To ask you to swerve vacations abroad on airplanes

[Happyone99]

Inspired by https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5433252-to-ask-you-to-swerve-shein-temu?page=24

As mentioned above, I personally don’t use Shein or Temu because they ARE terrible. However, why only change bad things lower income people happen to be involved with, rather than starting with things higher income people are involved with

Slave labour and poor working conditions are indeed terrible. So is the climate crisis, exacerbated by rich people flying on airplanes for vacations, and poor people in low-lying countries like Bangladesh suffer worst environmental consequences

Who are responsible for the most emissions and who are suffering the most?

Sorry but no.

🥱

It’s going to make no difference if I go or not. That plane is going to be in the sky. And I’d rather be on it travelling and enjoying myself.

No

Im not giving up my yearly plane holiday just because other people have let others suffer in a land I’ve never clapped eyes on.

Yes my joy is important. And I deserve a holiday. I’m not the type to self flaggelate with despair because bad things are happening in the world. Not least because a lot of bad things have happened to ME.

I buy from Shein because for the last 5 years whenever I’ve shopped in the high street style shops I’ve found nothing I like. It’s all insipid, joyless shapeless crap and Shein has some clothes that suit me.

YABU and very patronising !
Lower income people ! DFO

The prices of trains and unreliability in the UK are shocking.
I would prefer to take the train instead of fly internally, but the train is often double or treble the price.

Regarding so-called fast fashion, I wear tee shirts and vest tops from Primark for years, so I am not sure how other people cannot make their clothes last longer too, with the right care.
I am flying to the Canaries next week and I will be packing Primark tee-shirts I bought for my Canaries trip in 2022. And then I will wash them in my 14 year old washing machine when I return.

All much better ways of trying to do your bit for the planet than begging strangers never ever fly.

Absolutely not.... I had six holidays last year via plane and long may it continue. I also don't have and won't ever have children so I'm doing my bit for the environment in other ways

Sorry about that! Was not my intention to be patronising. I will work on myself! Just that I was super triggered after seeing comments in the Shein/Temu post

No, I don't live in the South East. I live 5 hours away from London by train, and still go on half of my foreign trips by train via London. What % of the English population lives a longer train journey away from London than that?

Places I can get to in a day, by train: Paris. Amsterdam. Brussels (Ghent, Bruges). Marseille. Cologne. Berlin (at a stretch).

I'm not saying everyone should travel by train (or ferry). But all those going "Waaah waah, how can you possibly suggest depriving me of my lovely foreign holiday, it's a basic human right?" as if flying is the only way to get abroad? Absolute fucking nonsense.

And before anyone starts banging on about expensive trains: check out the price of Interrail passes.

How do you get from home to airport and from Spanish airport to destination though?

You rarely see this mentioned in calculations on the convenience of flying. It's as if people teleport there, rather than paying a fortune for taxis, paying a fortune for airport parking, or having to take a bus/ train at either end anyway.

And that's absolutely fine if you consider your only foreign holiday option is Europe. What about New Zealand, Indonesia, Malawi or Sri Lanka for example? How do you explore the rest of world and experience vastly different cultures and environments if you don't have months to try and get there without using a plane?

Not a chance I am giving up my foreign holidays. YABVU.

I think that statistic is derived from ALL the car use in the country/ world, as opposed to ALL the flights in the country/ world. Which makes sense, because obviously far far more journeys are made by car!

If you were to break that down to carbon emissions per journey of an equal length, obviously flying would be a lot worse. You also have to look at how many people are in the car- obviously one car journey shared by 4 people is going to have a much smaller impact than 4 people flying! One person alone in a car not so much...

But you are right- we also need to look at reducing car use.

I'm going to wait until the DC grow up and I am able to go somewhere long haul for several months, and then I would consider taking a trip like that, maybe once every several years.

How much "culture" do you really absorb in a jolly of a couple of weeks? A comfy hotel and a trip to everyone's favourite Instagram honeypot? I remember going to Morocco years ago for 3 weeks, and thinking "A trip so short is an insult to a massive, diverse country like this- there's so much to see!"

And there's nothing wrong with Europe- there's so much depth and richness and cultural diversity right here! We got as far as Bulgaria whilst Interrailing in the summer (and met the actual Man in Seat 61 on the train- he and his family were on the way to Turkey!).

Me too!
Can't wait for my trip to France/ Italy at Easter! By train...

There’s such a big difference in time and journeys required with my example that really the getting to the station/airport or leaving from it to your destination is negligible. When I said it involves 4 trains to go from Edinburgh to Valencia I also wasn’t including the transport to the train station. If I was to do it again from my current location I’d need another train.

Generally though train stations are in the centre of cities so that is a bonus. After you’ve been travelling for over 24 hours (in my case of Edinburgh to Valencia) it’s appreciated but still not any where near as convenient as by plane.

How much "culture" do you really absorb in a jolly of a couple of weeks? A comfy hotel and a trip to everyone's favourite Instagram honeypot? I remember going to Morocco years ago for 3 weeks, and thinking "A trip so short is an insult to a massive, diverse country like this- there's so much to see!"

Erm, if that's what you think travel is, you're doing it wrong! 😂And you know you can go back to a country more than once, to different areas, to see different aspects of the country? You seem to have a very narrow view if you think you have to go to "on a jolly" to a comfy hotel and to an "instagram honeypot" (what even is one of those, I don't have Instagram?!), just once per country.

And no, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Europe, lots to see, do and enjoy there, but it's a tiny part of the world!

I don't go on vacation on airplanes. I go on holiday on aeroplanes.

I certainly won’t be swerving going on vacation by airplane, but I may largely avoid going on holiday by plane, if only because I’ve come to loathe bloody airports and planes.

We drive to the British airport 10miles away or get a lift from a friend.

We use public transport or walk when in Spain. Cos it's actually useable and regular.

This is my problem. Public transport in the UK is just so terrible.

Same. And sorry, no I’m not going to “swerve” them. The impending climate catastrophe is not going to be averted by me not getting on a plane a few times a year. And yes I know - if everyone did it etc - but everyone’s not going to.

Do you ever fly on a Boeing?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Commercial_Airplanes

Same, I'm just not convinced. The weather changes over the ages.

YANBU to ask - though, personally, i travel quite a bit, my family live in a different continent and i travel for work quite alot. One person not flying, or 10,000 not flying is not going to make a dent.