging economy, so there are plenty of middle income people who also could go to Cancun and maybe not going to the resorts, but will go to the city for the amenities it has. And Mexico City, I think that's just one of those like. I don't know how many people will go to Mexico City just as a destination, but probably end up going there for other things and then say, oh, it's not a bad place to be a tourist and maybe go back.

JORDEN

Well, and then I think the thing to keep in mind is like, because, you know, today we're more so than a lot of our episodes, we'll have more of a North American focus to the domestic travel because it's our experience and where we're coming from. But just to keep it in perspective for everybody, a way I think about this is like 2 % of the population of India have been on a plane. So 98 percent haven't, meaning that for everyone in the country who's outside that two percent who are taking any sort of travel are going to be doing it domestically via train or via car. And that holds for a lot of countries around the globe, the majority of tourism and travel. And I think you made a good point about the you can look at the rising of the middle class within a country. Right. Because that's really where, you know, as we started the episode talking about the kind of 200 rise, your rise of tourism. you know, in the West, you see that play out in other countries with domestic travel being the first intro. So while we're very focused on North America today, the patterns play out. And I'd say that even the patterns are probably more prevalent in other countries where such a large percentage of our travel in American Canada is captured by international travel, right?

KIMBERLY

Right. And also, I mean, so a few points. One, certainly as I've traveled around the world, one thing that is... common when I see people who are from emerging economies, if they're not just completely affluent and can go pretty much anywhere in the world, they hit the major tourist places, right? And also when traveling, they also are more likely to go regionally because regionally is going to be less expensive for them. So a lot of people end up going to various places in India from surrounding countries. So that's also... another, another trend that I've noticed just being out. But I think also to your point, like we could do this exact same episode for Europe. We could do this for any East, any Westerns, like the, the main European union countries, excluding central, central, most, not all, but most of central. Europe and some you know so the the ones that are global north I could have just shortcutted this by saying the ones that are global north in in Europe or the same for Japan South Korea so forth you see that same sort of thing going on well and I think that's you know

JORDEN

and I think that's you know just as like a heads up for for listeners we are going to do an you know two -part on international travel and you can almost like think about them as flipped like right now we're doing domestic travel focused on north america but that is international travel for europe and when we get to international travel next week that's really going to be the domestic travel for those countries right so good way to look at it yeah that's how i was thinking about it

KIMBERLY

way to look at it yeah that's

JORDEN

yeah that's how i was thinking about it I know one of my favorite things and a big draw in both Canada and America are the national park systems. It's one of my, I think, for such massive and geographically diverKIMBERLY

Welcome to this episode of Sustainable Planet. I'm political scientist Kimberly Weir and my co -host is Jordan Dye, a guy who knows an awful lot about sustainability issues. Hi, Jordan.

JORDEN

Hi, Kimberly. Well, today we're talking about international travel and we've all seen travel influencers posting from tropical beaches, mountaintop temples, and another set of infinity pools. But the real story might be what's happening behind the scenes. With passport offices overwhelmed and flight booking systems skyrocketing, global travel is back in full swing. But where we're going, how we're getting there and when we choose to travel all carry a carbon footprint and environmental impact. So today we're unpacking what it means to explore the world responsibly and whether sustainable international travel is actually possible or just a well -stamped fantasy. So, Kimberly, have you ever planned a trip thinking it would be this dreamy, eco -conscious adventure only to realize halfway through that it didn't live up to the promises? Well.

KIMBERLY

I'm a planner by nature. I'd have to say I can't really recall being blindsided, like ending up in some eco disaster situation. But also when I take tours, I have only ever actually traveled with like sustainability minded companies because so this all started in 2009 when I really wanted to. go to Morocco and my spouse, who does not suffer from the wanderlust that I do, just finally just said, if you really want to go, just go by yourself. I'm like, that's so weird. But I got over that pretty quickly. And yeah, the rest is history there. So I've been taking trips solo ever since, except at the time I started looking for, are there tours for solo travelers that don't incur double book you like if you have to have two people traveling it doesn't incur that and I found actually found companies and it was really cool because they are small sustainably minded companies that focus on small group travels it's not like you're in a herd with like 100 people getting off of a bus from place to place but they use everything local so some of the places I've traveled with are Exodus tour travels out of the UK they're UK based Intrepid is Australia based And they bought Peregrine, which was independent before that, which is also Australia based. Canada has G Adventures. And so there are any number of these companies that are out there. If you start looking for them and it's like maybe 12 to 16 people in a group. So everything's by small van where you travel. They they're excellent because they hook you up with. Everything is local. The guides are local. They have local accommodations and they use, you know, try to take people to local restaurants and they support community projects. They have foundations that raise money and match traveler donations and give grants and have training initiatives. And so they're reinvesting back into these local economies and like really supporting sustainable travel. So I would highly recommend anybody who's really looking for, and it's not even just for solo travelers because I have been. on these tours, places where there was a group of friends who were traveling together or couples, lots of couples travel together. And, and,

KIMBERLY

And, and,

KIMBERLY

but also lots of solo travelers who, you know, really want to experience these. And so they, they go planning from A to Z and, you know, every once in a while, like if they, especially if it's a new destination for them, they're still kind of working out the kinks or. I ended up on one trip where it wasn't the sustainability aspect, but they had their tour guide fell ill and then they had to kind of get a last minute person and he treated the whole thing like his own holiday. But then they gave me lots of money in return and everybody else who was on the trip to for the really poor experience. I can't even say it was a poor experience because we still had it. He was he actually knew local flora and fauna really well. So he was really excellent in that sort of way. But the rest of these are sort of treated as his own personal holiday. But yeah, so I would say that absolutely like that. That's why I have not been failed when I get to my destination.

JORDEN

That really sounds like the complete opposite of the kind of almost big box, you know, resort vacation where you're going to a country and then removing yourself almost completely from it. And that really, really sounds special. I'm just going to put you on the spot and say, I can't wait to see the blog post with some of these travel recommendations to help us out.

KIMBERLY

Yes, sure. I can actually go through my sub stack too, because I have the last one since we've been recording together. I actually have gone to some of these places in the interim. And so they're there if you look for them.

JORDEN

Well, I was gonna say, I've seen some of the photos, so I can attest to them as a second party, at least that they're always beautiful wherever you're going on vacation.

KIMBERLY

Yeah, I and now this isn't to say I mean, I have been to I haven't been to many resorts. I mentioned in the when we were talking about the domestic that I did go I went to Cancun to the Playa del Carmen when I was during COVID because I was just desperate just to get away and get a break. And again, you can find resorts that are also sustainably minded and try to make the least impact. And so they are also out there. They don't have to just be these big like indulgences where you end up just if you have any sort of sustainability, you know, consciousness that you're going to just feel guilty the whole time you're there.

JORDEN

Yeah, no, it's a good point. So speaking of travel, though, when we were preparing for this episode, I found that only 10 % of the global population has taken a flight. And that includes domestic and international. I couldn't get it broken down more. But where is that small minority of us traveling to?

KIMBERLY

Well, I think even before we get to that, I think that's worth saying that when you look at the global population, look at how many people can't even afford barely to travel within their own countries. So that number doesn't surprise me because when we start crunching those numbers, and I was trying to find the data for passport holders around the world, and it just doesn't exist because the closest I could get is like, okay, Germany reports that 36%, 37%, I think it was, of their population holds passport. For the United States, surprisingly, 48 % of Americans hold valid passports. I was shocked to see the statistic. There were 25 million that were issued in 2024, and that number is going up. But when I started trying to find other places, the EU, even the EU does not have a list of here's how many people are passport, you know, applied for passports, got passports in the last year. And so I'm not surprised by that number that you gave, though, because when we look at the whole world, 162 countries of the 194 sovereign states aren't even. Sorry, I say state still is a hangover from teaching international relations because all countries are states. Those are synonymous words. So of all the sovereign countries in the world, the 184, only 162 of them are still emerging economies or of that, 132 of them are still developing. So it doesn't surprise me at all. Not only that, but if you look at the one thing that regularly appears is. The strength of the passport, how powerful is your passport? How many countries can you get into without visa? And that's one where it becomes quite evident when you start looking at countries that need visas for everywhere that you go and everywhere that they go. And that's especially been in the news a lot lately with the current presidential administration and cutting off, you know, cutting off visa. approvals for certain countries, like 25, and then that list went up to like 35 again. And so that number doesn't surprise me. But this number also didn't surprise me that tourism in 2024, according to the World Bank, accounted for 10 % of the whole entire global economy. So one -tenth of the global economy is travel -based. And that's the U .S. equivalent of almost $11 trillion of the global GDP is just tourism. And that's 357 million jobs worldwide. And so that's like every one in every 10 jobs worldwide. So when you start looking at this, and then with visitor spending on top of that is in another almost $2 trillion, that's a huge contribution to those of us who suffer from the wanderlust.

