Handy resources for planning your flight-free holiday

Thinking about the summer holidays? Decided to take up the Flight-free 2023 challenge? We’ve pooled together some of our favourite websites and resources for planning and booking flight-free holidays.

  1. Destination inspiration:

    • Our friends at FlightFreeUK have answered lots of handy FAQs for those interested in flying less. And if you’re into your podcasts, they have one of those too.

    • There are a few websites which have full 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.

    • Finally, our old colleague Sarah set up a YouTube channel and TikTok account. to show people what slow travel is all about. If you’re looking for some inspiration for your next trip, have a browse her slow travel vlogs or simply watch her video on top ten holiday destinations in Europe and how to get there without flying.

2. Planning your route:

One of the best things about travelling overland is it gives you the chance to explore more places and stop off in different towns (or countries) along the way. There are plenty of handy websites which help you to plan your perfect 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 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 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

finger pointing at Munich on map of Europe

3. Booking tickets:

All of the sites in the section above will direct you to ticketing sites. Nevertheless, we wanted to include these links: 

  • Coaches are often the cheapest option when it comes to flight-free travel. National Express offer a lot of good deals on coaches within the UK and from the UK to European cities (tickets from London to Paris can be as low as £12). Flixbus is probably our favourite when it comes to coach travel within continental Europe. They have direct routes to and from loads of European cities and their coaches are comfortable with WiFi, plug sockets, and loads of room for luggage.

  • If you’re travelling by train and 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; that 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 stress -  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 one train 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 slow travel.
    Climate Perks is a scheme where employers help their team make climate-friendly choices by offering staff additional time off work for flight-free holidays. If your workplace hasn’t yet signed up to the scheme, register your interest today so that we can help you get the ball rolling.

Hannah Bland