🌎 Destinations: How to Be a Sustainable Traveler
- Gabriela Rocha Caballero
- Sep 5
- 3 min read
Updated: Sep 23
“The pleasure we derive from journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to.” – Alain de Botton
For me, sustainable travel has never been about checking destinations off a list — it’s about how we show up. I remember walking through Cuetzalan’s mercados for the first time: the smell of roasted coffee beans in the cloud forest air, women selling herbs and honey, children weaving baskets from Jonote fiber and Bejuco wood. Long before the word sustainability became common, life there was rooted in balance — living with the earth, not against it.
Today, being a sustainable traveler means traveling with responsibility and intention: protecting the environment, respecting cultures, and choosing experiences that regenerate the places we visit rather than extract from them. Here are seven modern intentions to guide your journey in 2025:
Here are six intentions I’ve learned along the way:
1. Start Your Trip at Home
Responsible travel begins before you leave. Book paperless, choose eco-certified accommodations, and support hotels that are transparent about local sourcing, fair wages, and regenerative practices.
2. Slow Down & Stay Longer
In 2025, slow travel is more than a trend — it’s essential. Fewer flights, longer stays, and off-season visits reduce your footprint while giving you time to truly connect with local people and landscapes.
“Travel isn't always pretty. It isn't always comfortable. But that's ok. The journey changes you; it should change you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.” – Anthony Bourdain
3. Travel wit Awareness
Mindfulness doesn’t stay behind when you pack your bags. Conserve energy and water, unplug unnecessary appliances before leaving home, and practice digital detox on the road to reconnect with yourself and nature.
4. Conserve, Respect Water, and Keep It Clean
Support accommodations that reuse greywater, harvest rainwater, or treat water naturally. In Cuetzalan, Tosepan Kali showed me how even something simple — towels feeding coffee trees — can create whole cycles of regeneration.
5. Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose, Recycle
Skip single-use plastics, choose locally made products, and support businesses with transparent recycling or carbon-neutral programs. Every purchase is a vote for the kind of tourism we want to see thrive.
6. Look for Regenerative Practices
Sustainability means “do no harm.” Regeneration means “make it better.” Book resorts that protect biodiversity with turtle hatcheries and reforestation — proof that luxury and regeneration can coexist.
7. Support Community-Led Experiences
From the Tosepan Kali cooperative in Cuetzalan, preserving indigenous rights and housing, to Wildlife Connection in Puerto Vallarta, where whale tours and free dolphin adventures fund conservation research — the most meaningful journeys are those where your dollars empower lives.
When you choose destinations that embody sustainable tourism, you’re not just traveling — you’re planting seeds of resilience and belonging. I’ve seen it in Cuetzalan, where Nahua and Totonaca families share their stories with travelers. I’ve felt it in the Puuc Route geotourism experiences, where Mayan artistry and cacao rituals still breathe through stone.
Travel isn’t just movement across land. It’s transformation — for us, and for the places we touch.
“The moment that we are living right now demands a change of behavior as citizens of the world.” – Martha Delgado Peralta, Mexico City Green Plan
🌎 Ready to experience sustainable travel firsthand?
👉 Explore our Conscious Living Directory – Destinations – your guide to sustainable destinations, eco resorts, and regenerative travel experiences.
👉 Join us for Cuetzalan Coffee Retreats, and Uxmal Cacao Retreats in Mexico where sustainability is not just a goal, but a way of life — an authentic eco-travel experience rooted in indigenous culture and sustainable living.
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