JORDEN

No, and it really... It's really a major driver of economies too, right? Because when you pull up to the high level, I think it was great to talk about that because it shows it's a big impact on the global scale. But then narrowing it down, especially for small countries that are primarily driven from tourism. And I think as we go through the next two episodes, that's always a tension with travel is that it is really a double -sided coin. There are negatives and positives. And it's hard to disentangle the two of them because they're kind of, you don't want to, say and no country will say we want less tourists because that will, again, drive down jobs, drive down their economies. But at the same time, they're not saying that we want all the environmental impact from the tourism. Right. Well,

KIMBERLY

and another thing that people who haven't had years of international political economy experience and classes or teaching is that. That another thing that those countries really need is not just the income, but they need the hard foreign currency income. So people coming there, bringing their dollars, yen, pounds, euros, that then they're changing for local currency because that gives that influx of that. money that that currency that they can use on the international market that is far more valuable than any like malagasy ariari whatever you nobody's gonna take that anyway they don't even take that you know like outside of their own countries yeah half the time unless there are laws in place that even want it in their own country well i know and that's the the thing is

JORDEN

i know and that's the the thing is It's funny, like being in Canada, I literally two days ago was arguing with somebody about at the end of the day, my dollar only matters to pay my taxes. Like that's what your local currency, that's really the only function of it is for your government and for countries, as you pointed out, with some currencies that are barely even stable within their own borders. Yeah, getting that influx of external capital is really important.

KIMBERLY

Yeah. And then when we also start to look at, especially for smaller countries. that GDP coming into their economy, like the Maldives, it's a huge portion, like I have 30 some, 35%, 45%, I forget what the exact numbers were, because even those were kind of, you know, malleable. The Seychelles, like the Caribbean islands, we're talking about like, you know, a third of their economy is dependent on global GDP income. And that became really evident during COVID, right, where those countries, I mean, I remember how badly Sri Lanka's economy just tanked after COVID. In fact, that was, it wasn't until after they had never needed to take a loan from the IMF ever in their whole existence, which was amazing for a developing country, especially because Sri Lanka was quite poor and did some amazing growth. in part due to their buildup of tourism. And it was after COVID, after that hit, they ended up, because of the lack of tourists, they ended up actually having to borrow from the IMF for the first time in their entire existence.

JORDEN

Wow, I didn't know that. Have you looked into, do you know if they've kind of rebounded since then? Yeah,

KIMBERLY

then? Yeah, they have. Again, once that had really helped. And so, of course, there are a variety of factors that always contribute. They had some civil internal issues and stuff too. But by far, it was the tourism, the lack of tourism industry just absolutely decimated their economy at the time. And it's not fair. I mean, it's not just the small countries that are dependent on this. We're talking about like big countries. Spain, 13 % of its GDP is tourism. Italy. almost 11 percent france and mexico eight percent for the united states it's only three percent so when you know the bigger the economy china seven percent i mean that's still you know and they have more people wanting to go there they have a lot more internal domestic travel as well so they're getting more just from that and so but you look at bigger diversified economies you still see that france has got i mean the largest okay so paris is the most visited city in we're like 2024, but I'm pretty sure we go back pretty far and see that they are. And France is the most visited country in the European Union. And so when you look at that 8 % of France, their money coming from tourism, like that's a good and reliable income that they're going to have unless, you know, COVID hits.

JORDEN

And this was the point I was actually going to make, though, about like using, let's look at the U .S. numbers for a second. 3 % of GDP is driven by tourism. I think that actually hides, again, those regional impacts. Like right now, I know all across the Canadian border, there are ad campaigns begging Canadians to come back and shop in the small towns that were set up to basically just cater to Canadians coming over the border. I know like there's been some some towns in Florida who have like taken out ads in Canada again saying, hey, fly back down here. We still want you to come because. But like. And it's so it's not going to have an overall impact on the economy, like, you know, at the at the nation level, some of these and even France, like you said, you know, 11 percent that losing that is not going to break your economy. But then when you you narrow down to like those are in specific regions. Right. Because tourism, again, is very place based. So it's very concentrated.

KIMBERLY

Yeah, it was 8 percent for France. But I mean, so if it's Paris, it's not going to be quite that big of a deal. But if we're talking about like the Cote d 'Azur or we're talking about the Loire or like like people going. to you know on on winery tours and so forth they're gonna they're gonna see that reflected in their income for certain one of the things that i was thinking of as we kind of went through as i was looking at this and how much it's growing is i looking at the overall tourism demand and just seeing between 2019 or sorry 2009 and 2016 there's seven percent annual growth in tourism demand and this is across like all all types

JORDEN

of the things that i was thinking of as we kind of went through as i was looking at this and how much it's growing is i looking at the overall tourism demand and just seeing between 2019 or sorry 2009 and 2016 there's seven percent annual growth in tourism demand and this is across like all all types but one of the so i thought i kind of was looking at the overall impact of the emissions and there's actually a 3 .3 increase in efficiency like in that same period annually but right there you can see the growth and demand was double the the efficiency so i was actually surprised to see that level of efficiency improvement in tourism i didn't think we would see that because it's such a But unlike when we're talking about fuels or something where we can really narrow down the points in the chain and you can kind of get it down to five or six, like this is really where we're seeing it. When thinking about tourism from like, well, we're going to go through a bunch of cities today and five modes of travel and different ways to stay. It's a lot harder to see where they would drive those efficiencies. So it was encouraging to see, even though demand growth has outstripped it.

KIMBERLY

So I provided you with the most visited cities in 2024. Were you surprised by any on the list?

JORDEN

I was surprised New York was lower, I guess. But then like it didn't also because as I was looking into, I was trying to look into embodied emissions from travel and where it's going. And the U .S. citizens traveling places is actually like the top flows of emissions is out of the U .S. So just to kind of give you from these. Of the top 10 countries that the US citizens go to, they're responsible for 146 million tons of carbon being exported to those countries. And it's only 882 million tons of carbon from total flights. So America is really driving a large number of emissions there. And so New York makes I want to go. It was lower, but no, nothing. Madrid being, I think of Barcelona more. So I guess if people can't see it, so Madrid's number two on the list and Barcelona is down at the bottom. Yeah. I was just going to run through the list too,

KIMBERLY

was just going to run through the list too, just because, you know, so Paris is number one, Madrid is two, Tokyo is number three. That sort of didn't surprise me because of its regional draw, like for the same reasons why it was important for the United States to ally with Japan after World War II. Because the United States needed that whole geopolitical economic security that Asia provided. And that's so Tokyo didn't surprise me.

JORDEN

And maybe it's like a generational thing. I know a lot of friends my age who have gone to Japan for trips. And that was also true with teaching.

KIMBERLY

And that was also true with teaching. My students wanted to study in Japan and South Korea. which older people like would never, my mom's attitudes about Japan still. And my mom didn't even live through World War II. And yeah, that was that residual effect.

KIMBERLY

And yeah,

KIMBERLY

So we also have starting with number four, then Rome, Milan, New York City is number six, as what Jordan was talking about. Amsterdam, which has been rising in popularity. So I expect in the next few years, we're going to see that even higher. Sydney, Singapore. which is a micro state. So it's both a country and a city and Barcelona. And so it's not surprising, especially that the number of Americans who travel and also the number of Europeans traveling within the European Union, that all of those European cities are up there so high on this list.

