Handy resources for planning your flight-free holiday
Thinking about the summer holidays already? Decided to take up the Flight-free 2024 challenge? We’ve pooled together some of our favourite websites and resources for planning and booking flight-free holidays.
Destination inspiration:
Our friends at FlightFreeUK have a travel blog that tells stories of low carbon journeys within the UK and beyond. And if you’re into your podcasts, they have one of those too.
Our old colleague Sarah set up a YouTube channel (and TikTok account) to show people what slow travel is all about. For destination inspiration, have a browse her slow travel vlogs or simply watch this quick video on top ten holiday destinations in Europe and how to get there without flying. [embed video in website]
Finally, there are a few websites which have flight-free trips away that you can book or draw inspiration from. See Snow Carbon for ski holidays in the Alps, and Byway for a huge range of flight-free holidays (you can build your own, or browse their pre-designed trips). Both of these sights have e-newsletters, so sign up to receive travel inspiration straight to your inbox (fun fact: if you work for a Climate Perks employer, you get a discount on Byway holidays, and 3% booking fee will go straight to climate charity Possible).
2. Planning your route:
One of the best things about travelling over ground is it allows you to see even more exciting places. There are plenty of handy websites which help you to plan your journey.
The Man in Seat 61 is a really comprehensive travel guide, especially of the UK and Europe but it also has information on how to get as far afield as Asia and Australia without flying. The site shows different route options for common destinations and includes train times and photos of carriages so you know exactly what to expect. What’s more this site has loads of additional useful information (like taking your bike or travelling with children)
Best for: Getting into details
Rome2rio is the home of travel route planning, letting you search not just cities or countries but also landmarks, attractions or addresses across the globe to help you plan your route. Simply type in your start and finish points and the user-friendly platform will show you the different transport options, including length of travel time and rough ticket costs (once you’ve clicked on your preferred route you’ll see links to schedules and ticket booking sites).
Best for: great starting point to quickly get an idea of the feasibility of getting to certain destinations.
Best for: Quick overview of your options
Similarly to Rome2Rio, RouteZero.World asks you to type in your start and end points, and then will show you a range of different transport options and their total durations. What’s more, the list will rank the options by CO2 emissions, so you know which one is the most environmental trip.
Best for: comparing climate impact
3. Booking your tickets
All of the sites in the section above will direct you to ticketing sites. Nevertheless, we wanted to include these links:
If you’re not fixed to particular dates or times, it’s definitely worth checking the Eurostar cheap fare finder to make sure you get the best deal.
If your trip includes taking trains from different operators or in different countries, it could be easiest to use a third party booking platform like Trainline to make all the bookings in the same place.
Depending on your journey, it might be worth considering an interrail pass rather than booking each train ticket. This will give you more flexibility and could actually work out cheaper.
4. Good to know
Hop on the next available train
Worried about missing a connection? Don’t worry - A group of high speed trains in Europe (including the Eurostar from St Pancras) created the Hop On The Next Available Train scheme. This means that f there’s a delay on onetrain that makes you too late for your next one, you should be able to get on the next available train for free. Check the Railteam Alliance for a full list of participating trains.
You could get paid ‘journey days’ from your employer for flight-free holiday travel
Climate Perks is a scheme where employers give their employees extra paid journey days in order to empower them to take low-carbon travel without eating into their leisure time. You can read case studies from employers and employees at organisations who have already adopted climate perks to see the impact its making.If you’re interested in learning more about Climate Perks, or getting your organisation on board, get in contact with us by registering your interest.