Why We're Hooked on Travel

In the first of a four-part series on travel, Jorden and Kimberly begin with what goes into planning a journey to consider how to have a great vacation that’s also more sustainable.

With the number of travelers continuing the upward trend interrupted by the pandemic, more tourists are making domestic and international trips. In planning the journey, this episode focuses on domestic travel, checking out where people go and how they choose to get there. Jorden and Kimberly then turn to the impact of heading to these top destinations and suggestions on strategizing to have a great time while helping to conserve the places we love to visit.

Key Topics Jorden and Kimberly discuss include:

• Just how much domestic tourism has rebounded since the pandemic

• What are the most popular cities, favorite attractions, most visited national and amusement parks, and top beach destinations

• What The Ultimate Road Trip involves

• How train travel is making a comeback, while air travel rates continue to soar

• Why when we go matters more than we might think

• How just a few considerations can make a difference

Recommended Resources

• AAA ⁠2025⁠ projections

• Top ⁠tourist cities⁠ in NA

• Top ⁠US National Park Service⁠ destinations

• US NP ⁠funding cuts⁠ impact

• Top ⁠Canadian National Park⁠ destinations

• Top ⁠amusement and theme park⁠ destinations

• US ⁠domestic flight⁠ trends

• US ⁠Amtrak⁠ trends

• 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. Like I take for granted.

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 diverse countries, it's one of my favorite things that have been built up.

KIMBERLY

Certainly for me as well. I will go anywhere. I joke, I'll go pretty much anywhere anybody would send me to for that matter. But yeah, when it comes to. to vacations i love to hike and so for me i'm always looking at my my spouse however is much more of a city person he likes to make sure that there's a city anywhere and if then he'll he'll concede to some hiking but i usually it's got to be someplace where it has the what he wants from a city so colorado worked well for us because we could go to Denver is OK. Boulder is fantastic. But then we could also go to the Rocky Mountain National Park and we can both be, you know, have a good vacation. And so when it comes to the United States, the U .S. National Park sites get 331 .9 million visitors they had in 2024. And this isn't just for people who don't know a lot about the National Park Service. It includes the national parks, but also. federally funded and protected monuments and memorials and like scenic drives. There's a great one through Shenandoah Valley and along the various coasts and stuff, battlefields and even seashores and so forth. And so when it comes to people tend to think of national parks, they just think of like Rocky Mountain National Park or something. Jordan, do you know what the most visited national park is in the United States?

JORDEN

I we have it in the notes, but I will admit that I did not know that it was this was the one and it wouldn't have been my guess.

KIMBERLY

No, not at all. So I'll give people a minute to see if they figure out what it is. Now that you gave them a bit of a clue, because it's not what you would expect. It's not Yellowstone or Yosemite or or Death Valley. I don't know. I think that's a national park. That's a national park. Right. No, it is. In fact, and I did know this because I came across this a few years ago. I was like, what? Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which is mostly in Tennessee and then runs into North Carolina, is actually the most visited national park in the United States with over 12 million visitors in 2024. And that's like huge. And so you put this in some nowhere.

KIMBERLY

you put

KIMBERLY

you put

KIMBERLY

this in some nowhere.

KIMBERLY

I'll just add like, I mean, OK, so there are some major like you've got Knoxville and you've got, you know, Nashville. But it's still not like the closest city is Knoxville. It's not Nashville. It's not Memphis. The ones that people tend to think of with Tennessee. Yeah.

JORDEN

So put this in perspective, all Canadian national parks and my numbers are for just the parks, not for some of our museums out east. But. only get around 15 million visitors per year as of 2023. So 3 million less people are going to just the Great Smoking Mountains. And so when I read this, though, it actually clicked with, you know, I know I've told you, but I have this like wild dream of one day hiking the Appalachian Trail on a through hike. And so, like, I do a lot of looking into that. And the Great Smoky Mountains is one of the only places on that entire hike where you have to book your where you're staying at night and you have to hit it. And if you don't, you don't get it because of how. And so, like, I guess like that had been floating there. So when I saw this, although to your point, though, I'm trying to like mentally place it of how so many people are getting there and going into it. But it's because of it is so vast for starters.

KIMBERLY

because of it is so vast for starters. Right. But it is, you know, lots of people transit through there, through Tennessee. So that's part of it. But there are also, it is worthwhile destination in and of itself. It's gorgeous. And they're like Dollywood, as we'll talk about with amusement parks is there. I remember the first time I heard about Dollywood, I thought, oh my gosh, this sounds so cheesy. It is not, I still haven't been, but I've known enough people who have gone there and read enough about what Dolly Parton had done in doing this, putting this together, that that is also makes part of this, the great Smoky Mountains National Park, that makes it also a dual attraction along with. Just now there are a bunch of other things like water worlds and stuff like that also there. So it's a really hugely built up. And for knife lovers, if you want to spend a half a day there with somebody who's a knife lover, stop at Knife World is the largest place in the United States. I know this from personal experience. I was driving through. Yeah. And so the next parks on the list aren't surprising. They're the ones you would probably, most people would think of first, like Zion, right? And I want to, that's like, I still haven't hit that sort of middle part where I really want to go to Zion. I have been to Grand Canyon, which is just, you know, like one of those places where, where photos just don't, right? People say that about a lot of things. That is one thing where there is nothing you can see, no video, nothing. You have to be there.

JORDEN

And I will. And so I'll say to people, it's funny. I on my road trip last year, I got to see Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Death Valley. I think I hit six national parks. I had, I thought, a really strong expectation of what the Grand Canyon would be like because I've seen it in movies. You've seen the shots. I'm convinced now they actually take the worst shots possible to make it look like this desolate wasteland. Or they're only there in like November. Because when I was there in June, it was the most lush green explosion. But then at the same time, the mountain kind of like, it's not mountain, but like the valley, the canyon itself. I'm stumbling over my words because you actually cannot describe what seeing it's like. And I highly recommend it to everybody.