JORDEN

Yeah. And I mean, the thing for me is, I guess, because North America, right, I think about traveling to the US if I'm going to leave or South America. So like. Seeing all the Europe ones up there, I'm like, those are like once every four year kind of destinations. It'd take a while to check all those off.

KIMBERLY

Unless you're Kimberly, right? But I've got some years on you, so that helps. So when we look at top cities in international arrivals, this is a very different list, which is also I find really fascinating because Bangkok. is the top international arrival destination in the entire world, like by far. And Istanbul is the second. And neither of those surprised me because they're both gateways to so many places. Bangkok was established during the Vietnam era. For U .S., it was like a rest and relaxation place. Sorry, Bangkok was during the Vietnam War. That's all that became like a hub for that in Australia and so forth. All of the people who were in that region. So Istanbul also not surprising because it's like literally the city sits between two continents. And so that also gets a lot of traffic. London also not surprising just because of its historical significance. Hong Kong also not surprising for the same reason. Regional and its connection to the British Empire served as a huge base for the British Empire. And so when we look at those sorts of places, that list is very different. The first city that pops up that was on the top 10 most visited and note that London was not one of those most visited cities, which surprised me. That really surprised me that it is, though, the third most largest international arrival destination or port, I guess you could say almost transit, transit port. Paris is the only one from the top 10 cities that ends up on the second list. And it's number nine. So when people are going to Paris, they're actually going to Paris. They're not just, oh, we're in Paris and we'll just go, which is becoming much more the case with like Dubai or Doha, which are actually selling themselves as layover destinations. Hey, come and see. They've got a lot, put heaps of money into developing those. And because of their locations, they also... And because of pressures and because of their own already, the emissions that they're already contributing from both natural, liquid natural gas and petroleum, also both of them are really making huge attempts to be much more sustainable. And also they have to out of necessity because they're in hot, hot places. And so if they don't go about it in a sustainable way, plus they're leapfrogging in a lot of ways because they're just building things from the ground up as opposed to other cities, It's so much more difficult to try to green up Paris. And I think the mayor who's been in the last few years has made a huge, I mean, she actually got in on a sustainability like platform and has worked really hard to do that. And one, in fact, one of the things I just saw in, they just opened up the Seine for people to swim again.

KIMBERLY

Oh, wow.

KIMBERLY

Yeah. Which is really cool because it hadn't been for a hundred years. And the mayor promised that for the 2024 Olympics. that the swimmers would be able to swim in the sun. So they dumped a gazillion dollars into trying to clean it up and make it so that people,

KIMBERLY

really cool

KIMBERLY

make it so that people, you know, it was like actually shut down for public health reason.

JORDEN

I was going to say, I'll be leaving a few years to see the results before I jump in there.

KIMBERLY

Well, that and the other thing is because of all of the boat traffic that they have go through the sun, it's also the current. So they've got lifeguards, like from everything I read, lifeguards stationed everywhere just to make sure. And it's very sectioned off. And they also did this really cool thing where they put pools on by some of them with decks. They have out lounge chairs and stuff. They really did this up. So I can't wait to go to Paris again and check this out.

KIMBERLY

can't wait to go to Paris again

KIMBERLY

So beyond cities, which I mean, so many reasons, so many great cities to go to. I always feel like if you travel somewhere and can't find something worthwhile to do, you're not really looking hard enough, right?

JORDEN

Well, no, even like as I was teasing the last episode, I had one of the things I want to do in the coming years is like a Midwest oddities kind of tour. Right. And like the whole point of that is you can have an amazing trip going to places no one would ever think of going to as a destination. Right. I think first, as we talked about in the domestic episodes as well,

KIMBERLY

think first, as we talked about in the domestic episodes as well, that that actually is really good for sustainability as well, because you're going off the beaten path takes pressure off of those those main places. I always try to find at least one off the beaten path place in every city that I ever go to every place I go to just because it's amazing what you will find that just doesn't end up on other people's radar.

JORDEN

Oh, well, we've talked about it offline, but I know we both like just walking around the city and like instead of taking that cab or even transit, it's just I like adding that extra time and setting the destination and then wandering through the city. And you get to experience it in just such a different way. And that's how you find those random cafes. And for me, it's the bookstores, finding the small bookstops. I think one of the coolest things,

KIMBERLY

think one of the coolest things, too, is just like having a destination, like sort of in mind, even if you don't end up like going into the place, but have a destination. And then it's just like the getting there and giving yourself time to get there. I think that's one of the coolest things that you can actually do. And again. That is more sustainable because you're walking using public transportation and you end up invariably supporting the local economy in a way that, you know, I'm happy to give my tourist dollars to museums that are going, the money's going back into the museum as opposed to privately held places where they're just making a bunch of money off of my tourist dollars. And it's not really, I mean, it goes back into the community maybe, but you know, less so than.

JORDEN

We're talking about trickle down at that point.

KIMBERLY

Yeah, yeah. And so also, as we talked about in the domestic episode, amusement parks are also a destination for a lot of people going abroad. And so we as we also talked about in the last episode, it's the Disneyland and Universal Studios and those big chains that that number three, actually, Universal Studios draw slightly more tourists than Disneyland in Tokyo, which surprised me. The number one destination, though, still Magic Kingdom in Florida, like worldwide, as we talked about, and Disneyland is number two. So even when we talk about internationally. Those are still the top two in the United States. And then Shanghai Disney is number five. So we look at Disney overall. And also there is a Tokyo Disney Sea that's number seven. Yeah. So when you look at the Disney franchise, man, they have quartered, literally quartered the market internationally. It's amazing. I mean, as we talked about in the domestic episode,

JORDEN

mean, as we talked about in the domestic episode, I think amusement parks are kind of like an American, like if not an American thing, Americans perfected it. Exactly. It was serendipitous. I was listening to another podcast I enjoy and the host loves amusement parks. It's his like life thing. And so he was kind of he was making the point that this is an American thing. And he said, like, look, you look around the world, the average amusement like ride costs between 10 and 25 million dollars. That's kind of the average. Florida has over 15 multiple hundred of million dollar rides, like individual rides that cost between 200 and 500 million dollars. And Florida has like over 15 of them. So it doesn't surprise me that like Florida's got that top amusement park kind of drop.

KIMBERLY

And they've got the deep pockets and there's just self -reinforcing. One of the unexpected parks I found, I was just really blew me away, was number 13th most visited. amusement park in the world is energy landia in poland of all places draws over 10 million people a year i was just really stunned i've never heard of the place and also the fact that they get in there with all of that top competition in the top like whatever i mentioned seven i think with all of the disney's and stuff that they come in at 13 i thought that was really impressive for poland yeah yeah and the type of attraction right

JORDEN

One of

JORDEN

never heard

KIMBERLY

also the fact that they get in there with all of that top competition in the top like whatever i mentioned seven i think with all of the disney's and stuff that they come in at 13 i thought that was really impressive for poland yeah

JORDEN

yeah and the type of attraction right

KIMBERLY

I've been to Poland. I still never heard of energy land. No,

KIMBERLY

no.

KIMBERLY

So I expect that is a product of its location being close to all. I mean, Central Europe with all of those former Soviet public air, you know, our block countries and so forth that they get a lot of that traffic because it's a less expensive country. Certainly more people are going to travel to Poland than they are if they're if they're worried about. what they're spending and they're going to travel there before they're going to go to Disney, whatever in, in Paris. Right. Yeah.

JORDEN

And I think that there's something nice about amusement parks as like a tourism idea in the sense that you're, you know, you don't have to, for some of the other ones, like Paris is Paris, right? You're not recreating, I mean, aside from Las Vegas's attempts, you're not recreating the Eiffel tower and getting that draw there, right. And the Louvre and everything else that comes with it. But like, again, you can look at it and say, OK, if we're willing to put the capital in and do the advertising and build this over time, we can build a destination. Right. So I think that's an interesting it opens up, I guess, opportunities because I wouldn't think of Poland as a major destination. But as you pointed out, you know, the cost effective. And if they if they lean into that, then it can become a destination. Right.

