How avoiding a flight opened many opportunities on the way

A description of my motivation, the CO2e savings and all the opportunities on the way

When I was invited to a “birthday vacation” in Portugal, I just thought that I should also be able to find a way to get there without using a plane. Especially after my previous train trips and the big interrail trip last summer I couldn’t imagine flying there for just a week. And it was a very good decision, because I kept finding more and more opportunities the further I went into the planning…

My motivation

The initial idea to avoid the flight and save CO2e emissions comes from my overall idea to reduce my flights unless I travel with a purpose. Although I might have found enough reasons to take another flight due to the birthday and other events in Portugal, I thought about my interrail trip in 2023 to first of all find a way to get fairly quickly to Portugal.

Once I found a good way to travel to Portugal (until Madrid it’s fairly easy and fast), I was looking for reasons to take a longer vacation than the initially planned 9 days. Hence, I reached out to some friends that I also met on last years trip to find out whether they would be in town when I could be visiting them on the way. Sufficiently positive indications then made me start the plan. And throughout the next months more opportunities popped up and I decided to adjust my schedule to reach them, too.

Comparison of the train rides vs flights

While planning this trip, I already knew that I want to make a similar comparison as I did for my train trip to Northern Norway before. The CO2e emissions comparison for my long interrail trip was unfortunately quite difficult to compare with so many stops all over Europe. Hence, I was looking forward to a clearer comparison this time.

But before jumping into that, some thoughts on different ways to protect our climate are important in my opinion.

Opening thoughts on reducing climate change effects

Reduction > Compensation

In order to overall have a chance to keep climate change limited, we cannot trust the often not so reliable compensation offers. All re-forestation and rain forest protection projects, as well as most reduction or removal projects are very difficult to measure. Furthermore, they’re neither permanent nor surely additional because it’s not clear whether they will remain as is and whether the supported projects wouldn’t have been executed anyways.

Carbon capture and storage technologies are developed to be more reliable, permanent and additional, but even when they’re scalable, they cannot store enough CO2 as is required and the costs per t CO2 will still be too expensive for most private persons interested in compensation with perspective targets of <100 USD / t.

While large organizations need to reduce their Scope 1, 2 and 3! emissions with simple or more complex projects, individuals can also do something. A bit less is already better than the same as before, e.g. fewer flights, less meat, less shopping for little used consumer goods, etc.

We need to move the large levers together

A single person does not make much of a difference on global scale yet, but many small steps add-up to something bigger. Personally, I also like to believe - and prefer to continue doing so - that with enough people we can initiate larger movements by changing political and economical limitations that help to keep existing technologies and cultures in place.

For example, establishing new ingredients and dishes to overall drive a food culture change for a more sustainable nutrition is one of those processes that we could only achieve collectively with businesses, governments and individuals working on the same objective.

Btw, I developed a framework for myself to identify effective levers that can be applied for different types of purpose. Personally, I use it to compare and identify projects that I can work on to mitigate climate change, but I’m also using hoping to use this “effective impact framework” more often to help other organizations work more effectively on their purpose.

Unfortunately, it also gets time to start with climate change adaptation

We are already too far on the path of global warming that some consequences can be felt already and will get bigger. Catastrophic weather events like storms, droughts and floods have been increasing over the last years already and there are more risks that we cannot completely avoid anymore.

Therefore, some of us should already look for solutions to protect our health, food and homes from increasing temperatures and more natural catastrophes.

But we shouldn’t give up on protecting the climate and environment on our planet yet

We can all still do something to improve our own future life and the lives of all other people on the world by:

Collecting low hanging fruits, also as individuals. Anything we can do with little efforts or even enjoy doing, is something we easily can start with. In my case it is finding great vacation destinations close by, taking a train instead of a plane or eating more plant-based with many products I started to really like.
Jointly moving the most effective impact levers. Working on better technologies for the future, as well as testing and implementing them across our society. For transport and food for example it doesn’t only mean developing a new technology, but also building the organizations, marketing and selling them, as well as using them regularly.