KIMBERLY

I was actually there in January and it was snowing. So that was a really cool and neat experience too. And so that's a place where you just can't go wrong. And it's huge too. So it's not like everybody has to be tripping over each other. Of course, you know, the more you go to the high season, that's going to make it less of a... perhaps pleasant experience, but it also depends on where you hike or what you're going for and what part of it you go to. So it certainly breaks it up a little bit better because there are multiple entries to it as opposed to someplace like Yellowstone or Rocky Mountain or Yosemite, where there's a little bit more concentration of where people want to go, where they're staying and so forth and filtering in through. And so that has led to things like having reservation systems like you were mentioning with where you where you hike on the at with with this it's like yeah reservation systems just for the time of day you actually enter these parks because they are so they you know and that's part of our whole sustainability issue right is we want to avoid the overcrowding because of the tax it has on the ecosystem and and so what do you do about that well here's one way and well this is like one of the things yeah

JORDEN

well this is like one of the things yeah It gets to the point where it's almost comical. I'd say Yellowstone was probably the worst of my trip for this last year, where for everything that you're going to see, you're basically standing in a horde of people of 100 people and you kind of press and you shuffle up to you get to the front and you get to see the thing for your three minutes, take your photos. And then you're off to the back. And even from an experience standpoint, I'd say I loved Yellowstone. It was great. I'm glad I got to see it. But it also felt the most developed isn't the right word, but it felt less like I was seeing something natural almost because of the amount of people there. And then this is, you know, you tie in social media. And I think one of the big sustainability challenges we've seen. In the last few years, because people think, OK, well, I'm going to go camping. That's going to be more sustainable at the end of the day. And like there, you shook your head because it really depends on how you're doing it. And I think the way that most people start out is not going to be the best. And one of the things that we've actually seen in the rise of kind of these eco influencers and a big problem is geotagging. So like, you know, people geotag the perfect selfie spot. And then the next thing you know, within weeks, you have thousands of people going to the spot that had maybe seen 10 visitors a week before that. And now it's destroyed. And everyone converging on that same spot,

KIMBERLY

converging on that same spot, looking for that same shot. Yeah.

JORDEN

Yeah. And we've seen this, you know, in like forest parks. I know that in Alberta here, we've had problems with. Sorry, rock paintings being tagged and then people going and all it takes is that one. But when you send it to a couple hundred thousand people, it's a lot easier to find that one who then goes and draws all over them because they thought they were funny. And so I think this is a one of the biggest challenges. And I started to see like this discourse in kind of the more eco influencer space. And I think it's good. But this is one of those ones where I actually think that instead of like worrying so much about the system. Right. We're usually talking about the system driving your impact or at least you're right. I think this one is really like you need to examine your choices about how you're traveling. That's going to really come out if it's good.

KIMBERLY

Yeah. I mean, that's the one thing. It doesn't matter whether it's you're in nature or elsewhere. The leave no trace is really what your credo should be for travel. Yeah.

JORDEN

Which gets hard as we talked about.

KIMBERLY

Well, I think so. The graffiti you mentioned is, because these are federally funded places, both in the United States and Canada, that puts a lot more pressure on the government. And so when the cuts are made, as we know from talking about sustainability, always environment is going to, you know, any social service, like those are always going to take a backseat to other things. And so we see that a huge increase in graffiti in the national parks because of the cuts that we'll talk a little bit more extensively about later. And also, we see the same sort of problem with waste management in national parks, but also even the number one most visited national park service site in the whole United States is actually the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. And it's big because it runs along the coast, includes, you know, in San Francisco, it includes the Golden Gate Bridge, right in the Presidio area around there. Alcatraz is part of that, but it goes all the way up to Muir Woods as well. And so there's a whole giant, amazing woods experience. And it had almost 15 million visitors in 2024, which is even more than the largest national park visit. And so that's a lot of traffic. And that's not surprising, right? Because people are going to San Francisco anyway as a tourist destination. And then you get this great national park system on service on top of that. But then you also have the graffiti there, which is even more taxing because you're in a city. It's not just like, oh, you got to control these irresponsible people who are making the trek out there. And this one rock that might be tagged because now it's suddenly, you know, like if I were in the national park system, I'd probably be like have someone designated just to looking at social media and saying, what's the next spot that we're going to have to like stake out to make sure it doesn't end up being, you know, like. I didn't know if you meant tagged like the, on the, on the social media, like, but also tagging is great because tagging is also graffiti. So, I mean, it kind of applies both ways here.

KIMBERLY

is great because

KIMBERLY

here. Yeah.

KIMBERLY

Yeah. And so, so if that's the thing, you know, you, maybe you just have somebody like, okay, what's coming up that where are we going to have to, or where's the next part we're going to have to actually crowd control. So you don't have more of an artificial experience rather than the natural immersive experience that you're meant to have when going to these national parks. I think, too, that that, you know, we talk about parks and crowds. Certainly that brings us to amusement parks and theme parks, because, wow, it is just insane when we start looking at the projected revenues for 2025 is sixty two point one four billion dollars. And that's the revenues. That's that's worldwide because it's hard to like sort of break them apart. I think that one is worldwide. It was just really hard to find like specific figures for these things. So sorry, I have to double check that one.

JORDEN

Well, no, but I also, I mean, I would be willing to bet that even if they're global, a large percentage of that is going to be concentrated in America. I do like America is the amusement park capital of the world. And I think amusement parks are actually one of your prime cultural exports around the world. But like, you know, and I've often as a Canadian lamented this a little bit because we don't we don't have the same kind of. I guess like set like so like right now, actually starting on the fourth is the Calgary Stampede. So it's the greatest outdoor show on earth. Over a million people will come extra like will come through my city over the next I think the 10 days of Stampede. And so I get a carnival then for those 10 days. But that goes away at the at the end of it. And we don't have it. But but I think, you know, Listening to some of the numbers today, when you're having 330 million visitors through your kind of tourism sector in a year, you can you can support permanent year round amusement parks. Right. So.

KIMBERLY

Well, but some of them aren't year round. Some of them are very seasonal. Oh,

KIMBERLY

OK.

KIMBERLY

Oh, yeah. But of course, when you talk about Florida and California, those are year round.

KIMBERLY

Yeah. But also another thing that I thought of in stumbling over whether that was global or international or domestic.

KIMBERLY

But also another thing that I thought of in stumbling over whether that was global or international or domestic. In some ways, it doesn't matter because those same parks are actually they're the biggest international parks as well. Like so the whole Disney complex and those. So those figures would you still have to even break that down further, even if it says domestic, because you look at that and then you see what Disney owns and all of those other parks, as we'll talk about in the international episode that that's I mean, so it's probably just just go with 62 billion dollars. It's a big industry. And and the Orlando complex is by far the I don't think of it as the complex, right? Like Kissimmee in Florida. And it's around six million people go to Orlando a year. And that's not just Disney World. I think Orlando on the city. Right. Yeah.