KIMBERLY

I think, you know, go back to our popular destinations that, you know, from nowhere on this list are you going to find Poland, although Krakow is amazing. I would highly recommend that. And there are lots to offer in all of Poland, but the high Tetris Mountains, it's definitely worth visiting. It was a really interesting trip that I took. But France, I mean, the ones that you would expect, France, you know, followed by Spain, then the United States are the most visited countries in the world. Well, we will focus more on the sort of remote locations in the second segment of this episode we're doing on an international travel. When it comes to popular landmarks, you know, it's what you would expect. It's the Eiffel Tower and the Luguin and the Great Wall of China, Machu Picchu, Taj Mahal, Vatican Museums, right? All of those ruins wherever in the world. Petra. Go to Petra. It's an amazing place. You know, all of those things, pyramids and ancient ruins and... So way I was I thought was interesting list was the most popular culture destinations. So Cuba came up number one. And that didn't surprise me because Americans are just dying to get there because it before it gets spoiled. And I hate when people say that because spoiled means they finally managed to develop and they're pulling themselves out of poverty because there's just such a bad situation. And so that and Americans can go, but it has to be specifically granted. for religious reasons or for educational reasons or some development work can be done there but it's it's very limited you cannot go you cannot stay extend your stay you go for a set amount of time you can't go and be a tourist so that and that's still again a product of the cold war that's still probably the one like most lingering one that is just baffling that Congress still has not changed the embargo against.

JORDEN

It's such a weird one for me, too, as a Canadian. It's just like, wait, what do you mean, Kimberly? You go online, you book the flight and you go to Cuba for vacation. Isn't that how it should work?

KIMBERLY

how it should work? It is. That is how it should work. And there's a lot of pressure on the United States, in fact, actually to change its policy. But there is also a lot of a lot of political pull still for for keeping this policy in line. So I'm curious to see if in my lifetime that ever changes. I don't know, maybe people will just forget about it and it'll still stand. And they're like, no, that's not going to happen.

JORDEN

I kind of think that's what's happened already.

KIMBERLY

Same way. But so, yeah, except for, you know, travel minded people like me and who, you know, people who actually care about development want Cupid to open up so they can get out of this destitute situation. I read about that they're in all the time.

JORDEN

care about

KIMBERLY

So the other most popular ones are Cusco, because that's where Machu Picchu, you go to Machu Picchu from there, Agra. Right. Is Taj Mahal and Fez is just an amazing destination in Morocco, Athens, Dublin. Dublin actually sort of surprised me there, but I guess the whole Celtic heritage and especially with the number of Australian and American and Canadian. and we'll throw the the kiwis in there too who actually have celtic roots that that's something that makes sense i was gonna say so it's further on the list but dublin and edinburgh are the only places on this list that i've been i've traveled to yeah yeah edinburgh and colombo colombo i was surprised to see that on the list sri lanka though like i said and again oh so worth worth visiting who which is in vietnam

JORDEN

was gonna say so it's further on the list but dublin and edinburgh are the only places on this list that i've been i've traveled to yeah yeah

KIMBERLY

yeah edinburgh and colombo colombo i was surprised to see that on the list sri lanka though like i said and again oh so worth worth visiting who which is in vietnam And we're not going to talk about the fact that that was a trip I was supposed to take during COVID and got cut off, could not enter the country like four days before because the lockdown started. So we're going to set that aside for a different day.

KIMBERLY

cut off,

KIMBERLY

Edinburgh and Tokyo are the top cultural destinations and all of them make sense for various reasons, I think. Yeah. Another reason why people travel is for volunteer vacations. And this is a very sort of controversial thing. What are your thoughts on that?

JORDEN

on volunteer vacation i okay so it depends on like where you're doing i really struggle with this because i think they can be really good i i think you you have to actually even be a little more careful with what you're doing there because i actually because i think that some of these can become exploitative of local populations and almost like I don't know how to say this politely, but like a like a savior vacation is what they can become. And I think that can be really have negative effects for both the community and not something that, you know, you should be doing. On the other hand, as we talked about in the Mangrove episode, right, like there can be some great volunteer vacations where you're you're going and you're spending your time working to improve the environment you care about and get to see it. I guess I'm where everybody else is on this mixed and saying a little bit more careful than just like, oh, I found I get to go off to because I think there's also this attachment to like missionary kind of and some of the problems with that, like whole culture and work. So what about you, Kimberly?

KIMBERLY

I'm the same when it comes to this. I've never done one. I never plan on doing one. I think that one of the biggest concerns is. I mean, it's like, I suppose anything else we've been talking about is if it's well run and well established and legitimate and actually cares about like a mission to improve the sustainability and enhance the local community, then it can be done really well. But it is at the risk of undermining local jobs. And that's the thing that, you know, how do you draw that line? It's hard to, you know, gather the data on this because it's such a one by one, you know, individual sort of analysis. And so, yeah. So I would say if for anybody interested in that. to really do the research like before you go and make sure that what you're doing is going to have the impact that you you expect that it is going to.

JORDEN

Yeah. And maybe just like a good I don't know if we can call it a rule of thumb or but a way of judging it. If you after the end of a volunteer vacation, if you feel like you worked your ass off for the week, then you probably did OK. If you feel like you went to a dude ranch and played cosplay cowboy, you were probably in a bad spot. Yeah.

KIMBERLY

And it's probably exactly what you were doing was just having like a the whatever the volunteer vamping experience like the glamping you know like the the vamping experience so with resorts oh this is also sort of a you know i so much of me actually hates resorts because for the reason exactly that you mentioned at the start of our episode which is that too many resorts and too many people who go to resorts are just cut off from the locals They don't make an attempt to speak the local language. They don't make an attempt to go out unless it's an excursion of some sort. And it's just like to see a site, it's not really for interaction. And the money that they're putting into local communities can be good. I mean, it can. It can be effective and it can be good. But too often, it's either by big companies who are running those smaller enterprises. or they are the few local people who are already affluent and have the money to start these up. And so the money is not necessarily really going to into the community. The best sort of thing that could be is if it were actual co -op that ran something like this, then that would be great, ran tours or something. But Cancun is the top in North America. Over 6 million people visit Cancun a year. In the world, the Maldives. which is like, I wonder if those numbers just remain quite high because they're going to be off the map at some point soon. And it's just, you know, like that's a reality, unfortunately, of rising sea levels. Fiji, Bali, Dubai, that's one of those places where Dubai, whoever would have thought of Dubai as a resort area, but it is. I mean, they built actual islands to have resorts on.

JORDEN

Well, I was going to say, like, you know, I was making the point earlier that with amusement parks, you can kind of turn yourself into a destination. And I think, you know, Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, these are really great examples of spending 20 years and saying we are just going to build ourselves into a destination.

KIMBERLY

And that's one of the things that Dominican Republic did with Punta Cana, like just built themselves into a huge tourist destination. And that's, of course, really helped because especially, I mean, set Haiti aside for so many other reasons. The amount of growth that they've been able to and the prosperity, despite the fact that they're connected to on the Sharon Island with just an absolute disaster zone of a country. Unfortunately, Haiti can't do anything. They've got such amazing things to offer, but they just cannot get themselves out of the political. And then the consistent, like the recurring environmental because of the climate change is just getting worse for them. And so. The places that you would expect, you know, pop up on these resort lists, Caribbean, Mediterranean, South Pacific, you know, nothing surprising there. It's just, again, if you know anyone who's interested in going, it's, you can do it. And there are resorts that are definitely much more sustainable. Like I recommend Ackamel Bay and the Playa del Carmen because there, they actually, because they have a sea turtle, a national park reservation for sea turtle population. And so all of the resorts there are really careful about pushing people to not, they don't supply like plastic straws and stuff like that. And also making sure the waste, you know, minimizing waste that goes out, but also they actively clean up the seaweed because again, this is a climate change factor too, that there's a lot of. the Sargasso seaweed that ends up washing on shores. And because they're trying to protect the turtle population through the whole of Ackamel Bay, they work really hard to remove that. And so they're paying locals to do that, which is great too. And it makes for a better beach experience. When I was there, there was no seaweed to be seen. I mean, every morning when you got up, there were just piles and piles. And depending on the weather, the day before, it could be heaps. And they would clean it up and it'd be gone by the time that most people would be out. And there were people who were staying in neighboring towns who came to Akamal Bay, either to see the turtles or just for the beach, you know, just to go and walk around because it's a nice place too. And those resorts aren't cut off from the local town either. So you can actually very easily walk to the local town. People who I was talking to, a number of them said, wow, where we're staying, the city is just piled up. We can't even actually see the beach. They don't even bother to do it. And so there are places that definitely are much more sustainable. Make a point of that. Hawaii, anywhere in Hawaii is the same.

