Episode 25: What Sustainable Travel Products Should We Use?

Show Notes: Worldschooling Q&A – Episode 25

Episode Title: Episode 25: What Sustainable Products Should We Use?

Hosts: Astrid & Clint, creators of The Wandering Daughter

In this episode of Worldschooling Q&A, Astrid and Clint answer a timely and values-driven question: What sustainable products can families travel with while worldschooling? Drawing from their four years of full-time travel across 18+ countries, they share honest reflections on how travel impacts the planet—and how small, intentional choices can significantly reduce waste on the road.

The conversation begins with a powerful personal story that reshaped Astrid’s perspective on plastic pollution and global recycling practices. From there, they break down practical swaps families can make while traveling, including reusable food storage, water filtration, laundry solutions, and personal care products that eliminate single-use plastics.

This episode is full of real-world, tested solutions that are easy to pack, simple to maintain, and realistic for long-term travel. Whether you’re preparing for a short trip or a full-time worldschooling lifestyle, these tips will help you travel more consciously without adding stress to your journey.

Buy our top 5 favorite sustainable travel products:

- GRAYL GeoPress 24oz (https://amzn.to/4sGQJxJ)

- Cotopaxi Packing Cubes (https://amzn.to/3OTJnbD)

- Stasher Silicone Bags (https://amzn.to/46San1a)

- Beeswax Wraps (https://amzn.to/3Pc8TJ2)

- Metal straws (https://amzn.to/40XiJB7)

🎧 Ready to dive in?

Buy our family gap year guide, "Hey Kids, Let's Go Travel!": https://thewanderingdaughter.com/hey-kids-lets-go-travel-planning-a-gap-year-with-family/

Want one-on-one time with Clint and Astrid? Reach out for a worldschooling consultation: https://thewanderingdaughter.com/consult/

Support our worldschooling podcast: Join The Wandering Daughter on Patreon for episode transcripts, extra resources, and live office hours with Astrid and Clint: https://www.patreon.com/c/thewanderingdaughter/membership

👉 For full show notes, resource links, and a complete episode guide, visit:

https://thewanderingdaughter.com/episode-25-sustainable-travel-products/

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
We were up in Ahmed and there was
a patch of garbage that Ijust basically swam through
and it didn't feel good. AndI was just like, oh my God,
what did I just swimthrough? It was like gross.

(00:20):
This is world schooling q and a. I'mAstrid, creator of the wandering daughter.
As a traveling family,
we've spent four years travelingfull-time to over 18 countries and six
continents. Wherever we go,
we try to learn as much as we can aboutthe countries and cultures we visit.
While we didn't coin the term, welike to call this world schooling,

(00:41):
using the world as our classroom.
Each week my husband Clint and I willanswer one question about world schooling
and share our experiences oftraveling the world with our kids.
Ready to get started?Great. Let's dive in.

(01:05):
So today's question is,
what are some sustainableproducts we can travel with?
I guess let's start with what doessustainable travel products mean
to us and why do we want to havesustainable travel products?
Yeah,
so first I'll go into why Ithink especially during our

(01:27):
travel. So for thoseof you who don't know,
we traveled full time from2018 to 2022 and visited
a bunch of countries and I remember keenly
snorkeling in Indonesia andgorgeous place to snorkel.
We were up in bed and there was a

(01:49):
patch of garbage that Ijust basically swam through
and it didn't feel good andI was just like, oh my God,
what did I just swim through? It's gross.
And it really made me think aboutthe amount of waste that we create
with just plastic,

(02:10):
but also just disposable items.
Things that just we useonce and we throw away. So
that is what guides me in choosingthe products that we travel with,
is making sure that us as travelers,
we're not contributing tothis exponentially growing

(02:33):
amount of garbage that wehumans produce every day.
And it's interesting because wesaw this recently in the last
few years, I think we were traveling.
A.
Big,
big media story about recycling andhow recycling is changing in the
us or meaning China usually took a lotof recycling and now that's not the

(02:55):
case. They're kind of rejecting alot of that. A ends up in Indonesia,
for example.
And so we were obviouslybased in the United States,
so that's where we're speaking from,but we kind of have this out of sight,
out of mind mentality, meaning that, oh,
we put our recycling trash bin andrecycling bins and it goes off to waste