JORDEN

It's funny. So like for I guess you answer the top, you know, like the kind of like liking the nature vacations more Banff is the ideal. Mine is. So I like the road trip and I like a blend of the city and the natural. I like I couldn't. And I think I would have to lean towards the city if I was if I had. So you're like Michael.

KIMBERLY

So you're like Michael. OK, I am.

JORDEN

I am. Yeah. But I prefer my trips to the blend of both. And, you know, for that, I prefer road trips. I cannot I can actually honestly say I've never done a theme park or amusement park vacation. It's never been the primary focus of any of any of my vacations.

KIMBERLY

So are you sad about that? Or are you glad after you see some of the stuff we're talking about?

JORDEN

I'm not great at I'm not great at rides. I meet heights and speed don't do super well together. But then like thinking it through kind of let's pull it up in a second. We've talked about a number of different vacation spots. Right. I'm wondering if because of the actual it's one company running it and it's concentrated, if the actual like. impact of going to disneyland would be less than going to say new york city which is going to be more diffuse across and i think that it might depend really on the amusement park and where you're going but those are going to like i guess the impact of those are going to be outside your control and then on the national parks one a lot more of that's within your control of how you're going to do the trip right for sure i think so yeah and that is i mean

KIMBERLY

sure i think so yeah and that is i mean In some ways, this is actually not a bad thing because you've got everything right in one location, as opposed to national parks. Like you said, you went to like a lot of people do sort of the ones, you know, various circuits of national parks. And so that means a lot more driving and a lot more, you know, using a lot more fuel and amenities and so forth than you would maybe if you were just parked in one place, like more sheets will be washed, more towels will be washed for every hotel you change. With Orlando, you've got the whole Disney experiences, which are Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom is number one, not just in the United States, but in the world. There's Epcot and Universal Studios and Universal Islands Adventure, Disney's Hollywood Studios, Disney's Animal Kingdom, Legoland, and apparently SeaWorld is still around along with, you know, so you've got all of those things there. And so you've got like, you know, what more could you possibly want?

JORDEN

Yeah. I'm going to have to look at amusement parks, maybe. Sorry, go ahead.

KIMBERLY

You could still, you know, with what you were talking about, you could go to California instead. You could do the whole Hollywood complex experience, have that. where you've got still the Disney experiences, not Disney World, but the lesser Disneyland in Anaheim, California. You've got also the Disney California Adventure, Universal Studios, and Legoland. So there's not as much there, but there are still a lot of things there. You don't get Epcot, which is pretty cool, or at least it was when I went there only was like sixth grade.

JORDEN

You can tell which one of us has the more experience with the amusement parks.

KIMBERLY

can tell

KIMBERLY

Well, you know, the thing is, is that I grew up near Knoebels Grove in Pennsylvania, like 20 minutes from my house. And it's notable because it's the largest free admission park in the United States. And it draws almost 2 million visitors a year. And it's seasonal too. And so that's really something. And it also has the largest wooden roller coaster in the United States as well.

JORDEN

There's not a number you could pay me to go on a wooden roller coaster.

KIMBERLY

Oh, you know, I have been. And I have. For me, the rides are kind of like amusement parks aren't nearly as appealing as I was when I was younger and could just handle getting off something, being nauseous and jump right back on. But roller coasters are something that generally I don't feel nearly as the motion sickness. Like I can't go on a carousel anymore. So, but I can,

KIMBERLY

but I

KIMBERLY

can, I can go on a roller coaster and it's not, it's not scary at all. I think the scarier ones are where you go on them and they have those sudden huge like drop and you just feel like the bottom's going out from under you, which I don't think they can sort of do with the, I don't know, maybe they can with wood and I don't know. I don't know roller coasters, but they do. And so so I was like, this was like, you know, every year for school, we'd have like a day where we would go and that would be our park. We go to the park for the day. I don't know how they justify that for us. Maybe it was supporting local economy or something. Local culture. Local culture. But I also, so I also grew up near Hershey Park, Chocolate World, about 4 million visitors a year. That's ranked number 17 in North America. And now I live in Ohio, which has two of the top 20 amusement parks. So we live like, again, 20 minutes from Kings Island. I've never been there. And so then outside of Cleveland is Cedar Point. It's on Lake Erie. And that's so those are number 15 and 16. And so I guess I'm destined to live near amusement parks or something. I don't know. And so get one in Banff. No, you know,

JORDEN

it's funny. I know the I know the stat for the percentage of Americans that live within 50 miles of a nuclear facility. I kind of want to, you know, maybe and I'll have to do it for and I'll tell everybody on the international episode. But I'm going to try to figure out what's the percentage of the population living. Within a set distance from an amusement park, I think that that'll be a fun little.

KIMBERLY

I mean, Coney, everybody knows Coney Island, right? These are things that are just like you said, they're just baked into our culture. They're ubiquitous. And I'm not sure how much in the Midwest when you get to like, you know, between the important parts. I'm just kidding. I take that back. I take that back. I withdraw that comment. We've got a lot of good stuff coming out of the Midwest.

JORDEN

into our

KIMBERLY

OK, so before we lose our Midwest audience.

KIMBERLY

No, I wanted to make sure that I also mentioned the top contender for Canada is Canada's Wonderland in Ontario, because I was wondering if that was something you were familiar with.

JORDEN

Yeah, I've definitely heard of it. I know a lot of people like from Ontario who have gone. When I was a kid, there were more like I knew of families who would go kind of for for the like the summer trip. Not something I hear a lot about, though, but that's I'm in Western Canada. So I think that like going to Disneyland is probably the more attractive one for people here.

KIMBERLY

Yeah, because then you get some some heat and beach, too. Exactly. I mean, I'm being totally serious, too. I'm not being facetious. Yeah.

JORDEN

I mean,

KIMBERLY

Yeah. And speaking of the beach, I mean, like both Canada and the United States, you've got like Eastern and Western seaboard, entire like Pacific Atlantic seaboard. The U .S. also has the Gulf seaboard and Hawaii. I mean, technically, that is domestic travel. When we went to Hawaii for a conference, can you believe it? And it was totally legitimate because it's International Studies Association. So it was something I had been going to every year. When I saw Hawaii come up, I couldn't even believe it.

JORDEN

Never registered for a conference faster.