We still have a chance to get on a “safer” path with a chance to stay within the 1,5 °C global warming and need to work very quickly on all planetary boundaries to do so, or we run into a scenario of devastating climate change where we lose control of the tipping points. Johan Rockström explained the situation very well with many helpful diagrams from research data in this TED talk.

Moreover, a lot of progress has been made already. Data scientist Hanna Ritchie is very good at using relevant data to show in which sectors we need to act the most and how much we have accomplished already (for example in this video). She also uses this data of our accomplishments to give us hope and motivate us to become the first generations that can actually live sustainable on this planet.

With these thoughts in mind, we can jump into the comparison of one of these individual actions.

Comparison of CO₂e emissions

As you can see in the diagram below, my journey with trains and buses from Munich to Portugal only emitted ca. 10% as much CO2e as taking a direct flight: ca. 120 vs 1.000 kg.

Global Warming Potential for return journeys

Please note that these are approximate calculations, and the actual emissions of the trains could also be lower, because I took fairly conservative information. The exact emissions both of trains and flights are not 100% clear with a few different sources. I used the following sources:

I took a conservative calculation with ~ 33 g CO2e / (km * person) for all trains outside France & Switzerland. (ICE in Germany, other trains).
These 2 countries mostly produce their electricity with renewable energies and nuclear power, thus leading to lower values of ca. 4 and ca. 17 g CO2e / (km * person) respectively (SNCF in France, SBB in Switzerland).
In the calculations for the train, I thus also included the assumptions that the ICE high-speed train in Germany is powered by the regular share of German electricity sources including fossil fuels, which leads to 31 g CO₂e / (km*person) (German “Environment Agency”, 2022), although DB states that by purchasing electricity only produced from renewable energies for the ICEs.
I didn’t find an exact number for the emissions of Spanish trains and took an overall average of 35 g CO2e / (km * person) (our world in data).
I usually take my flight emission calculations from atmosfair.

Hence, an overall higher share of renewable energies in the electricity production in Spain, Germany and other countries will decrease the emissions of train rides even further.

Furthermore, there is some potential in the emissions of the long-distance buses that I took for having a more direct way to enter Portugal in order to still reach some events in Braga and Astorga. Taking the train was an option for these travels, too, although longer and with some necessary changes.

I uploaded am image of the calculations, so you get an overview of the different parts of the trip. For a more detailed comparison, you can look at the calculations I made for my train travels to Northern Norway 2 years ago. Please feel free to reach out for questions and to challenge my approach.

Screenshot of the CO2e emissions calculation of all trains and buses

Qualitative advantages and disadvantages of train travel (update)

I can still understand that not everyone appreciates the trains in Europe the way I do and that both knowing about and the desire to reduce carbon emissions and climate change do not necessarily lead to a decision in favor of taking a train instead of a plane.

To help you make up your own mind, I took out my previous list of qualitative advantages and disadvantages of train rides compared to flights and added some more advantages:

Advantages

Travelling by train can lead to automatically looking for closer vacation places and thus choosing shorter distances, which overall reduce CO₂-emissions, too
Trains are quite comfortable and one is free to move around (on the train)
It’s fairly easy to constructively use the travelling time because there are few interruptions and train rides are usually not that shaky
Possible to see more places on the way and have longer stopovers
Usually, it’s possible to bring more luggage without extra costs, e.g. food, alcohol, sports equipment
The slower train travel can be an initialization to relax and enjoy instead of rushing

Disadvantages:

More time is required for travelling to the destination. If it’s just one destination, less holiday days can be spent at final destinations
Bad internet (for working etc.)
Limited space for a while, but more space than on a flight / bus and I often had a free seat next to me, too
Some countries / areas can be much less accessible by train than by flights, cars or busses
Trains can be more expensive than some touristic flights. It always depends on the route, timing and sometimes special offers, though.

