No-fly holidays…suggestions?

[CroccyWoccy]

We’re trying to fly less and plan fewer holidays that rely on flying.

We’ve done Northern France, Belgium and Netherlands by ferry/car.

I’ve explored the idea of south of France by Eurostar and sleeper train (very do-able, just not done it yet)

Any other suggestions for overseas destinations that can be reached fairly easily without flying?

Any country in Europe is doable by train in either one or two days (seat61 will give you all the routes). Except Iceland which only has a ferry from Denmark these days, making it no less CO2 than flying. As you know already cruises are a hideous polluting blight on the locations they call at, so not an alternative to flying.

I've not done it but you can get to Morocco on the ferry from Spain, and it has good Intercity rail connections when you get there.

Most other routes out of continental Europe are scuppered by international conflict/refugee crisis at the moment sadly.

I can recommend the ferry to Bilbao and onwards to San Sebastian/Donostia, then into France Biarritz, Bayonne and TGV/train back up (with stops in nice places of your choice) to the ferry ports in Northern France for home. Three weeks if you have the time. Wonderful adventure.

Some great ideas in this Guardian article from a couple of years back: https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2022/feb/26/six-wild-rail-adventures-just-48-hours-away-from-the-uk-by-train

A friend went to Ibiza by train/ferry - train London-Paris, then on to Barcelona, then overnight ferry from there.

I’d had my eye on the ferry to Bilbao but the more I look at it, in environmental terms I think we’d be better off flying! Though the environmental impact of ferries is a tricky one to weigh up (depends if you’re taking a car, whether it’s a freight route that would run anyway irrespective of tourists, which is different from a Ryanair flight that only exists to serve tourist travel).

I have done Morocco by ferry then used mainly trains get round all the places I wanted to see. A bit hairy but fun

This sounds fantastic - how much will the train cost (assuming you're leaving from the UK)?

Another vote for Northern Spain via ferry. It's beautiful and the boats are a nice way to travel. I'm not sure that there really is an environmentally friendly way to travel big distances mind you, but there's definitely a lot more people on one ferry trip than one plane journey and they do also carry freight. I don't really know much about the relative environmental effects if I'm honest though.
How about staying closer to home? Ireland or the Isle of Man by ferry maybe? I don't know if you can still do it but we went to Dublin from Liverpool on what was basically a freight carrier that took a small number of passengers years ago. It wasn't luxurious but did the job and was definitely a ship that was already going. Or somewhere you haven't visited in mainland Britain? Between Covid and some health problems I have had we have only had one trip abroad in the last 5 years but we've explored a lot of the UK and found many very interesting places we didn't know about.

The metrics for calculating ferry travel impact are absolutely all over the place. Some don't do a good enough job of differentiating between car and foot passenger and come out with high footprints. Others make ferry foot passengers one of the lowest. I think it will depend as you say on whether it's a scheduled ferry or not. Ferries where you do a lot of "living" on board (ie cabins and multiple meals) will tend higher than uncatered short hops, where the ferry is providing an essential local service and tourist foot passengers make essentially no difference to the amount of fuel used but do pay a fare. (Eg inter island ferries in Shetland and Orkney). Similarly there are some weird edge cases where plane might not be any worse (comparing the boat to fair isle and the 8 seater plane they aren't that different because the plane flies at low altitude and speed, and is much closer to a cars carbon footprint)

To get to Spain the lowest carbon is going to be train because french electricity is generated by lots of nuclear power. Depending on exactly where you want to go train will also be quicker. That northern coast served by the ferry is surprisingly awkward to get to on train though. It's on my list. I would pick train because the bay of Biscay can be lumpy.

As mentioned above, Man in Seat 61 is the place to go for rail advice. Here's a page about sleepers.

https://www.seat61.com/sleepers.htm

I hate flying and my OH hates long journeys and we end up lacking hols
We've looked at train fairs eg, London to Paris the barseloan, portuals etc but the train fairs are sky high