KIMBERLY

Oh my gosh, no kidding. And we had a paper, Michael and I did a joint paper, a pedagogy paper, and we made sure it was a good one and get accepted. And it was, and we were lucky. And at the time, this was before airlines started cutting back a lot. Delta had direct nonstop flights from Cincinnati to Honolulu. So we even had a direct flight. It was amazing. And so that and, you know, we've got all of Southern California that's got great beaches. And people will argue that the Great Lakes are beaches, too. And I mean, I'm sorry, I grew up on the eastern seaboard. There's no way I grew up on the Jersey Shore and learned to swim the ocean in Connecticut on the beach. No, no way. So but you people in Canada probably maybe not because you've got long seaboards, too.

JORDEN

You know, you take every beach you can get. So when I was a kid, I thought beaches were all made of rocks like that. That's what I thought, because those were like beaches at lakes in the Yukon are just rocks. So I'm the worst. I mean, it wasn't till two years ago when I went to Virginia Beach in the US. That is the warmest place I have been and warmest beach I've been on is Virginia Beach in the US. So at what time of year?

KIMBERLY

what time of year?

JORDEN

That would have been August. Okay, that's reasonable then.

KIMBERLY

that's reasonable then. What a lot of people don't know is the best time to go to the beach actually is not like June or July, but actually August, September into October because the ocean temperatures are way warmer by then. So any Canadian knows that August is the best time for water because it's the first time that you don't hate yourself for getting in.

JORDEN

any Canadian knows that August is the best time for water because it's the first time that you don't hate yourself for getting in. It's still cold. It's too bloody cold in Canada to go to the beach.

KIMBERLY

still cold. It's too bloody cold in Canada to go to the beach. But I was wondering if you just are all polar bears and just used to it. So you just suck it up. It's like, oh, okay, it's June. We're going to the beach anyway.

JORDEN

Yes, actually, no, no, but I actually do. We have Sylvan Lake is a couple hours from Calgary. People are at that. I think it was June, the first week of June, the first time I saw one of my friends post a video floating down the river. So that's big in Calgary in the summer a lot. Like every weekend, you'll see just like people going down the river. We have a couple small, I'm using air quotes for the audience, beaches that you can land at, but it's a lot of fun.

KIMBERLY

That's cool. I mean, the problem we have with beaches is obviously the environmental degradation. And we talked about this a lot in the mangroves episode, just what it takes to maintain beaches and coastlines. And beaches are great and everybody loves them. I love them. Who doesn't love a beach? I like sandy beaches too, which is even worse because they're even harder to maintain. And so that's something that heading to this and the other places, like the environmental impact of all of these. we you know like the it's the question of well what can we do to offset these and so and that i think that certainly goes along with how we get there yeah well so i was thinking so we you know if you're following along you've got your place picked out i mean i'm doing another city and national park road trip in a couple weeks here so but then the next big question does become how do you get there and you know it's funny

JORDEN

well so i was thinking so we you know if you're following along you've got your place picked out i mean i'm doing another city and national park road trip in a couple weeks here so but then the next big question does become how do you get there and you know it's funny I was looking at the numbers for this. The top spending category or like the top three for domestic vacations are accommodations first. And that's really driven by what we started with. Where are you going? Then second is your travel and transportation. That is your number two cost right there. And it actually gets wrapped up with in domestic so much vehicle cost because that is the primary driver of domestic travel. And so I think people would be maybe not surprised, but with how ubiquitous we think of airlines with travel, 77 percent from the numbers I could find of all journeys are either primarily taken by car for domestic travel or it shares at least 50 percent of your travel. So you think about flying to a city, but then renting a car to get around the city for the whole weekend. So or whatever your destination is,

KIMBERLY

whatever your destination is, where you're going and then going around that area. Yeah. I have to say, like the ultimate road trip, obviously, is I'm sure people just would, my first thing would be Route 66, right? That would be like probably the one that I actually know it starts. I have been, it didn't used to be there, but a few years ago, they actually put a sign in Chicago and we were walking by it one day. I'm like, oh my gosh, this wasn't here before. And there it was. This is the start of Route 66 right here. And it goes all the way to California. It's pretty amazing. I wouldn't want to do it. It has to be a lot of time in the car for me, but you would love that.

JORDEN

It is on my list of trips to do. And it's the, you know, it's the omnipresent American culture in my life that me as a Canadian in Western Canada, no Route 66 really well and have nostalgic kind of childhood, like memories of songs and stuff attached to it. Right. For Canada, it's the I'd say the Trans -Canada Highway. But the one I wanted to highlight, because I think it actually unifies both our countries, is the Alaska Highway. So being from the Yukon, I drive the Alaska Highway twice a year. And one of my favorite things is I stop at Canada's largest hot springs, Liard Hot Springs in northern BC. And 75 % of the people there every year are RVers from the States making their way up through Canada to Alaska.

KIMBERLY

That would be really cool. I would like to do that. But I think that's part of the Pan American Highway, which runs all the way. It starts in Alaska, runs all the way to the end of South America. It's amazing that you've got something that connects these two entire continents. Then we also have the continental divide is also another one that's quite popular, I think. But road trips are like just anything. I mean, for you, for me, road trip culture is something I grew up with. My grandparents drove us everywhere. They loved to drive and we always only ever drove, but they loved to go places. And so I grew up doing that. rest stops and car food. And, you know, there weren't a lot of chain restaurants quite as much. And, and far fewer, like now everything, it just seems like it's a lot of interstate travel and people just want to get there as quickly as possible and bypass some of the state roads. And as I have a little bit more time now and my quasi retirement, I seem to be busier, but. But we are now kind of appreciating that a bit more. Does it feel like you're actually enjoying the ride rather just like you're on a on a racetrack the whole way? And of course, the playlists for the music. I mean, for me, that's like.

JORDEN

of course,

JORDEN

Yeah. And podcast time, I think. But that's a big thing you're trading, right? Is the plane's quick. It gets you there immediate. You get more time in your destination. The road trip, you're I think it's often framed as, oh, I have a 12 hour drive. Right. But. At least for me, that 12 hour drive is part of the of the journey. And, you know, I get a lot of questions about the the carbon impact of my of my road trip. So, you know, I love to be honest on this show about where we're good and we're bad. So I did some math out on the the trip. The audience heard me talk a lot about my my 10 ,000 roughly kilometer road trip last year. OK, so at about. This is average, so it depends on your model. And this is for newer models, I would say. And it was a brand new 2024 vehicle. But the average car is going about 170 grams of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilometer of travel. So now that, you know, we're trying to put stuff into ways people can understand. The total trip was about 1 .7 tons of carbon emitted for the trip. Now, what does that mean? Well, that was about 11 % of the annual average Canadian's total carbon footprint of a year. So not a small one. But even more importantly, and the way I like to think about things is the 1 .5 degree lifestyle is a metric of basically an equal split of the remaining carbon budget for everybody on the planet. And that would be about 2 .5 tons per year. So you can see right there, I'm using 11 % of my annual footprint in one trip, but using about 80 % of what I should be emitting in a year on one trip. Now, the thing that makes me feel a bit better about this is it would have been about 2 .5 tons to do that with flights. Wow,

KIMBERLY

okay. So that's actually... And that's the thing, right? As we talk about on the show all the time is where do you find that balance? I mean, you love to travel. I love to travel. And so we find other ways in our lives to try to offset that because I'm not giving it up, right? I'm just not going to be staying home. If you suffer from wanderlust, you know exactly what we're talking about, right?

