Traveling Climate Smart

On every trip to Europe these days, Rick and the team see signs of our changing climate. From the Dutch polderland to the Venetian lagoons, coastal communities are fighting a losing battle against rising seas. Hotels in formerly cool-weather climates are installing air conditioning, as they swelter through one "heat wave of the century" after another. In Switzerland, high temperatures are canceling summer ski seasons and causing city tram tracks to buckle. Everywhere you look, violent weather is making travel and life less predictable than ever — and this will only get worse.

Let's be honest: The climate is changing…and people are causing it. And we travelers — with our long-haul flights to Europe — are contributors. Some might choose to skip travel entirely. But for us at Rick Steves' Europe, being "flight-shamed" is not the answer. We believe the perspective-broadening impact of the people-to-people experiences — experiences that you can have only when you're on the road — is a powerful (and needed) force for peace. Our answer when it comes to the ethics of travel in a warming world: maximize the positive and minimize the negative, come home with a broader perspective…and pay for your carbon.

That's why we've spent the last several years developing a program that is essentially a self-imposed carbon tax. At Rick Steves' Europe, we believe that the earth is our most important shareholder — and in the absence of standard accounting processes that force us to be honest about the toll we're taking on our planet, we're choosing to hold ourselves accountable for the carbon we create through travel.

While many would simply buy carbon offsets, with the leadership of our COO, Craig Davidson, we've come up with a more creative solution: Our Climate Smart Commitment supports a portfolio of nonprofit organizations that fight climate change by helping poor farmers in the developing world do their work more efficiently while contributing less to climate change. From smallholder farmers who cultivate cash crops that have an outsized impact on the environment to people living in extreme poverty who chop down far more trees than necessary for open fires because they don't have efficient smart stoves, we empower people in need to improve their own lives...while helping rather than hurting the environment.

Scientists figure it takes about $30 smartly invested in such initiatives to mitigate the carbon impact caused by one round-trip flight from the US to Europe. Since we take about 30,000 travelers to Europe on our tours each year, we estimate that we owe our planet $1 million annually. The impact of this work is so exciting that even during COVID, when we weren't taking anyone to Europe, we continued to support our partner organizations with $500,000 each year. Since we began this program in 2019, that's a grand total of $3 million invested so far...with another million already set aside for this year.

Part of our vision is to inspire other travel companies to follow our example. That's why we've been taking our message on the road. At the Los Angeles Travel Show, Craig and Rick just told a big theater of travelers all about our Climate Smart Commitment. You can watch a version of that talk and read more about our commitment — including our just-announced portfolio of nonprofits for 2022–2023 — in the?Climate Smart ?section of our website.

Many independent travelers have told us they'd like to pay for their carbon as well by contributing to our program directly. So we’re happy to announce that we've set up a way to donate to our Climate Smart fund through the National Philanthropic Trust. Whether you're taking one of our tours and want to do more, or are an independent traveler inspired by our example, you can choose to pay to mitigate the carbon created by your trip by making a donation to our?Climate Smart Fund ?(or donating directly to the organizations in our portfolio).

Empowering developing-world farmers with climate-smart agriculture skills and tools, while constructively addressing the climate change caused by our travels...and giving those who take a Rick Steves tour the peace of mind that the carbon cost of their flight is covered — that's our goal with the Climate Smart Commitment. Check it out and happy travels!