As George Monbiot has pointed out, plane travel is difficult to reconcile with a planet loving green lifestyle (though others disagree). Either way it’s easier to commit too when you live in Europe, but is much harder when you reside in the rather isolated countries like Australia however – and so with a heavy green heart i recently agreed to travel to Europe for a wedding.
I’ve made the trip part business, part pleasure and extended the trip to maximise the value and reduce the need to travel again next year. I also made the most direct flights rather than the cheapest to and from London. Once in Europe I am minimising my carbon footprint by utilising the train and ferry networks. So all intra European travel on the trip is via trains, ferries and wherever possible regular public transport. (ok ok and the odd cab when its just too hard!)
A great website to assist the sustainable traveller is The Man from Seat 61 – a self confessed train boffin and ex British Rail manager who has pretty much travelled all over Europe and the world via train and can tell you which trains and even which carriages are the go for various legs of your journey. He’s passionate and as always it rubs off – i’m a convert to train travel as the most sustainable and cool form of long distance mobility – tis a shame there’s no underground from Australia to Europe though.
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I’ve taken a few trips on Countrylink trains this year, one from Grafton to Sydney, and another from Sydney to Canberra. Both were great. The seats are more comfortable than economy class airline seats (more legroom), the staff are really friendly, and it’s just really nice to sit back and watch the countryside roll by. In both cases it was quicker to drive than to take the train, which must discourage a lot of people from considering it as an option.. But if the government were to invest in rail infrastructure and straighten out the routes (tunnels/bridges rather than slow windy bits) it could be really fast.