JORDEN

Well, and then this is the thing I think that like. Travel, it's a great area for us because I know sometimes when you can listen to the show, it's like, oh, it's just always these negative things. And what are you doing? And, you know, even when we've talked about it off the show, like feeling like, oh, you're living up to this. Right. But I think travel is a great one of showing that like there are things that we do that have an impact. Now, I'm going to try to do it the best way possible. And that's why I love digging into these topics to start looking at. And even like for me, one of the reasons of getting a new vehicle and I couldn't get an EV. Based on where I have to park my car right now, there's a whole lot of that. But I was actually at the point where a 13 year old vehicle, like the amount of the fuel economy difference and the emissions from it, that was actually a driver for getting a new one. If I'm going to be doing these massive trips, I can do it a bit better by just, you know, coming up in a vehicle. And that's the way I really think about it.

KIMBERLY

I think with road trips and not just road trips, but anywhere where we're thinking about where we're going. When you start looking at traffic congestion, I mean, it could be a national park, but you're still talking about traffic congestion. If we're just, you know, if you're taking a personal vehicle there and not going with a bus group or something, which is, I mean, we, you know, North Americans, we're not keen on. We're like, we like our independents, right? And so.

JORDEN

Well, I was going to say of the transportation methods we outlined in the notes here, we didn't have buses. Yeah, exactly.

KIMBERLY

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And that's just it. Because when it comes to domestic travel, buses are just like generally not going to be. I know more foreigners who have come to the United States and taken bus trips than anybody who any American I know. The only the only Americans I've known who have. I mean, this is not like the 70s. My grandparents. Definitely. They took bus trips. They, you know, the Greyhound was a big way to go, but, but they, they mostly still drove because they loved to do that too. But, but. But the only people I've ever known who have taken buses were my students because they were poor college students and they wanted to go to Atlanta or they wanted to go wherever. And there used to be a really cheap bus that would run from here to Chicago. They would take those. But that was it. Like they're literally the only people I ever knew who have taken buses to get somewhere in the United States. And so for me, I didn't even bother to include it.

JORDEN

I haven't taken an intercity bus since I was 22. So yes, exact same age range. No. I put the numbers in, but yeah, no, it's funny. I think that I don't know anybody who's taken a bus. Canada is actually, it's bad. Greyhound pulled out of all of Western Canada. And so like, well, I will, I do want to say, well, people may not think of buses for like trips and tourism. They are really important to rural economies and are still majorly used by there. And we've seen like the problem of taking the weight in Canada. I guess we should mention EVs really quickly. I think one of the big things that's held back EV deployment in North America is the concept of range anxiety and can they be used for trips like this. But really, when talking about a personal vehicle, even on some of the more unclean grids that you might see in parts of North America. You're still talking about 47 grams of carbon per kilometer. So just to remind everybody, it was 170 grams for that standard kind of internal combustion vehicle. So you're talking about almost just over a three times reduction in your emissions if you can get to that EV. So as somebody who's wanting to see the EV infrastructure built out a little bit more. I'm really excited for the day when my emissions from one of these road trips can drop to a third, right?

KIMBERLY

Yeah, we managed to get a hybrid. And that was just because we needed a car straight away and there were no electric vehicles that met our needs available that Labor Day weekend. Yeah, as I've complained many times about on this show. Yeah, so we see then also, as you mentioned, with flights. even though it's not the primary means for domestic travel in the United States or presumably Canada, that it's still 819 million domestic passengers in 2023. And it was in 2024, US travelers took approximately 16 .8 million domestic flights. So you've got a lot of people on a lot of flights. And in part, this is due to the increase in the number of discount airlines going to like from, you know, like Fort Lauderdale, which wasn't before going to be a primary destination because you've got Miami that's so close. But now you've got that and some other places like that. And some of them are like seasonal, you know, getting to the beach seasonally or getting to whatever. You get the point.

JORDEN

No, no. And I think it's. It's just an actual crazy amount because I think so. One of the things I want to talk about on the airline, like the airline one is I think there's a lot of confusion around the impacts of airlines. It was actually I was talking with somebody quite knowledgeable in sustainability last week and they were like, well, no, planes are better than cars because the amount that it's divided over. and then pulled up a simple graph of the CO2 impacts. And I was a little surprised because I was like, that shouldn't be that way. But when I dug into it, it's because they weren't accounting for one of the problems with planes is not just the amount of CO2 and jet fuel it's emitting, it's where it's being burned in the atmosphere. So when you're looking at comparisons between travel modes, it's actually... kind of a trick that can hide the impact of airlines is if you just take the straight kind of fuel numbers and don't account for that increased warming of where it's being released. And so, you know, even there in that debate like two weeks ago, it took me about 30 minutes to catch how they were getting that number. And then once I did and we found the actual graph and, you know, it's just a quick, quick Google search, then it became, oh, yes, now. And then my point to sorry, just kind of like the cheeky point was the numbers I gave you for that road trip. That was if I took it all. I actually had a passenger. So that was all divided right there. But, you know, again, in half. And so you go from 170 right away, right down to about 80 per 80 grams per kilometer. So it's. really hard to beat road like a car versus a plane. Sorry.

KIMBERLY

And that's, you know, because you don't get to divide by the number of passengers on the plane with you. You're still your impact is still really bad.

JORDEN

Yeah, you're at your 246 grams per kilometer is divided by the number of people on the plane, right?

