Travel seen through the new lens of climate crisis

one onto an airplane. At least, that’s how I console myself.

Paranoid or not, in recent years I have taken a few steps to redress my own perceived imbalance, producing a number of books that showcase the beauty and interest that is right on our own doorstep here in southwest England (Wild Southwest, Beautiful Devon and Beautiful Cornwall), requiring no great travel effort to reach (at least not by us that live here anyway), and I shall continue to make this my contribution to promoting the ‘staycation’.

But even if we agree that international travel – at least by air – needs to be curtailed, there is another side to all this that mitigates hugely in favour of travel.

It has long been said that travel broadens the mind, and in general it is absolutely true.

Admittedly, the type of travel that limits movements to those between restaurant and poolside sunbed are likely to rather restrict the level of cultural experience. However, for anyone willing to throw themselves out into the local streets, cafes, transport and – dare I say it – language, the mind-broadening effects can be massive, meteoric and sometimes both slightly unsettling and spectacularly exciting. I speak from my own experience.

So, before we all give up travelling, just imagine the possible effects of us all retreating back into our borders. After all, it’s not that long ago that our ancestors rather believed that the people of certain countries had two heads and a forked tail. Travel and communication have gone a long way to integrating us all, showing us everyone’s humanity and equality no matter what corner of the globe we live in.

A return to isolationism – by whatever cause – would be no friend to continuing that process, and could end up having some very negative consequences for mutual understanding, respect and peace.

Perhaps, then, we should continue travelling, though with more selectiveness and care, travelling in a way that makes the journey longer and itself every bit as much a part of the experience, rather than something to be endured and finished as quickly as possible.

Easier said than done, I appreciate. We can’t all get on a yacht every time we want to travel abroad, no matter how much more environmentally friendly it might be.

As for myself and my photography, well with travel having been so central to much of my adult life, I suspect that only old age will eventually stop me. I shall continue to develop my local projects to help promote the joys of exploring one’s home area, but by the same token I won’t be giving up entirely on some of those long distance projects.

My most recent was to produce a book that showcases the incredible biodiversity of the Philippines and the work that’s going on to protect it (Wild Philippines), a hugely underreported and yet vital area of conservation.

Mr Hicks’s latest book, Beautiful Somerset, a tour around the county and Bristol through a series of photo essays, will be published end of March by Aquaterra Publishing. Price £9.99, from all good bookshops, high street and online, plus some visitor attractions.

Nigel Hicks