JORDEN

Yeah. No, I think that's the point is you can, there are enough options in this space that you can find. a better destination i don't want to say you can always find a great destination you know but again i think this is an area where you're going to have an impact you're you know like we talked about in the last show assuming that you're never going to have an impact is is just sets you up to hate the world and yourself right but then i think it's within those categories right so we're still we're on the destination right now it's both The destination at a country level is going to have different drivers of impacts and then where you stay within that. And you can think about, OK, so how do I minimize in these categories as you go through?

KIMBERLY

Well, I think one of the things we talked about in the domestic segments is that part of it is when you go. Right. So trying to not put the pressure on when the pressure is going to already be the most. So recognizing that climate change is having. I mean, every time I see that. hiking mount or you know trekking mount everest now that they're just queues of people lining up waiting to get to the top and people dying in the process and all of the garbage and just the nightmare this has been for the nepalese government to try to get rid of all of this waste because the companies never were responsible people were never made to be responsible along the way and now the government is trying to to sort of backtrack and and Cope with the fact that this is just like one of the top destinations in the world of places to go. And they're just not built for this, especially because Nepal is a really poor country anyway. And to talk about another country that's really heavily dependent on tourist dollars. And so I think that sort of thing, obviously, you don't want to go and try to climb Everest in the middle of the height of winter because it's just... You know, you're going to if you don't end up killing yourself, the Sherpas, you know, like you're going to put somebody in harm, if not yourself. And that's no good. The Sherpas will definitely out survive you, though.

JORDEN

Yeah. But I think the idea here, too, is is a bit of thinking broader than just the like, I want to say I went to Everest. I think there's a there's a point if you really love climbing, you really love like that experience. It blows my mind. I don't understand it. But I have friends who are crazy. And I think that if you could get any of them to admit, do they? Do they really want to go to Everest to spend three days waiting to walk up like they feel like it feels like a set of stairs now and you do your moment, get your picture and come down? Or would they have a better trip if they found another like amazing? Like Annapurna is one that's very same,

KIMBERLY

Like Annapurna is one that's very same, you know, Himalayan range, but it's not Everest, though. Right. And so that's the thing is like it's not K2. It's not Mount Kilimanjaro. And so. There is that exoticism that goes along with these and the bucket list ticking and so forth. And I appreciate it too, though, because there are places I absolutely would not want to miss my chance to see given the opportunity. And so especially if you are a trucker and that's something that you just want to do. But for people who were, that's not like their dying passion, then you really shouldn't be clogging up the queue to go and say you made it to the top of Everest, right?

JORDEN

Well, that's just it. And you got to think to these some of these like remote locations, especially sure, maybe, you know, 5000 people go in a year. But again, it's in a short window. Right. And it's a place that's really set up to handle, you know, a couple hundred over a year max. Right. And then I think this is like to your point of of Everest. I can remember like watching like the videos of some of the climbs in the early 90s when it was still like, wow, this is happening. And it went from that and a few people a year to now there's businesses fully around it. And it's easy. You sign up. I don't know. Even to me, though, it doesn't feel like it has that. I'm not a climber, but I don't understand it. But like as a kid, I remember like saying like Everest seemed big and now it seems the thing I think, like to the point where you commodify some of these experiences, at least for me, it. takes away from from it well my friend went and and he definitely i mean it was a challenge that he wanted to do he's very challenge oriented and and this was one of the things he really wanted to do and then he was sending me like photos practically all the way to the top because there's wi -fi everywhere and it was like i i just assumed i was going to hear from him for like you know like a week or whatever and then the next thing i'm like how is this and like oh yeah

KIMBERLY

then I

KIMBERLY

well my friend went and and he definitely i mean it was a challenge that he wanted to do he's very challenge oriented and and this was one of the things he really wanted to do and then he was sending me like photos practically all the way to the top because there's wi -fi everywhere and it was like i i just assumed i was going to hear from him for like you know like a week or whatever and then the next thing i'm like how is this and like oh yeah there's Wi -Fi, everything like that was to me completely anathema of what I would have expected for Everest. That was me at the bottom of the Grand Canyon getting cell phone calls because I found out that there had been enough complaints over the last five years of lack of cell phone service.

JORDEN

was me at the bottom of the Grand Canyon getting cell phone calls because I found out that there had been enough complaints over the last five years of lack of cell phone service. The Grand Canyon of the National Park Service put in an extra three cell phone towers. to ensure there's nowhere you can go and just check out anymore i think i mean there are places but you know eventually if they're worth visiting people will catch up with it so yeah but but yeah i mean in that and that's the impact of seasonal you know destinations we were just talking about and that's one thing we're like cusco with um first of all cusco in and of itself has a lot more to offer than just the gateway to aguas calientes which is where you go to to go to

KIMBERLY

there's nowhere you can go and just check out anymore i think i mean there are places but you know eventually if they're worth visiting people will catch up with it so yeah but but yeah i mean in that and that's the impact of seasonal you know destinations we were just talking about and that's one thing we're like cusco with um first of all cusco in and of itself has a lot more to offer than just the gateway to aguas calientes which is where you go to to go to Machu Picchu, but Machu Picchu has a much longer season. Like you can go, they've got the weather that they have there. You can go there in their winter time and still be very comfortable. And that's a very different experience than that tiny window that Everest has got. And so, so along those same lines. We start looking at like over tourism is just destroying world heritage sites and places like Machu Picchu. Now they limit, they limit the number of people who can go in, you know, they have a set number of passes that have to be purchased ahead of time. It's unfortunate in some ways, because unless you're affluent enough or organized enough to be able to afford or buy those, those tickets in advance, you may not actually get entry into them. But that's one way that there's an attempt to try to make sure that they're not degraded beyond, you know, what they were meant to put there, especially for UNESCO sites.

JORDEN

so but i think and this is the scary thing thinking forward is because again this is all happening with 10 of the global population flying right and having the ability to do this and you know as you know flying and being able to take these is true like types of international trips is really correlated with your countries like where you are on the wealth uh spectrum so as we see more countries Hopefully. And I think we all want to see more countries moving into that middle income kind of territory. But it's also just going to drive increasing pressure because, you know, there might be different. Like, I think we'll see patterns shift a little bit, right, as different countries kind of come into that spectrum and have their own destinations. But some of these like major world bucket lists that we've seen kind of been attractive around the globe, I think, is just going to continue. So if we're seeing these pressures now at this point. It really makes me sad to think of what it's going to look like in 20 years out.

