Travel Differently
Ok, I will stop or reduce flying! And now, how do I get to where I want to go?
Around Europe and in many other parts of the world, train connections and ferries were better some decades ago. Crossing several countries by train can be an issue today in many regions. Night trains often don’t exist anymore. This is slowly changing, with night trains living a renaissance, and more and more initiatives demanding better ground-bound mobility.
Often, staying grounded also means to question the necessity of travelling (far) altogether. In many cases, we can communicate virtually or decide to spend a vacation in the surroundings or even at home (“staycation”) instead of going on long trips.
If you decide to travel, there are already many good grounded travel options we can share with you. Have fun checking them out!
Best booking systems
This site gets the best travel connections to wherever you want to go (including local bus transport, carsharing, ferry …and plane, but the last one you can simply ignore), including a price comparison: https://www.rome2rio.com/
Find train travel options and great tipps in Europe: https://www.seat61.com/
The best routes and ticket deals: https://www.europebyrail.eu/
Where to buy cheap train tickets, how to find rail passes like Interrail and Eurail – and get friendly help in the big forum: https://rail.cc/
Book cross-border tickets for buses and trains in Western Europe: https://www.thetrainline.com or https://raileurope.co.uk/
Book night trains across many European countries powered by the Austrian railway: https://www.nightjet.com/en/
Find cheap bus tickets across Europe: https://www.eurolines.de/en or https://www.flixbus.co.uk
Take part in carpooling: https://www.blablacar.co.uk/
For adventurers who can afford it – sail across Europe or across the ocean: https://fairtransport.eu
Travel overseas on a cargo ship: https://www.cargoshipvoyages.com/
German website for EU-Travel: https://railon.eu
Staycation, Bike tours and Hiking
Have a look at millions of routes from 1 km up to… for cycling, walking, horseriding, skating etc.: www.routeyou.com
Find cycling routes all across Europe: https://en.eurovelo.com/ and https://www.cyclingeurope.nl/cycling/
Plan your cycling route with a good system: www.naviki.org and www.openrouteservice.org
Need a place to sleep and shower on your bike tour? https://www.warmshowers.org/
Find hiking tours across Europe: https://www.era-ewv-ferp.org/e-paths/
For your next staycation, you might not need a website but some creativity, a balcony, garden or park =)
Online meetings and conferences
How can you skip a plane travel by organising an online call? How can you have speakers at your conference without them having to take a flight? How to organise online meetings and conferences in a motivating and productive way?
Find answers to these questions here, e.g. in:
- our guide “Skip the Plane, Meet Online!”
- our webinar “Virtually International – How Virtual Meetings Can Help to Avoid Flights“
- a collection of resources on online conferences
Travel Emissions Calculator
There are many carbon calculators out there that can help you to get a feeling for the emissions caused by a particular plane travel – which is a first important step to avoid them.
We have reviewed carbon calulators that are easy to use and reliable here.
For Europe, we especially recommend the tool “ecopassenger“, calculating the energy consumption, the carbon emissions and other environmental impacts for travels by planes, cars and trains, but also providing live and detailed information about train connections of several European railways directly on the website.
Grounded Stories
A Ferry-Tale & Railway Story
I didn’t think it was possible to get to the Canary Islands so quickly. The Canaries are basically next to West Sahara and 4.000 kilometres from the Stay Grounded office in Vienna, Austria. It only took us four and a half days to get there. Of course compared to a...
The Zapatistas’ grounded travel & anti-airport struggles
After sailing across the Atlantic for more than one month, on the 10th of June, a delegation of Zapatistas reached the shores of the European continent at the Azores archipelago, Portugal. In their baggage they carry stories of years of struggles and visions to be...
Staying on the Ground in India: “Slow travel is the way forward”
In this grounded story by Vivek Gilani we learn about his motivation to reduce flying and about train travel in India. Vivek is Managing Director of cBalance, a new Stay Grounded member, which creates climate action tools for industry, institutions and consumers. The...