(03:16):
treatment.
Center and.
We put our trash in the trash canand it goes off to a waste center.
And then after that we'rekind of like, alright, cool.
We did our part and it's gone.
And.
What's fascinating is whenwe were traveling, yeah,
that ends up somewhere though. Yeah.
Well,
what I didn't realize was that a lot ofcountries outsource their recycling to

(03:38):
other countries and that's wherethat, because it's cheaper to do,
and in some cases those othercountries don't have the facilities
to adequate facilities to processall the amounts of recycling that
they receive. And sothen they're like, well,
I guess we'll just burn it or we'll justthrow it away, put it in the garbage.

(03:59):
So that good deed that you thinkthat you're doing recycling and
putting your plastics in the recyclingbin, it isn't necessarily helpful.
So a lot of the sustainable practicesthat we gained while we're traveling,
we've brought them back as we'vecome back to the United States,
and we do a lot of those stillnow. And just the biggest one,

(04:22):
and this will be the themeas we go through this stuff,
is the reduction of single use plastic.
I think.
Is probably the biggest one.
But then the other things too ischoosing things that are made with
repurposed materials or recycledmaterials like choosing things that
will be long lasting aswell so that you can use

(04:44):
it multiple times instead of, andit's not going to be like, oh,
I only use it for a year andnow I'm going to throw it away.
Or in some cases, my daughterand I, we really like to thrift.
So buying things that are previously owned
so that you're saving it from thegarbage bid essentially. Yeah.

(05:05):
Those are great. Yeah, greatoptions. So having said that,
what are some things that wetravel with or have adopted as
sustainable travel products?
One thing that I like is, and wesay this in other episodes too,
is packing cubes.
And you don't necessarily think ofthem as a sustainable travel product,
but the particular brand of packingcubes that we love is cotopaxi.

(05:28):
And we like them becausethey use repurposed materials
to make their packing cubes.
So then it feels more sustainable for us.
And they're also cute as heck.
They're great colors and they'rejust vibrant and awesome logo.
It's a good company overall.
What about you?

(05:49):
I think the one thing I've alwayshad an issue with Ziploc bags,
they've annoyed me. Even whenwe were using Ziploc bags,
I was always that person washingZiploc bags to reuse Ziploc bags.
I just always have hated throwingthem away, even just as little.
So we use STS a lot if you don't know.
And that's the main brand. I thinkthere's other brands of these now,

(06:13):
but sts are essentiallysilicone-based food
Ziploc bags. They're basicallysilicone-based Ziploc bags.
And we've also used biodegradableZiploc bags in the past.
And those are okay for onetime use, but it's still trash.
It still goes in the trash.So we really like these sts.
Yeah, and they're like microwaveable.I like making popcorn makeup.

(06:35):
Yeah. Awesome.
On the topic of food, the other,
and something that wefound wasteful during our
travels was like, youeat a meal then okay,
let's just wrap it in some plasticwrap and then put it in the fridge.
But we had to go and buy plasticwrap at the store and then put it

(06:56):
in there in the Airbnb.
So we started traveling withbeeswax wraps and they serve the
same purpose where you just cover,
if your kid doesn't eat all theirdinner or you have some leftovers,
you put it on a plate,
cover it up with some beeswax wrapsand then put it in the fridge.
So that's nice. Andthey fold up very small.

(07:18):
So we usually just travelwith those as well.
Yeah, those are awesome.
I think another thing that we kind offood related that we travel with all the
time is metal straws. I mean,
there's bamboo straws, metalstraws, silicone straws.
I think the reason we like the metalones is they're easier to keep clean.
I think the bamboo ones sometimesare notorious for maybe mold.

(07:42):
Silicone.
Ones are kind of get low grimy.
So.
We like the metal ones.
And that way if you keep it in your purse,
they will usually come with a littleholder or something like that.
And then at a restaurant, youdon't have to use their straws.
You can use your ownand then wash it later.
Yeah.

(08:02):
What about
when it comes to household stuff?
Yeah,
there's a couple things I'll mentionon the personal hygiene side.
So we use bar shampooinstead of bottle shampoo.
That's largely so that we can takethem place to place that lasts longer.
There's no single use plasticinvolved in that. That's been great.