KIMBERLY

And for many of these places, it's just the matter of economic dependency versus environmental degradation. What is that tradeoff? Where is their fine line that they can balance that? And also... Considering things like water scarcity, like anybody who comes in like the these tourist industry destinations are just they have that additional impact. And that's what I think the Greek islands really struggle with. I know Santorini, they have to import, bring all of their water in bottled that coupled with the desalination plant that they've got. That's it. And so like bottled water everywhere. I mean, even people who live there still have to basically. you know, worry about where their water supply is going to come from. And it's a huge, I mean, it is a gigantic, it's one of the least pleasant places in Greece I've ever been because it was just a cruise ship destination. And there is one area, thankfully I was got to go in places where it wasn't just dominated by cruise ship persons, visitors,

JORDEN

I know

KIMBERLY

but, but. It was, in fact, most of where I was was not. But the one sort of main area where I was with a hiking trip, which is that explains why I wasn't, you know, in the main. But when I when, you know, at the end of the day, when we were back in our main where we stayed, they the. try to walk to restaurants or something. Even there was this one strip of stairs basically that went up from the port to where they dropped. They take the buses up from the port to get them up a bit and then you just walk to the top. And it was just like a queue. I mean, it was just nonstop. It was like a traffic jam. And it just was like, oh my gosh, this is not what I want. Like, why would anybody? How can that be a meaningful experience for anybody who's going there? And you're just going up to like the little main city. And for a while, there wasn't even there. That wasn't the highlight of the island either.

JORDEN

But the story made it on a podcast. So, you know.

KIMBERLY

Yeah. Yeah. I would say definitely like go to Noxus or go to Pox. Noxus. And there's one that starts with a P that's right by there. Either of those, I would choose those anytime over. over santorini if i were to go back yeah but i know we're running a little bit late here and i do want to get to the some of the impacts of the modes of travel because i got some some number crunching that i went through here say one thing first though i do think in terms of you know dealing with water scarcity waste management and overcrowding and so forth but there are some maybe some destination cities that are listed as hey consider copenhagen stockholm bordeaux

JORDEN

to go back yeah but i know we're running a little bit late here and i do want to get to the some of the impacts of the modes of travel because i got some some number crunching that i went through here say one

KIMBERLY

crunching that i went through here say one thing first though i do think in terms of you know dealing with water scarcity waste management and overcrowding and so forth but there are some maybe some destination cities that are listed as hey consider copenhagen stockholm bordeaux Right. That's surprising. That surprised me. One of the most sustainable destinations, but out of necessity. Helsinki, Singapore, Melbourne also surprised me. Oslo, Brussels, Galway and Ireland and Belfast. They are actually some of the leading sustainable tourist destinations and they all have great things worth seeing. And depending on where you are, you might be adding those air miles to get there, Singapore, Melbourne. But that is one suggestion about ways that and and also like, you know, Reykjavik is a great example for being more sustainable. But the downside of that is there are more locals who are displaced because of. And so people are having to move further out, which leads to longer commutes. And so, you know, I was surprised to see Helsinki on that list. But that's a perfect segue into what you just were going to say about number crunching and transit forms.

JORDEN

surprised to see

JORDEN

Well, you know, I was saying that I actually wasn't really surprised by that list at all. They're all for two reasons. One, they're all developed countries. or have significant sustainability challenges that have changed how they developed. And then the second is most of those are on the list of top sustainable cities as well. So if you overlap like sustainable cities that are actually like Helsinki and Reykjavik are driving for that. So that I think is kind of what drives them to be the sustainable city choices.

KIMBERLY

They are all actually in developed countries as well. So you had that on the mark. Yeah.

JORDEN

Yeah. Okay, let's turn to, I want to start with cruises because I'm not a fan of cruises. Me either. I feel biased talking about this.

KIMBERLY

either. I feel biased talking about this.

JORDEN

I was not a fan before, but then I went and I looked at some of the kind of impacts of cruises. And I now officially feel safe saying that it's right to hate cruises. They're bad trips. You should do something else. But they're also really bad on an environmental level. And it is almost really hard to make a comparison. So just kind of setting some numbers out there. We've been using kind of the grams of CO2 per kilometer traveled as a good indicator. Just reminding everybody that domestic flight is the highest at that 248, kind of then passengers at 140 and international down at 140. By eight grams, cruises beat out domestic flight at 250 grams of CO2 per kilometer traveled. So it is officially the most carbon intensive per kilometer you're traveling. Kind of like a sense of scale here. Icon of the Seas, one of the largest cruise ships in the world, does 15 cruises per year. That's all it gets out. 2 .85 million tons of CO2 are emitted on that. That's the equivalent of 600 ,000 cars. Yeah, so this is over half a million cars driving all year is the equivalent of the 15 cruises that that'll take. But it's not just the everybody knows that I kind of fixate on the carbon emissions. But it's not just that cruises are really bad for sulfur and NOx emissions. So if you look at sulfur alone, Europe's 218 cruise ships. put off the equivalent of a billion cars, sulfur dioxide, because of the type of fuel they're burning. And then the NOx emissions, again, those same 218 cruise ships for Europe are 15 % of all passenger vehicle NOx emissions. Now, I bring these because while the CO2 is kind of a global problem mixes in the atmosphere, these kind of particulate emissions are really bad at the local air quality level. So you're imagining, you know, these these cruise ships kind of 40 at a time parking in some of these these docks in Europe or, you know, going up into Alaska. And it's having significant impacts on the air quality, not just on the emission level.

KIMBERLY

So much so that Norway actually enacted a policy and they. meant for it to begin in January of 2026 to fully ban all fuel powered cruise ships. But that's been delayed until 2032 because they are giving them a bit more of a lead time because their economy is they're so dependent on, you know, like also the tourism industry, but they're also going to lose what the tourists go there for if they don't do something. And they know this and also they're a leader in sustainable efforts, you know, sustainability in so many other ways we've talked about on the show. And so they have made it, though, so that even all of the small cruise ships that are under 100, under 10 ,000 gross tons absolutely have to be zero emission like now as of January 2026. And the thing is, I mean, these are ferries and like tourist ships, small ones, and they noted that most of them already almost are. So that's a very makeable goal for them. But the biggest problem was more along the lines of what you just mentioned was. That yes, of course, there's the global climate change concerns that will affect their whole topography and like everything that draws people to not just Norway, but the other countries in the region. But the other side of that is the pollution that these cruise ships spew and the local and the particulates and the effect that they have on the local and especially the fjords. And so that for them. became a really important policy to pursue because it's not just about global climate change, it's about like a real local effect and impact that cruise ships are having on their nature.

JORDEN

I mean, we've seen this consistently for 50 years, though. I think air quality, like the actual measurable in your daily life air quality is the largest driver for improved sustainability, whether it was in North America, you know, in the 60s and 70s going into China and a big major reason of China's continued massive investment in renewables isn't, you know, some pie in the sky sustainability plan. It's that they need to keep people happy and the emissions and the particulates like I didn't. Oh, I don't really say this. I didn't smoke outside in China when I was there because you couldn't because you couldn't breathe when I was there in 2012. And like the sad thing is, is that when I was going there, there were already articles being written about the improvement in air quality because it had already was so much better than it had been even a decade before. So it doesn't surprise me that that's what's driving some of this. And that's not even talking about some of the. major problems with the dumping of sewage and waste that comes out of these. I mean, they really are floating cities, but on every metric that I could go through, it's like going to the least sustainable city you could pick to go to.

