My Philosophy on International Tourism


After exploring all of the cases throughout the semester, I’ve definitely thought in-depth about the way I travel and the impact I leave on the planet on a day to day basis. It’s made me become much more conscious of my actions and the way I live my life.

This has started for me with practicing sustainability day to day. Something as simple as recycling, reusing water bottles (buying a few metal ones), reusing packaging supplies when shipping and receiving items, cutting back on electricity use, changing the fuel I use in my car, etc. Any small step I can take, I have. It might not leave a huge impact, but if everyone changed one thing about the way they live and reduce the carbon footprint, it would be huge.

I also have thought a lot about the way I travel. Although I don’t believe I’ve done anything to negatively impact an area I’ve been to, I want to be even more conscious in the future and work to solve some of the problems with tourism one step at a time. Over spring break, I plan to be in Ft. Lauderdale. I know that tons of people litter on the beach as I was there last year. One of my friends who own a startup college travel company has a small program for Ft. Lauderdale where the people who purchased club passes from him go and clean up the beaches after people leave. That’s something I want to do when I go this year.

I’d also like to take more sustainability focused excursions when I’m out in different countries. I’m going on a family cruise this upcoming may and since taking this course and becoming aware of the problems with tourism, I want to be involved in a change, even when just in a location for a few hours out of the day.

Overall, I want to make others more aware of what they can be doing to leave a more positive impact on our earth. Nothing big or campaigning on my own for a change, but little things. Something as simple as asking my friends to recycle when we throw stuff away when out to eat or looking into energy efficient electronics when they go to buy something new. I feel as if someone close to them encouraging green practices is more meaningful than seeing advertisements about why you should go green. Especially at our age. If everyone started taking small steps to fix a bigger problem, we could make a greater change much faster.


Portrait of myself to wrap up my thoughts. Taken by @adsterphotos '18

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