(08:26):
We've really enjoyed traveling with barshampoo and they do bar shampoo and bar
conditioner, and a lot of times we don'treally even need bar soap necessarily.
We can use that. And then theother one is toothpaste tabs.
We've.
Switched the toothpaste tabs.
They do now have toothpaste tabs withfluoride if you are a fluoride family.
So I know when they first came out,

(08:46):
there was no fluoride in the toothpastetabs. But toothpaste tabs are great.
We usually just throw them in a littleglass jar that we have and take those
wherever we go.
We don't have to worry about toothpastegetting everywhere the tubes having
throw it away.
The only problem with toothpaste tabsis so far I think only Canada and US is
where we've been able to find them.

(09:07):
That's true.
So we generally have,
that's one of the things we haveto kind of stock up on a bit.
Before we go on long trips, whatare some of the household things?
Laundry detergent sheets are helpful.
We found ourselves buyingbig bottles of laundry
detergent wherever we, in every new city.

(09:29):
And then we wouldn't go through thewhole thing by the time we left.
And then we're like, oh, I guess we'rejust going to have to leave this year.
So it just felt wasteful for us.
So we started traveling withdetergent sheets and they come in
small, smooth, flat envelopes essentially,
and then you can just tear offwhat you need and use that.

(09:53):
If you are an avid plastic personthough. Anti plastic person though,
the sheets do have some plastic.
Like little microplastics.
In there. Yeah, microplasticsin them. So at home now,
we actually use a completelynon-plastic powder,
but when we travel,
we're probably going to go back to thesheets just because they're really easy

(10:14):
to travel with.
Powder.
Is still hard to travel. Youhave to have it in a jar,
you run out of it quickly.
So we'll probably still travelwith the laundry sheets.
The other thing I like isbringing grail bottle with us.
So grails are G-R-A-Y-L.
They're water bottleswith built-in filters.
And so that can help with filtering outyour water in places where the water may

(10:38):
not be safe to drink,
but then it reduces your relianceon having to buy bottled water.
So that to me is more sustainable as well.
Yeah. One more on the laundry.We carry laundry balls.
If you don't know what those are,they're wool balls that basically,
if you're doing a dryer.Now, having said that,

(10:58):
most of the world doesn't,or not most of the world.
A lot of the world does not have dryers,so the laundry balls might not be used,
but they're great for juggling if they'reinto that. But the other thing is we.
Massage balls.
Massage balls, we carry aclothes line, so it's a little,
and they actually make some really coolcollapsible clothes lines now to do
hanging if there's no dryer.Or in the UK and Europe,

(11:22):
they have these combo washer dryer things.They have never worked well for us.
They do well washing, likeJapan has it too. Never drying.
We can never dry clothes in them.Grocery store, what a couple things.
Oh yeah. So if you're goingto the grocery store, again,
when you're getting your produce,
you put 'em in the little plastic baggiesand then what do you do with them?
You throw 'em away.

(11:43):
So you can buy mesh producebags and they come in
packs of five or 10 and they'revery light and probably weigh the
same amount as the plasticbags. And so that's what we use.
And then we also do tote bags too,
and there's some greatones that just fold up.

(12:03):
Yeah. The hilarious thingabout the produce bags,
we love them in many parts of the worldwhere you have to get your produce and
then take it to a counter where theyweigh it and then they tag it before you
take to the checkoutstand. Those tags don't.
Stick. Don't stick, stick. Yeah.
So sometimes you get annoying.
I'm just going to putit here, put on my hand.
Whatever. It works. Cool.I think that covers it.

(12:24):
Yeah. I write about a lot of theseproducts that I mentioned on my website.
I have an article,
the Best eco-friendly travelproducts to travel with,
so feel free to check that out if youwant to learn more about the products that
we mentioned in this episode. Yeah.Good. Well, that's all for today.
Thank you for joining us on this episodeof World Schooling q and a with Astrid

(12:47):
and Clint.
Be sure to check out the show notes forany links we mentioned in the episode
and visit my website,
the wandering daughter.com to divedeeper into world schooling and family
travel.
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(13:09):
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(13:31):
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(13:53):
Until next time, happy travels. Bye.