KIMBERLY

And just with China comparison to India, which is also a huge destination for a lot of people want to go to India or go even go via India to Nepal and other places in Sri Lanka and so forth that look at their air quality compared to China. And they're like, way way way way behind and and have way more domestic challenges to deal with air quality and i mean it's every year they are shutting schools down uh you know sort of after before monsoon season after monsoon season because the air quality is so poor that they people literally can't go outside without being at risk. And so with the cruises, 2024 was a record year, 35 million people took cruises and they and for 20 for this year, it's expected to be up three more million. And it's a 168 billion dollar industry with 1 .6 million jobs. And so when we look at the numbers, 18 million of these were Americans. So, you know, that wasn't surprising. The Mediterranean. is just a 6 % destination for Americans, the Caribbean 72%. And Alaska was number two, that Alaska was only 6 % too. So that was number two. So the Mediterranean was like a far, was kind of like slightly lower. And even though Alaska is such a huge difference between 72 % in Caribbean and 6 % Alaska. I realized I must have written round number for Mediterranean. I had that at 6%. It has to be slightly lower because Alaska was too. But I mean, this is like, you know, and I have friends and family who have gone on cruises and love cruises and can't wait to cruise the next time. And so full confession, I really can't do it because of the motion sickness. I am always happy to have had that excuse because no part of my fiber of being wants to go on a cruise anyway. So I have always had that really good excuse to not go on cruises. But when I think,

KIMBERLY

I think, just think about, and also what I know about, you know, one of the things with sustainability is also the treatment of people and humans and everything. I remember sitting, I was at a conference and a person was giving a paper on. The cruise ships as little, they're kind of portrayed as being little model, like little United Nations where, oh, they have people come and they parade all the flags from all the countries they're from and so forth. But what they don't tell you is sort of like, it's like steerage. The lower down your country GDP is, the lower you're going to be on the ship and you are not even going to interact with most of these people at any given time. They seem like such an exploitative sort of place and just, you know, food. I just hear people go to eat and drink and it doesn't even seem to me like people really get to experience the destinations where they're stopping at in port anyway. So, but, you know, so I was already biased, but now I actually have good data behind me to be biased. So I feel less bad about being biased. Now, when it comes to planes, this is definitely my Achilles heel here. In 2024, Americans set a record for almost 110 million international trips, and most of them were for leisure. Again, like I was just mentioning with the steerage. If you're in, you know, economy class, you're emitting the least amount. If you're in business class, you're emitting three times more. If you're in first class, you're emitting nine times more emission contributions just by the class that a person chooses for their flight. And I have to confess that I will. So let me first preface this, give myself a bit of a, I think about two thirds of my entire height. is leg and being 5 '11", you know, like I've got a good amount of leg going on here. And so if I, when I could afford to, and when they started doing and I could afford to upgrade to comfort level seats, I bit because I was so tired of, I mean, I was at the point where my body was actually aching by the time I got off of a, over a long haul flight. Because I was just so crammed in and couldn't move my knees. And then the person in front of me puts, they don't put their seat, they mash their seat back into my legs. And so as soon as I could upgrade, I did. I do not fly first class because I just think that that is like the just most horrendous is like just, you might as well just slap sustainability in the face, you know? But yeah, I will emit slightly more so that I can actually walk when I get off of a plane.

JORDEN

Yeah, my trick is to just always book the window, like the exit emergency exit row.

KIMBERLY

Because that can that was always my strategy before I got the extra leg room. But you know, there's the trade off with that, too, because you don't, I don't know, you don't you don't get to have the seat in front of you to stow your stuff, which is very inconvenient. And yeah, but there are other reasons. But yes, yes. So when I do when I do end up on flights, where that's the situation, I also try to book an exit row.

JORDEN

Yeah. I think it's safe to say that most people are getting to international travel by plane. Boat, again, I was laughing as I was preparing for this. I'm like, well, we don't have the six months to do the boat trips across the ocean that used to be international travel. Here's a really cool statistic for you. I was really trying to find the total kilometers traveled by planes in a year. This was all passenger passenger planes. And the best year I could find was 2019. It was around 8 trillion kilometers traveled, which is just over one light year. Yeah. So in 2019, all human kind of passenger travel was about one light year. And I think that is just really cool. And I love when we do cosmic scale stuff on our little planet. But the majority of these flights are still taken with normal jet fuel. I think this is one of the really interesting facts about airplane travel is that efficiency between 1990 and 2019 doubled in airplanes. So the amount of energy being used per kilometer flown was cut in half. Unfortunately, again, the amount of flying quadrupled. So any efficiency games were more than offset. But a big thing here is that all of those efficiencies came through design and technology. The actual fuel that's being burned is no different than it was in 1990s.

KIMBERLY

Yeah, I did some research into that, actually. And in fact, people may remember we did an episode about sustainable fuels and Jordan spent a lot of time talking about. sustainable aviation fuel SAF. And so I, we encourage you to go back to listen to more on that if you're interested in much more detail, but I also that, so the unfortunate thing about SAF is that now the only way that airlines can really buy more of this and use more of that because it's so expensive, like two to five times more expensive is if they basically get customers to say they're going to pay a fee. And they're not to the point where they're forcing customers to pay the fee because then that's not competitive with other airlines. So without international law or some sort of international policy on this, this is what we're going to continue to see unless governments start subsidizing. And we're not likely to see that in the current economic environment. And so that really the onus is either on the airline or it's on the consumer to pony up the money so that they can use more sustainable aviation fluid. Another thing that I think that goes along with that is that it's better to get direct routes whenever possible. And that's also a give and take because airlines like to reroute you through 12 different places if they can to give you a cheaper ticket. And all of that takeoff and landing requires a lot of fuel. And so if... Maybe you could think of this as a trade -off, like if the cost isn't so prohibitively much, don't pay for the SAF fee, but take the direct route and pay a bit more because then at least you're getting the benefit of being there sooner without more layovers and possibility of getting stuck somewhere. But that's a hard sell, I think.

JORDEN

Well, I think a big part of the problem right now, and you made a good point, really recommend going back and listening to the Sustainable Fuel episode because it won't hit. all of it here. But the fact of the matter is, is we're only making around 1 million tons of SAF right now, sustainable aviation fuel, and it's all being used, right? So and, you know, it's expected to double this year in 2025 to 2 million tons. Just for perspective for everybody, that is 0 .7 % of all fuel. We're currently around 285 million tons of aviation fuel. To your point, though, Kimberly, it is super expensive. And I wanted to look at what kind of what are we talking about here? Because some of the some of the airlines, some of the airline associations and even some government studies will say that you can get up to a 90 percent reduction in emissions from going to sustainable aviation fuel. Luckily, we have a real life 100 percent SAF flight where we can go off their data. And it was about a 64 percent kind of reduction in emissions. So I was looking at what. What would happen if we switched over everything to it? Well, it would be an extra $453 billion in fuel costs to switch from regular fuel. So $216 billion for just normal jet fuel, it'd be $669 billion a year for SAF fuel if costs stay the same. Now, we could expect a slight decrease in cost, but I wanted to keep it here and say, well, what would that mean for you and I if we want to travel? Just going by number of passengers flying per year, it'd be about $100 per flight extra or $2 per kilometer traveled. So that to switch to 100%. So I think when you look at the big numbers, it gets, you know, but then when I'm looking at, you know, the last flight I took out to Vancouver was only $100. So you're talking about it really can get into it. But I want to know what would this do for emissions? It would be the equivalent of removing the entire country of Canada's emissions a year. 500. And we know Canada is bigger than we might realize from other episodes we've talked about.

KIMBERLY

500. And we know Canada is bigger than we might realize from other episodes we've talked about. It's not that's not nothing to anything to sniff at.

JORDEN

No, we're number 11 in the world. So like just by getting this switch over. So now I don't think as kind of maybe hinted, this is going to be a long time to ramp up. Part of the problem there is that essentially would be a five hundred and twelve dollar price of carbon per ton. which is so far beyond any country that has a carbon price right now. And I think that that number right there, the $500 per ton reduction is why we're not going to see sustainable aviation fuel really take off until, like you said, there's international pressure.