And more advantages that I noticed since 2022:

Every destination on the way can open the doors to more opportunities that otherwise would have been missed
Even short changes can be a positive surprise because central train stations are usually directly in the city center and in walking distance from some pretty sights
I find it easier to meet people on the train, because one is more flexible to move around and in some seat situations you’re facing someone else directly anyways.
At the same time, trains are much better for games with friends or celebrating after sports tournaments
It’s possible to bring more of your own (maybe healthier or more sustainable) food, and make a small picknick on the tables
There’s usually a good seat in a quiet area for working. When traveling alone, I often use train rides for working, planning the next stops or summarizing the last one
It’s easy to follow and enjoy the change of landscape, especially when traveling through different regions, e.g. through the Alps and rural France, along the Mediterranean Sea and then through more arid Spain to the green Portugal again

Comparison of cost, time and opportunities

The trip that I created for myself is much different from what my friends did who flew directly to Portugal. To compare them is as difficult as comparing apples with pears, but for the sake of this blogpost, I still try to do so. During the following paragraphs, I’m thus sharing some exemplary info from this trip to give you a gross idea of the differences to a direct trip with a flight.

On such a journey to a popular tourist destination, the train is more expensive

Unfortunately, the prices for trains - even on an interrail ticket - are higher than those of a direct flight to Porto.

The transport expenses add up to ca. 500 €:

381 € for a 7 Day in 1 month Interrail Global Pass (younger than 27 only costs 286 €)
ca. 75 € for seat reservations
ca. 50 € for additional buses, which could be substituted by 25 € for seat reservations when timing for entering and leaving Portugal is not so important

Similarly as for flight tickets, these costs are the same for a vacation of 2-4 weeks in total, because the interrail ticket is valid for a full month and it’s free to decide on which days one wants to travel.

Depending on the time and offer one is looking for, prices for return flights from Munich to Portugal can start from 120€ but also go past 400 €. For other, less usual connections, the train or interrail ticket could be at the same level or cheaper than flight tickets, though. This was the case for my trip to Northern Norway if I had planned it with an Interrail ticket.

1,5 weeks in addition mostly well spent - Several opportunities in different places compared to just one destination

It is necessary to take much more time for traveling ca. 2.300 km by train and bus compared to a flight. The quickest way possible would take ca. 24h for one way, but it wouldn’t be much fun.

In total I spent approx. 40h on trains and 16 h on buses during my whole trip - also because I didn’t take the most direct ways in Spain.

Apart from these a little bit more than 2 days, I’ve spent my other time very well visiting the places on the way and enjoying the following opportunities:

1 day sightseeing in Madrid
2 days watching Lacrosse in Braga
1 day discovering rural Spain and seeing local festivities in Astorga
1 day discovering Bordeaux and going to the beach close by
4 days at the Paris Olympics
And meeting >10 friends again in their hometowns during these days or on the evenings on the way

Therefore, I spent ca. 2-3 days only for traveling to the next place, but also had 9 more great vacation days than I otherwise would have had.

Moreover, I never felt like I’m wasting time on the trains as I had enough to do during the travels anyways. I did feel less productive than in other settings, though.

The journey

Initiated by a friend planning to celebrate his birthday in a vacation home in Portugal, I started to look for a more sustainable way to go to Portugal and looked for good reasons to take more time for the trip. By visiting friends and local events on the way, I found very good reasons to create a unique and very memorable trip.

The opportunities in addition to the “birthday vacation” just popped up in the following order:

Some friends confirmed that they’re home during my likely travel days and I could stay at their places during the trip. Some friends were also not there, so that I skipped some stops. This confirmation was the requirement for me to take the longer trip.
A friend staying in Northern Spain was happy to host me while there are annual festivities in town, which celebrate the history of Asturians and Romans. Hence, I planned to take the more complex route to visit her.
I found out that the European Women’s Lacrosse Championships are happening exactly until the weekend when the birthday vacation in Portugal started - and just 50km away from it in Braga. I reduced my time in other places on the route on the way to Portugal to reach the end of the championships.
Frankly, I really realized quite late that the Olympic Games are happening in Paris while I’m staying there, too. I could stay at a friend’s place, so I didn’t think much about it. And luckily, just weeks before the events, tickets where still sold regularly on Thursdays so that I could still get some not fairly cheap tickets.
Good friends of mine had tickets for the table tennis semi-finals Paris on the Friday when I planned to already have left the city. As my hiking plans for this weekend had to be cancelled due to an injury, I now had time to stay longer and managed to get tickets for the same event on the resale-platform in order to meet them, too.

