Full-time travel and being eco-friendly usually don’t go hand in hand.
It definitely isn’t easy trying to live a more sustainable life. It takes a lot of hard work and self-awareness. You hear and see these people on tv and the internet who live so sustainably that all of their trash fits in a mason jar.
UNREALISTIC.
It can be done, but there’s only a small percentage of people who live like that. It’s also really discouraging for those people who are trying to start from scratch. I honestly feel as though people DO care about the environment and want to help, they just don’t know how. Then they see people like that and think being sustainable is unattainable.
Brock and I make mistakes. A LOT of them. Sometimes we have to drink from plastic water bottles and eat food from plastic packaging. We’re human. It can definitely be hard to make a switch to consuming less plastic, but it CAN be done. This hack can be done just by looking around your house.
Let’s start with traveling containers.
I can’t tell you how excited I used to get to go on a trip. I would run to the store and buy these little containers. They’re a necessity for sure! They save so much room in your luggage. You fill them up, and you’re ready for your trip.
One problem that I found was that they kind of suck. The tops would break and pop open ALL the time and spill everywhere. So I was constantly buying more and more.
As we began to downsize further, it meant that everything I owned would now fit into one 35 L backpack. SO SMALL!
While we’ve been traveling throughout South America, I’ve realized they don’t have any of these travel size bottles. I had to get rid of my bulky conditioner bottle and needed to get creative.
We’d been carrying around an almost empty bottle of sunscreen that our friends had left when we all met up in Costa Rica. They didn’t want to take it back with them so we took it.
I washed out the sunscreen bottle and put my conditioner in it! The lid stayed closed and I’d been carrying it around for 2 months with no problems.
Patagonia was so windy and cold. Taking hot showers there definitely dried out my skin. When we made our way to Santiago, I needed to get something for it. I didn’t want to buy lotion because: 1. Too bulky 2. We’re trying to reduce our consumption of single-use plastics.
I HAD AN IDEA!
I bought some coconut oil for $8 that came in a glass jar. I cleaned out the bottle that previously held sunscreen AND conditioner because it was now going to act as a lotion bottle.
At this point, the same bottle had 3 uses for me and I know I’ll for sure find more things to put in it later.
Note: This bottle is more than the 4 oz you’re allowed to carry on with airlines. I’d suggest putting it in a checked bag if that’s the case.
It’s as simple as that! I challenge you to look around your house and find things that you can use instead of these travel containers. You’ll save money AND plastic.
Let me know what you come up with!
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