Animal Welfare in Travel

Traveling involves a thousand tiny decisions - do I take the morning flight or a redeye? Splurge on that hotel with the infinity pool I saw on Instagram? Do I really need to pack three pairs of heels?

But have you ever thought about the ethics involved in your travel plans?

When I launched Flyway Travel one of the first things I committed to was that I would never sell a tour that exploited animals. No elephant rides. No dolphin shows. No tigers and lions drugged up so tourists can take photos with them.

The TreadRight Foundation has an easy guide on their website to help you determine if an animal-based tour or encounter is ethical. Unethical animal-based travel includes:

• Any activity involving an animal performing for entertainment, such as elephant shows, dolphin shows, and circuses

• Any activity involving animals that were purchased, traded, bred, or held captive so they could be used for the purpose of tourism

• Any activity involving riding or sitting on an animal (with the narrow exception of horses, donkeys, and camels, which must be kept in humane conditions and not overloaded or overworked)

• Any kind of sport or trophy hunting, or the use of animals for fights (bullfighting, cockfighting, etc.)

• Any activity that involves baiting animals for entertainment or to lure them closer to humans (with the very narrow exception of some types of bird feeders)

• Consuming meat or other products from endangered or threatened animals such as sea turtles, puffins, and whales.

View TreadRight’s full list of guidelines on their website and look for more posts about ethical travel here on the blog in the next few weeks.