For more photos and videos of the trip, you can check out the highlight “🚄 to 🇵🇹 and back” on my instagram page.

My itinerary

This itinerary is not a plan to copy for yourself, but rather an overview of the timings on my trip to inspire for similar trips. It is very diverse and shows the flexibility and chances in arranging a similarly unique trip.

Day 1: Munich - Lyon with great views on lake Geneve and a sufficient stopover to walk down to the lake and through the city center in Geneve. Evening to discover a bit of Lyon and have dinner with a friend.
Day 2: Lyon - Madrid with a short stopover to see a bit of Narbonne. Evening to discover the city and go out with new friends from the hostel.
Day 3: A day of sightseeing and meeting a friend in Madrid. Night bus to Porto in order to arrive earlier in Braga. (the initial plan was a train, but the next full day in Braga was totally worth it)
Day 4-5: 2 full days of watching the European Women’s Lacrosse Championships in Braga
Day 6-10: Enjoy vacation with many friends in a vacation house with beautiful scenery and celebrate a 30th birthday
Day 11: Travel to Astorga and discover the local “Astures y Romanos” festivities with a local friend
Day 12: Get to know the Northern Spanish village life, travel to Valladolid and discover the city at night
Day 13: Travel to Bordeaux and enjoy the evening in the city
Day 14: Discover Bordeaux and make a trip to the beach with a friend
Day 15-18: Enjoy the Olympic Games in Paris and meet many friends
Day 19: Return to Munich (if I had booked my seat reservation earlier, I could have taken an early or late train to have more time in Paris or Munich).

In total, I was traveling on 19 days with ca. 16 full vacation days in a nice place. As I also enjoyed watching the change of landscape on the train and used the time well, I also consider the other ca. 3 days as good vacation days. Particularly on the first day I was very excited to have started this trip and really enjoyed being on the train with the beautiful landscape around and meeting some other travelers.

To Portugal via Lyon & Madrid

My trip started with a beautiful train ride passing the Bodensee and through Switzerland. It also started with a nice story how train issues can help to meet new people and generate conversations: When the first train stopped in Winterthur and didn’t continue to Zürich Hbf, I teamed up with a fellow traveller for the last bit with an S-Bahn to Zürich and learned a bit about what it’s like to be an opera singer.

Just a short stop-over of ca. 1h was also enough to see a bit of Geneva. On the sunny afternoon, it was great to walk a bit through the city center and take a look on the Lake Geneva and the emerald green water of the Rhône river leaving the lake.

The plan was to arrive for dinner time in Lyon, where a friend had cooked fresh with some local produce before showing me around the quartier Montplaisir Lumière.

On the second day of covering a long distance, I had another short stopover in Narbonne. Even while walking with a small suitcase, it was easy to discover a bit of the town and the typical center with the big Cathédrale Saint-Just et Saint-Pasteur.

For this year’s stop in Madrid I finally had some good weather, which I appreciated although it was very hot - very typical for mid of July of course, but nice after heavy rains the first and only time I visited so far. I experienced some nice hostel vibes again (although in a different hostel this time).

It was great to see the city in the sun this time; especially the Retiro park is much nicer in the sun. The free entry in the last 2 hours at the Prada Museum were good to cool down before almost replicating a food and sightseeing tour from last year with a friend.

My stay in Madrid ended earlier than planned with a spontaneous night bus to Portugal, which ended up being worth it, though.