KIMBERLY

Right. So if there was an international law that said, OK, every airline, assuming that there's enough of it. And also one of the things I came across, too, was. It also depends on the source of where the fuel is coming from, the components of the fuel, which I'll get to in a minute. But if everyone, every traveler just had to be, you know, $100 more or a percentage of their flight, to be fair, but don't just make, you know, international flights are so ridiculously expensive anyway. So don't like maybe on a graduated scale or something, I don't know, something that's fair. that I don't think $100 is an unreasonable amount to ask of somebody for the humongous climate impact that it has. When we think about how much these numbers that we've been talking about, how much people spend on souvenirs, how much people, how many trips they're willing to take and the sorts of things, activities and so forth, I don't think that's unreasonable at all. And the environmental reward would just be humongous. And so that but that's something that that's the problem, right? Is this an externality that's just not considered? And so I was looking at, I knew you would crunch numbers. And so I was looking at what airlines are considered the most sustainable. And so I was looking at sustainability, sustainability magazine ranked the top 10. Their list was very different from the European Federation for Transport and Environment. Because they looked at, their guide was how many airlines are committed to using sustainable fuel alternatives and the source of them as well. So out of all of the 77 airlines in the world, only 10 have committed to using SAF alternatives. And of them, there are several of them. that are not committed to using the best kind, they end up on this sort of second block of their list. Like some of, so I don't want to get too airline detailed here by confusing the two lists, but they are relied more on crop and corn -based biofuel for their SAF. So they tend to be more American airlines. American being one of those, in fact. So the sustainability magazine was looking at more factors than the SAF. So their top were United, Delta. The first foreign one on the list was British Air and Virgin. And then Cathay, which is a Hong Kong airline, was number seven. Air Canada was number eight. And then two discount carriers made the list. JetBlue was number three and EasyJet was number nine. That list is very different from what the ET, the FTE put together, where their top airlines were Air France Calam, United. So United was on both, right? List is very good. And Norwegian. And it's because they were using... But SAF fuel that was derived from sustainable crops as opposed to like corn crops and biofuel, which is just, as we know from talking about in other episodes, just bad, right? You don't want to use that. And ideally, we wouldn't be using any of this. One of the things they have more of a commitment to is e -kerosene, which is a better way to go about this. So that list was looking very different than what the list of the sustainability magazine put together. And it turned out that it was the European airlines that were more likely, except for United, more likely to be on that list. And British Air was also on both lists, number four incident, or four on one and five on the other. Virgin also on both. But Ryanair made their list because they were also one of those, even at a discount airline. that was committed to decarbonizing in a way that these other ones that made the sustainability magazine list didn't. And I thought that was really interesting.

JORDEN

Nice. Yeah, no, I think that's really what it comes down to. You got to look into what they're ranking, right? When they're actually putting together a list. And it doesn't mean either one is wrong or right. And it just means what are you focusing on and what are your criteria, right?

KIMBERLY

Well, because I mean, we know, okay, so that by far is the biggest factor, no question. And without, as you just talked about, you know, without some sort of other intervention going on, it's going to be a while that's gonna be down the line. So there are certainly other things airlines can do. And one of the things like, so I have in recent years seen more airlines with the little amenity kits they give for overnight flight, you know, long haul flights. They are now fair trade sourced amenity kits. And they're not just like some plastic thing made in China, but they're actually like handmade by so -and -so, you know, and paid fair wages. So that sort of thing and the type of amenities that they include in that. A lot more places are advertising that they're using sustainable amenities from sustainable sources. Emirates has an extensive list. They weren't on any list, right, for being really great. But going to their website certainly presents a different picture as a lot of times it is for big companies, right? And about the sorts of things that they're doing, they're doing things like recycling all the plastic bottles from their flights to make the blankets that they use, and that they're recycling all of the stuff that comes off of their plane. So they have a closed loop recycling system. And so yeah, okay, maybe they're not going to make it to the SAF anytime soon. And it's going to take a lot more international pressure for that to happen. But they're at least they're making an attempt instead of just coming completely irresponsible.

JORDEN

No, 100%. I think that for any industry, you got to look at where are you making efforts, right? And like, if it was just are you using the very expensive at this moment fuel, I think that would be an unreasonable pressure, right? Like we can see from the impact that that's the goal. And that's where we need to be putting effort on. But in the meantime, to your point, it doesn't mean that you just say, well, we can't do anything, then you look for other other areas.

KIMBERLY

I think that one other thing that was worth mentioning just briefly, if not in the interest of time here, is that, you know, traveling by train, but for people coming from a distance, that's not going to be their main way to get there. It's going to be how they get around once they're there. And certainly your rail system is fantastic and metro systems in most European cities and even like not even major cities, but we're talking about like you can get pretty much anywhere on a metro. some sort of public transport system. And also, I mean, it might not run every day, but you can definitely get there. And the bullet trains, how cool would that be? And we talked actually some about that in our domestic episode, lamenting the fact that we don't really have those in North America, but would love to have them. And also just consider things like taking a taxi versus taking public transportation. But if you do have to take a taxi. Take like the licensed legitimate ones rather than, you know, just like the person who's running the gig economy because they pay more to be able to do that. And they're held to more accountability and better standards and are more likely to have sustainable vehicles and so forth. And so, you know, like I don't want to, you know, clearly there are people who need to drive Uber cars and Lyft cars everywhere around the world. But when it comes to sustainability, that's not the most sustainable option necessarily.

JORDEN

Yeah, no, exactly. The only thing I'd say I'd add to the train ones is I think China is a great example of what the impact you can get from switching to high speed electrified rail. From 2013, their rail, their passenger rail industry was about 35 ,000 tons of emissions per year down to 5 ,000 tons for just passenger. And that's by electrifying, because in that same period, they over doubled their high speed rail track. And so when you're looking at Europe and North America, the still the predominant train is a diesel engine. She's going to be better than flying, especially because, as we said, those domestic short haul flights are the worst kind of impact from a mission standpoint. So if you can use a train, do. But if you can advocate for high speed rail and electrifying trains, then you should. And that's actually really good news because China is growing in its tourism industry.

KIMBERLY

that's actually really good news because China is growing in its tourism industry. More people want to go there. More people are going there. They have more domestic inter -transit. That's actually going to translate over to people who are just taking, you know, trips who are working on the coast and staying in the rural areas. So that's really excellent because China, anything that China can do then, that's also going to lay the foundation for other emerging economies who are building up and instead of, you know what I'm saying, to improve their rail systems as well.

JORDEN

Well, once you've seen one country do it, it's easier to do it.

KIMBERLY

Exactly. Well, not only that, but they're going to have technology that's going to be more advanced than trying to upgrade existing like the colonial systems are mostly what's in Africa. You start looking at African rail. You're riding those same trains and systems that were put in place during the colonial era. And but also they're going to be also have it because it's China and they're selling to. economies that are less, have less money than they do, it's going to be less expensive for them to buy from China than it would be to buy from like Japan.

JORDEN

Yeah, 100%. So are you hopeful?

KIMBERLY

are you hopeful? What do you think?

JORDEN

Oh, I'm hopeful for a couple of reasons, especially after going through all this and thinking about the numbers. One, it's a very small percentage of the world that's doing this, right? This is an area where we know who's driving the impact. And probably if you're listening to the show, you are one of the people as you know, Kimberly and I both are. So I think that that makes it a narrow place where we can kind of, you know, I said that I think tourism's diffused across so many different places. Actually looking at the tourist is probably the easiest choke point of where we can make some changes. And as you pointed out, there are options to do it better. And I think that this is a fun one because you can find options. You don't have to say, I'll throw my hands up and it's just going to be nothing. I mean, If you love cruises, I don't know what to tell you on that one.

KIMBERLY

that one.

JORDEN

But other than that, no, I think that little intentional. We can enjoy our travel. We can have great trips, but just do it a little bit better.

KIMBERLY

I think I'm with you that, you know, unfortunately, with the number that just a huge increasing demand and the number of people taking cruises and who want to take cruises, that kind of makes it difficult. because the emissions are just so horrendous and the pollution is just so much from that. But looking at the other things that we've talked about, I think we can sort of be hopeful in that, as you mentioned, there's a much more sort of targeted audience here. It's not like we have to have everybody in the whole entire world on board with this. And I think that because of the countries that are also the ones responsible for the error, travel. Those airlines already have an incentive and some of them have more government support to move in that direction anyway. So we're going to get there closer because of that. It's not like we're relying on developing countries to say, oh, okay, you have to do this too or it's not going to work. Okay. So if you enjoyed our episode, our second travel installment here on International Travel on Sustainable Planet, or even if you didn't, let us know at usplanetpod at gmail .com. We're also on Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. You'll find these links in our show notes, along with additional resources from today's show, including my sub stack post on our website at splanetpod .com. If you have time, please rate and review us. And thanks for listening and have a great trip.

Vacationing in a yurt: Camping or Glamping?

Vacationing in a yurt: Camping or Glamping?