College Life
Green-ify Your: Spring Break
Contributed by Elizabeth Nicholas, Harvard Eco-REP
March 2009
Although the words "college spring break" are more likely to conjure up images of surf, sun and resorts than they are shovels, physical labor and granola, a new breed of environmentally-oriented spring breaks are making the prospect of doing some good for the world, and having a good time while doing it, more and more plausible every year. Last year, I found myself with twelve other Harvard students in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, building trails on a Mayan Reservation for a week, and though I came back with blisters on my hand and a blistering farmer's tan, I look back on the week as one of the most interesting, difficult and different of my life, and wouldn't trade it for week in St. Tropez by any means.
My trip was through Alternative Spring Break, which last year ran through Harvard Hillel and the American Jewish World Service (I am not Jewish, and would highly recommend the trip to non-Jews as well as Jews) but there are many organizations that run such trips. MTV popularized the concept of a service spring break in 2005, when they solicited and were inundated with thousands of applications to go on their trip to the Gulf Coast and clean up after Hurricane Katrina. Habitat for Humanity will sponsor groups of five or more friends with housing and projects, leaving only transportation costs outstanding, and the Sierra Club offers trail building and campsite cleanup projects all over the country for $500. Although many such programs say that they are full, it is always worth contacting the director of the program directly—last year, someone joined our trip two weeks before our plane took off.
Service trips, even when not explicitly environmental in nature, fulfill the premise of doing more with less, or doing more with the same. While if you jet off to the Mexican Riviera and lay around the beach for a week you come back rested and tanned, the output of your week ends there. But the carbon you expel going on a service trip has positive repercussions that ripple far beyond the week itself. And if you'd like to offset your carbon in a more tangible way, REI Adventures offers spring break trips that have carbon offsets included in their price and include everything from a scale midway up Everest to a cycling tour of Vietnam.
Wherever you go, you'll need somewhere to stay once you get there. Almost any city or popular vacation destination offers environmentally friendly options, and if your destination is overseas, sustainabletravelinternational.org can help you find such options. Many destination spots are combining eco-friendly lodging with similarly local and integrated adventures and experiences. Piedras y Olas Resort in San Juan de Sur, Nicaragua, employs locals to use ancient and sustainable techniques to build and maintain the thatched cabanas and lead diving and hiking excursions.
Making long-distance air travel environmentally sound seems to be an insurmountable task, but airfare booking agencies have taken note of their rising numbers of environmentally conscious customers, and have begun offering carbon offsets. Both Travelocity and Expedia will offset your carbon emissions when you travel for a nominal fee—$5.99 with Expedia through TerraPass and $3.42 through Travelocity's partnership with The Conservation Fund. And as anyone frustrated with a $15 fine for simply checking a bag can tell you—luggage equals more fuel expelled, so the more you can streamline your packing, the easier your travel and your conscience will be.
But of course, the most environmentally beneficial spring break can be staying exactly where you are. While obviously negating the negatives of travel—jetlag, exposure to foreign diseases, high cost, everything about airports—staying put can allow you to see the city you live in in a way you may not be able to while actually living your day-to-day life there. Boston is one of the most notable destination cities in the United States, and is rich in everything from proud old architecture in Beacon Hill to hiking in the Appalachian Mountains to the nerdy genius of MIT's New Media museum. Without wasting any resources, staying in Boston makes an adventure out of something that is already there.
The week and a bit we are given is the perfect amount of time to pick up a new environmentally friendly habit. Picking up a green hobby during this time and trying to make it a part of your daily life—taking shorter showers, carrying a thermos instead of a disposable cup—are all examples of small changes that can become habits in the time span of a spring break.
Wherever you may be this spring break, remember that the week does not have to be an all-or-nothing proposition. Environmentalism manifests itself in many ways, from Sierra Club treks through the mountains to simply taking shorter showers in a hotel in Cancun. But unlike the classic spring break axiom, "what happens on spring break, stays on spring break," the eco habits you pick up or learn to appreciate can and should last a lifetime.