The European Women’s Field Lacrosse Championships in Braga

In the end, I was very happy to have arrived early on that second last day of the championships. Just this Friday watching different matches was already worth it for me:

Meeting some friends that also play Lacrosse in Germany
Watching different nations compete on the field while the fans (mostly friends & family tbh) competed to be louder
Practicing my Norwegian again with the fans while cheering on the team
Hopefully convincing a young Portuguese visitor to also try out playing himself
Watching the most exciting game of Women’s Lacrosse that I’ve seen live yet: The Czech Republic came back from trailing 5 goals against Italy to tie the game just before the end of the regular time. Everyone was cheering on the homegrown Czech team opposed to the Italian team stacked with players who usually compete in America. The Czech Republic ended up winning the game and position 7, thus securing their spot at the next World Cup.

The second day was also very nice to have the chance to cheer on the German team in at least 1 game for a good 6th place finish. Before and afterwards, the finals for 3rd 1st spot were also nice to watch. In my opinion, the different setting also initiates other and more interesting conversation than when just meeting as part of the regular training or season.

The birthday vacation

On the day after the finals and the player’s party, I was picked up by friends on their way from the airport to head to the final destination for the next days: We stayed at a great holiday home with amazing views.

Because it was very sunny and hot, we didn’t do much far away from the pool, but rather enjoyed the relaxing time together. We did end up visiting the town close-by where the Romans already built a bridge across the Lima river as the name suggests: Ponte de Lima

And we found another place to cool down and enjoy the views in the Peneda-Gerês National Park: The “cascata ermida” is a small creek with some pools and waterfalls, which takes some time to get to, but is worth the tour in my opinion.

Generally, the whole week was very good for some relaxation, lots of great homemade food and drinks and nice talks to get some updates from friends and get to know new people of the group whom I didn’t meet before. Overall, it was a very nice and little active vacation for once. Normally, I’m hunting exciting activities and beautiful places on vacations, but an actual physical break is also good sometimes.

Back via Astorga, Valladolid and Bordeaux

On the way back from Portugal I took a different route and visited a friend in Northern Spain who went home to the village where she grew up for the summer. It doesn’t get as hot there as in Madrid.

The only weekend when I could go visit here was also the weekend of the year when the annual Astures y Romanos festival takes place in Astorga. During this time, the locals celebrate their history by building encampments for both groups, organizing parades through the city, different games and competitions. They are proud of it and put in large efforts, which are easily visible for example in the high-quality costumes they wear and the cabins / tents they build.

While visiting Astorga, one cannot miss the two most particular buildings: The big Cathedral of Santa María de Astorga and a beautiful small palace next to it by the famous architect Antoni Gaudí. Astorga itself is already a fairly small town with ca. 10.000 inhabitants, but I got to see the even more rural local experience in a small, but pretty village close-by, which now is the image in my brain when thinking about rural Spain.

Honestly, it was a bit difficult to get to Astorga, but for visiting friends worth it in my opinion: During 3 days from Braga to Bordeaux, I took 2 buses from Portugal to Astorga, on the next evening 2 trains to get to Valladolid and 2 trains + a local train on the third day from Valladolid to Bordeaux.

Another way is to get there on the way or hike to another place: Astorga lies also on most of the “caminos de santiago”. When hiking in northern Spain during the hot summer anyways, it is a good decision to at least plan stopping by in Astorga during the festivities.

I was also happy to have chosen this path when I was positively surprised by Valladolid. My arrival was just before sunset, and I continued to discover the city later in the evening. From my point of view, it is a lively city with good vibes and tasty food. It seemed quite local and not crowded with tourists, which is a nice counterpart to the otherwise very touristic Spain. The city center itself is also very pretty with some beautiful and unique buildings. Many church towers are also lit up with an intense green light at night, which creates a very special view for nice photos.

The only “quick” entry from France to Spain by train goes via Barcelona on the Mediterranean coast. Unfortunately, the “Atlantic route” is much slower, but worth the travels in my opinion. I liked visiting the cities of Bilbao and San Sebastian last summer and heard that there would be many nice places to visit in the Basque Country. I highly appreciated their individual culture and great food before and believe there is much more to see, too.

