The travel editor who quit flying (and what it’s taught her so far)

Howdy. My identify’s Helen and I’m a (former) frequent flier. It’s been… two and a half years since my final flight.

The identical could possibly be mentioned for many individuals – there’s nothing like a worldwide pandemic to stymie the best-laid vacation plans – however there are two parts that maybe set me other than the pack. Firstly, I’m the journey editor of a nationwide information publication; secondly, I’ve stayed grounded by selection.

After I first mooted the thought of swapping the skies for terrestrial journey again in 2019, buddies and colleagues have been just about aghast. I used to be, in any case, somebody who wrote about travelling for a residing – and somebody who had taken a whopping 24 flights within the first half of the yr, practically the equal of 1 per week (I do know, I do know, I’m cringing simply writing it).

To a substantial proportion of Brits, ‘occurring vacation’ equals ‘getting on a airplane’. We took probably the most worldwide flights of any nationality in 2018; suggesting that we cease flying and even fly much less has lengthy appeared laughable.

However, in 2019, I in the end managed to attach the dots between the local weather disaster and my very own hypocritically high-flying life-style. After writing a function concerning the flygskam (flight disgrace) motion in Sweden – which noticed outstanding Swedes together with opera singer Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg’s mom, pledge to cease flying – and interviewing individuals right here within the UK who had sworn to go flight-free, one thing clicked. Wait a second, I assumed. Not solely am I contributing massively emissions-wise through my very own journey decisions – I’m encouraging others to observe go well with.

I used to be one thing I by no means thought I’d be: a nasty affect. And so I decided. I might put my cash the place my mouth was (actually, in lots of instances – trains ain’t low-cost): I might signal the Flight Free UK pledge, a marketing campaign that encourages travellers to surrender flying for a yr within the hope that it’d encourage longer-term change.

Because it turned out, 2020 was each a straightforward and troublesome yr to signal. Simple, as a result of nobody might fly wherever. Troublesome, as a result of the entire level had been to showcase the delights of gradual journey.

So it was that I took the pledge once more in 2021 and 2022 – at first to swerve accusations that I’d someway “cheated” by choosing a yr during which a lot of the world had involuntarily clipped its wings. However, as international locations tentatively began reopening their doorways to guests, the most effective factor of all occurred: I realised that gradual journey actually was extra satisfying. I realised that swapping airplane for practice, boat, bike and foot actually did imbue each journey with a way of the intrepid.

Weekends in Amsterdam and Inverness (courtesy of the in a single day ferry and sleeper practice respectively) felt, nicely, unique. A multi-stop rail tour to Rijeka in Croatia felt impossibly exhilarating. And reaching Morocco by sea from France – a journey of greater than 40 hours – felt nothing wanting adventurous. With every flight-free journey I embarked upon, I fell in love with this considerate method of traversing the globe simply that little bit extra.

Swapping airplane for practice, boat, bike and foot imbued each journey with a way of the intrepid

On my most up-to-date vacation – Spain – reached by ferry on the outbound leg, returning through Paris on highspeed trains – I revelled within the journeys as a lot because the locations themselves. I noticed dolphins leaping alongside the ship on the crossing from Portsmouth; I watched as verdant northern Spain ever so slowly morphed into extra rust-coloured, arid terrain on a seven-hour coach from San Sebastian to Valencia; I caught glimpses of shimmering sea because the practice from Barcelona sped its method across the south coast of France earlier than whizzing north.

There are many limitations to ditching the jetset life: expense, time, reserving challenges, lack of shopper safety. That stuff wants to alter. However the richness of expertise for the traveller on the opposite facet of that wall really does make the wrestle worthwhile.

Howdy. My identify’s Helen and I used to be a frequent flier. However not any extra. And, hopefully, by no means once more.

Zero Altitude: How I Discovered to Fly Much less and Journey Extra is out now, revealed by Flint Books