KIMBERLY

Right. And so I mentioned trains at the start of the episode. And I was shocked that people still actually travel by train in the United States and Canada. And I was surprised, not because it's not. a cool thing to do because I have, in fact, I have taken Amtrak and I have, you know, I've never done a rails by trail vacation by rail sort of thing, but I have taken Amtrak to get from one destination to another. And I was just surprised that these were things that they actually sell vacation packages that are largely you get there by rail. And I thought that was really cool because you, I mean, first of all, you talk about a much lower impact. So you've got much lower impact. It's really a really neat experience for anybody who's not ever been on a train. It is a really interesting, it's really like low key too, because you get to sit back and chill out and see the scenery go by. And a lot of these are in places where, you know, the scenery is part of the draw. And Amtrak actually set its all time ridership record for a fiscal year. In 2024, with 32 .8 million passengers, and that was up 15 % from the previous year, and a record high of $22 .5 billion. And it's amazing. Like, so there are a lot, there's a big demand for this and increasing demand for this. And Amtrak has responded to this by modernizing its trains and expanding its network to try to even pull in more on this and take advantage of people. Clearly there's, there is a clientele out there waiting for this. And so they've expanded routes. They hope to double ridership within just like a decade and a half. And it was, as we mentioned before, it was actually the way to go until the 1950s when the number of personal autos started to displace train travel.

JORDEN

Yeah, I mean, this is where my Canadian jealousy will come out. We don't have a lot of trains in Western Canada. We do have like GO system in Ontario. That's more similar to the American Amtrak. And then the one kind of train travel you can do across the country. CP Rail still does their passenger car is ridiculously expensive. Like it is. We're talking like, you know, for two people, a down payment on a house. Well,

KIMBERLY

and that was what I mentioned, Michael and me going to Chicago, taking this. The Amtrak price was outrageous. I mean, not only was it really inconvenient because it was the middle of the night, but the price was just ridiculous. We could have flown. And that's part of the problem, right? We could have flown for far, like a fraction of that if we were going to bother to take something that wasn't just driving because it's only like four, 15 to four and a half hours, depending on traffic.

JORDEN

Well, and this is the thing is like if it wasn't so ridiculously expensive, I'd love to take it more. So I've actually taken trains more in the States. So we'll often take a train from Charlottesville into D .C. when I'm visiting friends. And I it's honestly my favorite mode of transportation.

KIMBERLY

Me too. I love going by train.

JORDEN

Yeah, I don't have to be the one driving all the time. So I'm not, you know, but you still get to get that feel of your seeing landscape. You get to stop and stretch your legs, get some fresh air in between stops there and then being able to walk down to the like the food section and not wait for like a little trolley to come by, you know, on a plane. I think everything about it is better. And then the time's not so bad. Now, I think both of us would love if we could figure out how to build like high speed rail in our countries. That would be an amazing game changer. But still then, I will even take the slower normal train. I just wish that it would expand the options out.

KIMBERLY

an amazing

KIMBERLY

Definitely. I think we're both well agreed on that. And so for nature locations, when we start talking about what are the impacts of heading to these top destinations, right? for nature locations we talked about like we talked about the overcrowding and fragile ecosystems that are really under pressure from the visitor volume that's going through and trying to rely on reservation systems for crowd control because that's really the only option they have is to try to just like limit the number of people going in at any given time yeah well and and this is the thing is

JORDEN

and and this is the thing is It gets to be a tension where like local areas can actually start resenting the tourism. Oh, absolutely. So, yeah. Destroyed. But then you start putting the queues in and the tourists who are spending a lot of their hard earned money then like start feeling resentful. And it's it's a tension that really sucks because I don't think anybody's really in the wrong and everybody's like right in it. But it's something that has to be resolved. Otherwise, A, there's the simple that place you love won't be there in 10 years. if it's destroyed. And I think beaches are a great one because you can really quite easily see having too many people just destroying the root structure of the grass. And then that gets worn away. And now it is literally that simple, right? Of just having too many people in one day stand on that. And it's hard to tell somebody like, yes, no, you can't go to that beach and you shouldn't be there. Because you and a thousand other people wanted to do that that day. And that's when we say not sustainable in this, we don't I don't just mean environmentally sustainable. I mean, just as a tourism option, that's not sustainable.

KIMBERLY

Yeah, I mean, that's definitely the last resort, right? Actually closing beaches. And I mean, Jaws just celebrated its 50th anniversary, giving sharks the worst name possible in the world. But that's one thing, you know, what happens to a beach town when the beach closes? It's just inconceivable. the repercussions of that. And the same for when we talk about these systems, the fact that now in the United States, there's a lot of, there've been a lot of cuts and funding cuts and staff cuts. And the Park Service lost a thousand employees, like full -time employees. And the Department of Interior cut 2 ,300 positions. And so because of this, the National Park Service was already 20 % understaffed to begin with. And now you have angry tourists, angry locals, right? And understaffed and overworked and underpaid National Park Service people. I mean, it's like a recipe for a really bad vacation. And so they've tried to do things like cut the hours and cut back the number of days that they're open to compensate. But now you still have longer entry lines and they had to cut like guided tours. There's uncollected trash. And then that, especially when you start talking about wildlife, that draws in wildlife, right? So there's that in the national park services that are in cities, then you have uncollected trash in city areas. Like you're going to have like, that's not good either, right? The graffiti we talked about, there's illegal logging that these places have to worry about in the United States and Canada. And people driving in restricted areas or walking in restricted areas, and then that has the same impact as the beach. Then they actually have to end up closing off areas for rehabilitation because too many people, you know, so then somebody really wants to see that site, and now they don't get to even see that site after they've made the trip.

KIMBERLY

But that's

JORDEN

Yeah, and I just want to stay in the nature locations for half a second. A couple soapboxes I want to stand on really quickly. And I saw it last year when I was at Yellowstone, people literally trying to get up close to a bear that was in the area and feed the bear. And so there's two kind of sayings. You know, I really want everybody to always remember a fed bear is a dead bear. And you feeding that bear for a stupid pitcher to get a laugh ensures that that bear will be shot. It might not be that day, but it will be within the next year. And so just like I get unreasonably angry at people doing that because. To me, knowingly causing the death of an animal like that for five minutes of your enjoyment is probably one of the most selfish things I think people do.

KIMBERLY

And that goes for all wildlife, actually, because the wildlife become dependent on the people giving them that food. And then it's harder for them to survive in the off months and so forth. And so it's just actually across the board, just don't feed wildlife. There are very good reasons for that rule.

JORDEN

And then on a funner note to leave you on, one of my favorite national parks quotes is from a ranger I came across a number of years ago when I was working in the space. And he was being asked, why is there so much problem with trash at parks, right? Like, why can bears get into the garbage can still? And the ranger said, because there's a significant overlap between the smartest bears in the park and the dumbest people who come to the park. We can't design the garbage cans beyond the dumbest people, but the smartest bears are quite capable of doing it.

