With the climate crisis becoming an increasingly regular feature of news stories and Twitter feeds around the world, the impact that flying has on our planet is getting harder and harder to ignore.
But while it would be a far more noble thing to say I’d taken a stance against CO2 emissions, the original reason behind my flight free endeavour is actually something far more selfish.
My boyfriend was scared of flying, and frankly, I’d had enough.
As much as I sympathised with his very real fear, it was hard for me to handle when we boarded a plane together.
He would hyperventilate for the whole journey, shake, and grasp my leg with such ferocity that it would leave an imprint on my clothes. Plus, I’d run out of made up answers to, ‘is that normal?’, every time the plane made a noise (if it wasn’t, I was none the wiser).
Despite the numerous flights back and forth during the second, long-distance year of our relationship, a bad bout of turbulence on a hungover trip back from Prague had a lasting effect.
And after one particularly challenging plane journey, I said enough was enough. If we were going anywhere, we were getting the train.
But once I began to look more and more intro train travel, I realised that the benefits of going flight-free were hard to deny.
Flight free for the planet
Cutting down on the things we buy, using less plastic packaging and driving electric cars can all help reduce our carbon emissions.
But there is nothing more effective for reducing your carbon footprint than giving up (or at least drastically reducing) air travel.
I’ve never considered myself to be anything close to an eco-warrior.
While I’ve been pescatarian for a number of years (and eat a mostly vegetarian diet) that decision had little to do with the planet and more to do with an obsessive love for pigs.
I had never once thought about painstakingly making a placard and turning up at a protest. Single use plastic still makes an appearance in my shopping trolley, and I still sometimes order clothes that I can’t honestly say I need.
I’m by no means a perfect example on a mission to save the planet.
But by doing this one thing, I believe I can do my bit to lessen the effects of increased emissions on people all over the world.
Rediscovering the joy of train travel
In truth, I’d always loved a good train journey (bar a couple of years commuting from one end of the Met line to the other, which often felt like a form of cruel and unusual punishment).
After my first couple of long distance trips, I actually realised that I enjoyed it more than flying.
There’s no hanging around in airports for hours, dragging out an overpriced Wetherspoons breakfast while obsessively checking the announcement board.
There’s no waiting impatiently for your bags to appear on the conveyor belt when all you want to do is get on with your trip.
For the most part, there are no long queues for security and passport checks.
Instead, you can enjoy an easy, stress-free journey, and maybe even discover some new places along the way.
But flying is so much cheaper…
Trust me, I get it. Many of us are having to tighten the purse strings more than ever before, making mere dents in our student loan interest while saving for a house deposit at an almost laughable rate, if at all.
The importance of cost can’t be denied. And while, admittedly, the price of a flight with a low-cost airline will often far undercut the equivalent train journey, the true cost of that flight doesn’t even compare.
Plus, if you know where and when to look, it’s possible to get fantastic deals on train travel that needn’t break the bank.
And it takes so long…
Again, I’ll give you this one. And as someone who lives in a different country from their family, there are often times when I think, ‘if I just got on a flight I would be there so much quicker’. But for me, my own convenience is no longer a good enough reason.
In today’s busy world, I don’t think that slowing down is necessarily a bad thing. I can’t tell you how many times on a train journey I’ve finished a book that I haven’t had time to pick up in months, or even just watched a film that I’ve wanted to see for years.
On trains where there’s no Wifi (hi, Germany!) I’ve often been forced to simply sit with my own thoughts, something of a rarity in his hectic, modern life.
The aim of this blog isn’t to tell you that you should stop flying right now, or that you can’t ever go on another flight again.
But I hope that it will inspire you to explore the exciting possibilities of travelling by train and seeing other countries, or even your own, in a brand new light.
Happy reading x