Sustainable Travel: Shop Locally While Travelling

Here are a few reasons to buy locally and how it helps you, the community, and the environment.

Updated on: 9 September 2022 9:40 am

Sustainable Travel: Shop local

Shopping is one of the favourite add-ons of travelling. We often buy food, clothing and accessories, souvenirs to bring home, etc. in the course of our travel. But did you know that by insisting on buying local produce or handicrafts, you can create a positive impact on both the economic and environmental fronts? Because the less the distance travelled by the products, the less the carbon footprint. Also, it benefits local communities, especially in rural areas.

Here is our take on why we like to buy locally.

Helping the local enterprises

Buying local products, from foods to souvenirs, travellers help the local workforce to prosper. Eating at an eatery which uses locally grown food or buying a locally made handicraft helps to lower the carbon footprint too. Food grown in distant places or use of exotic ingredients in restaurants involves transportation which increases fuel consumption and pollution. But buying locally lowers the carbon footprint.

Knowing the community

When you travel, shopping locally allows you to experience the destination as the people staying there see it. You may come to know of attractions which are off-beat or lesser known and learn what makes the place unique.

Shop Local: Knowing your community?Shutterstock

Save indigenous art

In most places, indigenous art and crafts, especially those handmade, are finding it difficult to compete with mass-produced machine-made goods. By scouring the markets for locally made goods, travellers can support the artisan communities and the ancillary industries which depend on them.