KIMBERLY

Yes, yes. There's a park right by my house that I go to, a Cincinnati park every day, and I hate it when the park reopens. They close it in the wintertime to traffic, and so people don't get to actually park there. You can still walk in it, you can still use it, but people don't get to park there and have picnics or whatever. And it is the cleanest time. It's so great. And then as soon as they open up, it's just like people don't know how to, and they have garbage cans and people just don't even bother. And it's just maddening. And so, yeah, I mean, and the same thing happens in our park. I mean, it's raccoons and other things that end up getting in this, but still it just becomes a nuisance. And then it leads to overfeeding and it leads to overpopulation and that leads to other problems as well. And so, so what do we do? Because we love to travel and yeah. This is like, I think, I think when you mentioned earlier about liking to talk about this for personal reasons, I think, you know, like sometimes we, you have mentioned things and I say, but Jordan, you know, like we're the outliers, right? We are not the outliers here. Like we are part of the masses when it comes to. We love to travel. What do we do? Like, how do we become more sustainable? Because this is something I struggle with every single trip I take. I try to figure out how can I be more sustainable in what I do? So you figured out get a new car will help. That was a major one.

JORDEN

was a major one. I'm thinking ahead to my next road trip. I think there's two actions that I can commit to. That I think will really improve it. You know, regular listeners of the show will know I love my snacks and I've admitted the amount of waste that comes from that. But I think that, you know, it seems silly. But a first one reducing a lot is that I won't buy, I will buy snacks in bulk at the start of the trip. Or when I'm at like a big city where I can do it again and go in bulk instead of buying from the convenience stores along the way. And then I can bring and I have reusable plastic bags or like that, you know, for snacks and stuff. So I can kind of split those out and take care of that. And then I think the other one is once you get to the city. So you might, OK, like, you know, I'm on a road trip. I have to drive between the destinations. And I like to do these big trips. So it is even better. If you're going to like one city, I can see arguments for planes, right? But I'm doing multiple. So we're going to go with the car. But once I'm there, I can use public transport a lot. I don't need to drive to every destination within the city. So I think those two kind of little first steps, right? Like let's reduce the kind of waste generated from the trip. And then let's. cut down those miles, right? At the end of the day, they're going to be kind of the ones, you know, you need the highway miles you need, the city miles you don't. And I think that that's where I'll go.

KIMBERLY

Well, I think that I kind of can feel good about myself because when it comes to snacks, because I'm definitely a buy and then buy. So, you know, part of this is just out of necessity because Michael and I have a weird diet, as everyone knows, because we're a vegan diet, which makes us weird. But but also just our other food choices. Like I, as you know, love and adore dark chocolate. And that's not something you're just going to find at every convenience store along the way. And so so we are well provisioned when we travel and I pack lunches for us everywhere we go. Even if we go on a plane, I pack lunches for us. If we're coming back to the States from somewhere, I pack lunches from where we left from as best I can to do this. And so that's, I think, a good plus you'll save money doing that, too. So you actually have a built in financial incentive to do that. As far as the going to a destination, we are really good about we if we if it is within a reasonable eight hour drive, sometimes we drive a bit more than that when we go on family vacations just because of what we need to take and so forth. And because sometimes. The location, the destination is just so far out of the way from the closest airport, we would still be renting a car and still driving hours. And so it just makes sense to drive. And so with that, though, our rule is if it's closer than eight hours, we drive. But once we get to the city, we just try to park it and leave it. And then we get around most of the time just on public transportation. There are some places we like to. to actually drive to, and it's worth actually having the car to do that. But for the most part, we try to hoof it. We like to do urban hiking as we call it and use public transportation. And I think a really important point here is that I was someone who grew up in rural area and we did not have public transportation. We had school buses. Like that was the extent of our public transportation. We didn't even have like taxis or anything. And so basically, My first real experience of having to rely on public transportation was when I studied abroad in Scotland. And it was all new to me. I was taking buses and trying to figure out what bus routes meant and trains and train routes and what the terminus means and all of these things. And it was like a serious education for me. Michael, on the other hand, grew up in Cleveland and he took a public bus to school. And so for him, he had a very different experience with that sort of using public transportation. He was not familiar with trains though. And so, so that was where I had one up on him when we started traveling together. But that's something that also could be intimidating to people. And instead of like having that be something that's like, you know, off -putting, it would actually be better to just like embrace it and say, hey, you know, like try it out. It's like the worst thing that's going to happen. The worst thing that's going to happen is you get totally lost. And you have to end up either going back the same way you came, just get on the other line. The number of times I've gone too far the wrong way or whatever and realized it and then just walked up the stairs and came down the other way and got in the train and went back or the metro or whatever it is we're talking about, like is embarrassing for a seasoned traveler, but I still do it. Like the worst thing, the other worst thing that's going to happen is you end up somewhere and you have to cough up the money for a taxi to get you back to where you were meant to be.

JORDEN

Well, that's exactly it. And you get to see the cities that you're in. You get to explore them a little bit. And I think getting off the beaten path is a cliche for a good reason, right? Because that's where you have the most fun.

KIMBERLY

One of the other things I have been able to do since the food thing was already not an issue for me. What is that I have been now I have a little bit more freedom because like I said, I'm quasi retired to go at different times of year than before, where I was always stuck at going at particular times. And so now I can take more advantage of sort of shoulder seasons, and maybe even low seasons. And so that also helps because first of all, it is awesome when you can just go and see. Like, like I was in Amsterdam in February and man, it was amazing because I didn't have to wait for everybody in the world to, to queue up. And, and it was just like, you have such a different experience when you can actually see art in museums rather than like your experience with the Grand Canyon or the Yellowstone where you walk up and you get like. people breathing down your neck like why are you digging so long i've been waiting here for half an hour to see this thing sort of experience and so i think that that and that helps the places it also helps to spread out the tourist dollars it helps them to better be able to manage like whatever their resource the the draw on the water or whatever in that sort of way waste management so like the more people can do that the better plus it's also less expensive but of course then you risk You're like missing that perfect weather. But if I mean, I want to argue like if you're in a city, yeah, it sucks if you need an umbrella, but it's not the worst thing that's ever going to happen to you. Yeah. If you're hiking the AT, you have bad weather. OK, there are certain times of year it's actually dangerous for your life to do that. But, you know, going to New York City in February is not going to kill anybody.