I didn’t have time to stop much on the way, so I took the long trip to Bordeaux directly and just enjoyed the looks out of the window to move into the lush green landscape next to the Atlantic again.

Bordeaux itself is a beautiful city, which I spent too little time in on last year’s trip where it was also rainy. So I appreciated meeting a friend again and enjoying the city in good weather, although it was actually very hot. Luckily, we took a good decision and my friend drove us to the beach to pass the hot afternoon in and next to the sea.

The Olympic Games 2024 in Paris

I was lucky that new tickets for the Olympic games were still sold every Thursday morning until they started, because I actually realized quite late that I have the chance to watch some sports as I’m staying in Paris during the Olympics. Already on my trip and just 1 week before the games started I still got some cheap tickets to watch kayak and canoe slalom, water polo & boxing. Big shoutout to the good friend who told me about this sales rhythm!

In addition, the official resale platform makes it super easy to not only resell yourself but also look for otherwise sold out tickets. This enabled me to get tickets for some of the table tennis semi-finals and meet some friends in Paris at the event they were visiting for. Otherwise, their tight timing would have made it very difficult to meet up as they only came to Paris for this sports event.

Watching these events live with some friends was only one of the great things I enjoyed about the Olympics in Paris this time. The amazing venues directly in the city were a blast. I didn’t manage to go inside any of them e.g. in front of the Eiffel tower, Hôtel des Invalides, on the Place de la Concorde or inside the Grand Palais, but seeing a bit of the triathlon cycling on the Avenue des Champs Élysées was already super cool. Turning the beautiful “outdoor museum” of Paris into sports venues will definitely stick on my mind. The only thing I would have loved to see was see the cauldron with the electric Olympic fire rise from the Jardin des Tuileries, but it just didn’t take off when I went and waited there. The photos and videos of it looked amazing, though.

Usually, Paris is full of international tourists, too, but this time it felt a little different. There was a great international vibe and good mood throughout the city as people were celebrating the Olympics. There were many small and big public viewing spots ranging from the Champions Square at the Trocadero to small townhalls. And then there were the nations houses. Most of them were in the “Parc de la Villete”. I didn’t have a ticket to enter the huge “Club France” with all the French celebrating their many medals, but there were also some houses with free entry. For example, the Slovakian, Mongolian, Taiwanese and Colombian house either offered local food, cultural performances or both and were able to make one feel like traveling from country to country with just a few steps.

This visit at the Olympic Games also lit up a small fire in me to watch more of them in the future again. It was actually my second time at a host city after a year abroad close to Vancouver in 2010, but the first while actually watching games in the stadiums and enjoying the whole time there.

So maybe I can find a very good reason with different projects to create an exciting trip for visiting Los Angeles in 2028? Some thoughts already popped up in my mind as Lacrosse returning to the Olympic Games is definitely a very good reason to start thinking about it. But that still takes a while and I have some more urgent challenges to master first.

Conclusion

To be honest, and to maintain everyone’s freedom to decide themselves, there are both arguments in favor and against skipping a flight and taking a train instead. If you consider my travels as inspiration and my learnings as tips to enjoy the slower travel to destinations not that far away, this could open a whole new door to a new positive experience of more sustainable traveling choices.

I am well aware that my personal background and the timing allowed for some very unique opportunities in these travels, which cannot be copied exactly like this for another person. However, and this is a big “BUT”: We all have our own connections and interests and there are many things happening around Europe all the time.
Hence, there is a good chance that you could also turn your next stay abroad in a similarly unique trip - or even an adventure if you prefer to see it as such - when avoiding a flight to simply get to a destination.

Taking a train instead could not only be better for the environment, but also better for your memories and keeping up friendships around Europe. When you see an option for such a trip, just look for some opportunities on the map and in the calendar and be creative about how you could connect them ;-)

Feedback

As for everything I’m blogging or writing elsewhere, please feel free to comment or message me about any questions :)

I’m only an expert of my own experiences and hope to learn from you, as well: about new research, ideas or frameworks, as well as what I did good, bad or where I’m not informed about the latest information yet.