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If you’re headed to the nation’s capital for a vacation, our guide will provide green travel tips to reduce your environmental impact.
Take the train or bus if you can. DC’s Union Station receives roughly 40 million visitors per year. Its beautiful architecture, variety of shopping and dining options and status as one of the largest transportation hubs in the country make the station a popular transit option. Numerous transportation modes are available, including rail via Amtrak, which recently reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 20%, which is equivalent to removing roughly 51,251 passenger vehicles from the road. Through several key initiatives like energy efficiency upgrades, improved train handling and more efficient locomotives, Amtrak has reduced fuel and energy use year-over-year. Over the next decade, the company is targeting a further reduction to 40%. In fact, rail travel produces up to 83% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than driving and up to 73% fewer emissions than flying, making Amtrak the best option to shrink your travel carbon footprint. According to the 2021 U.S. Department of Energy Data Book, traveling by Amtrak is 46% more energy efficient than traveling by car and 34% more energy efficient than domestic air travel.
Once you arrive to Union Station, you can hop on DC’s subway system, the Metrorail, with a dedicated Union Station stop serviced by the Red Line. The bus is equally as environmentally friendly, using significantly less fuel and exerting less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than a plane. Choose from an array of options, including Megabus, Battle's Transportation and Vamoose.
Washington, DC has plenty of options for tour guide services that value the environment. With the largest inventory of rental bikes in DC, Unlimited Biking allows locals and tourists of all ages to explore the city by day or night, including various tours like “Capital Sites” and “Monuments at Night” and seasonal offerings such as “Blossoms by Bike” and “Christmas on Wheels.” There's also REI, which offers kayak and paddle rentals at National Harbor and hosts guided day tours and classes, including trips to Shenandoah National Park and New River Gorge in West Virginia.
There are many ways to decrease your carbon footprint and volunteer with others during your time in the District to help protect our beautiful ecosystems. Serve DC is a government agency that is part of the Mayor’s Office on Volunteerism and offers neighborhood clean-ups and pop-up markets to increase access to fresh, local food. Restore and enhance the trees through the nation’s capital with Casey Trees, a non-profit that plants over 3,000 trees across all eight wards annually. Get your hands dirty and the rivers clean with Potomac Conservancy. Look out for trash and river cleanups from Fletcher’s Cove to Theodore Roosevelt Island. Rock Creek Conservancy offers trash cleanup and invasive plant removal, which is suitable for the whole family.
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