JORDEN

And so this is where I actually argue it's a simple change to switching to the shoulder season because you're still going to like if the weather is the concern, you're still going to be in a good time zone. It might not be like the perfect, but you're not. encounter and i'd argue that like shoulder is going to be better for especially we're talking smaller regions than complete off season like counter season because then you actually run into the the problem of there not being enough like the people in town aren't actually there the amenities aren't there and so shoulder if you can you can start it's almost like pushing down that demand peak a little bit and spacing it out it's easier for staffing it's easier to like you're already part of the ramp up now you're just maybe doing it like a couple weeks earlier And then you don't have to feel like you're losing out on the best, but you can really shift that burden a little bit.

KIMBERLY

I think, unfortunately, thank you to climate change. There is more of a shoulder season on both ends anyway. Yeah, definitely if low season is someplace where you want to go where it's more of a city type situation. or just like places that are national parks where, okay, so you're going in the winter instead of the summer, you can still absolutely go and have an amazing experience like I did at the Grand Canyon. It's just going to be very different and a different expectation. But there are some places where you just, you cannot go and it would not be a good experience. So yes, take Jordan's advice on that point. And so I think we probably, you know, like I want, so some things I was thinking about in terms of just not my daily regular practice, but also things like try out the least visited places. And sometimes like, so with the national parks, there are five that are on the list. Now they're in Alaska, so they're least visited for a reason, right? And some of the others that are on the list of the five or the 10 most least visited. are also because they're a bit more remote. But North Cascades National Park in Washington was second on the list as the least visited, or it was, I guess it was number whatever.

KIMBERLY

whatever.

KIMBERLY

Second on the list of at least 10 least visited, not the lowest one. And it is a phenomenal place to visit. And it's really close to Seattle. It's close to Portland. It's close to Vancouver. Totally worthwhile. So that's not, I was really surprised by seeing that. I was also surprised to see that any national park in Florida actually made this list. And it's a little boat or seaplane ride from Key West. But Dry Tortugas was the third least visited park of the 63 national parks in the whole system. I was really surprised to see that. So those are some places where you could go. And then, you know, like the other thing is, is try to commit to one or two things that make you more sustainable to offset your impact. Skip the taxi from the airport and suck it up and take public transportation, right? Or take like one of those shuttles that the airport offers where they're transporting more than just you or whatever. Also, take less luggage because that will help too. Like you'll be happier. Trust me, I used to take way too much and I cut back considerably and it's like a much better existence. And the same with like doing local things, just combine distance trips whenever it's possible. And I think that this is, you know, for a lot of people, this might be a default, like for you, like go and see the whole circuit. But if you're going to Grand Canyon, you can actually go to the Grand Canyon, see some amazing things that are also some of the least visited places like Saguaro and Sedona and the Petrified Forest and bits of Route 66 are along there. And you will actually have a lesser impact and probably have a much better experience than trying to go to Grand Canyon and all of those other big ones in one go.

JORDEN

Well, this is, I guess, like the one I would add is don't. Don't think about so for me in a road trip, I actually had planned before all the weirdness between our countries. I was going to do a Midwest road trip this year. And so I had actually planned it around 50 roadside attractions that I had found all throughout the Midwest. And so like it had me going to Chicago was the only big city I was going to. But it was going to have another six national parks that are kind of no one really thinks about. And it was all roadside attractions in small towns. Right. And going throughout the summer. And again, I think that like being a little creative is, I think, the key here. Right. And pushing yourself to maybe not just do the kind of the standard vacation that everybody thinks of. And this is the thing I'd say is, you know, we talked, we started with a joke about bucket lists and that's the thing and build your bucket list. Don't just copy one off the Internet because everybody else has done it.

KIMBERLY

Yeah, I think I bet Corn Palace was on your list of sites. So are we hopeful? I mean, we obviously this is a really long episode because we love travel so much. So be prepared, I suppose, for the next several episodes be quite long. But are we hopeful? Like, how do you feel, Jordan? What do you think?

JORDEN

Yeah, so I actually am on this topic. Not so much because I think the impacts directly going down. I think that. I see the impact of tourism increasing because I see the numbers going up. What I do think is is hopeful for me, though, is that I think it's an area where people are more OK talking about the impact of and being so like with like the the kind of eco influencers who are already seeing a lot of them will not geotag themselves anymore. Right. They'll say the park that they're in, but they won't say the spot. And so little things like that that I see kind of culturally happening just naturally in this space. I think give me hope that, you know, again, somebody listening to this podcast might say, hey, I don't need to do the big international flight. I might do a three stop road trip with the family and little shifts like that, I think, can have a big impact. I think it depends on to what your objective is.

KIMBERLY

think it depends on to what your objective is. If your objective is just to see every like the 1000 most important place to visit before you die, sort of that list. And it's a bucket list. No matter what we say, it's not going to matter. But for people who actually do care and it's about the experience, there are plenty of amazing places that you can go that are worth it. And I'm not saying don't go to those amazing places too, but maybe just go about the whole thing very differently. So, you know, perhaps as more people need to care about the environment and sustainability, that might help. I think, of course, economics is going to be a driving factor. Airline prices are up 25 % this year from the June data I just saw from CNBC. And it's the biggest jump since the Federal Reserve started tracking this in 1989. And the thing is, is people want summer vacation. So summers are always going to be hot times, right? The Bank of America index survey showed that airline and travel agencies, which more people have started turning to again since COVID. is spending is up 60 % over last year at this time. So people are still really, I mean, this is demand and hotel prices are down a bit, even though airline prices are up. And as I mentioned, that's because of the Canadian traffic, actually the lack of, and so, you know, overall, like airline prices might push more people into some shoulder season travel or, but I don't know. So I don't know. It's hard for me to be hopeful. I mean, If more people were like you and me and our listeners, then yes, we could be more hopeful. But for the average person who's just dying to go somewhere and not really thinking about their impact, I'm not so sure.

JORDEN

Yeah, no, I don't think it'll be. I don't think sustainability will be a top decision making criteria for most people.

KIMBERLY

Yeah.

KIMBERLY

Well, if you liked our episode, our very long episode here, enjoyed this. And even if you didn't, let us know. We're at splanetpod at gmail .com. We're on Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. You'll find these links in our show notes along with additional resources from today's show, including my Substack post on our website at splanetpod .com. If you have time, we'd appreciate it if you'd rate and review Sustainable Planet on your podcast app. Thanks for listening and have a sustainable day.