Awkward Vegan Travel: Turning Down Hospitality

Travelling as a vegan can sometimes present a few challenges. There’s no doubt that in some countries it’s much easier to find vegan food than others. Yet, even if you’re in a small town without a single place that offers something vegan or ‘veganisable’, you shouldn’t have a problem buying fruits, veggies, grains and everything…

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Travelling Ethically and With Personal Integrity

Travelling ethically means taking into account the consequences of your actions – how your travel choices and experiences impact people and the environment. You can do certain activities abroad that benefit cruel industries or you can make decisions that benefit local communities and wildlife instead. When these decisions are consistent with your moral principles, this…

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The Ethics of Haggling in a Developing Country

Frugality is a virtue, especially when it comes to travelling. There is a problem, however, when frugality turns selfish; when a penny-pinching mentality is adopted in developing countries, and you start haggling over certain things, involving differences in price that are more or less negligible for you. No one likes to be ripped off, especially…

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Making a Difference in Developing Countries: Volunteering vs Tourism

There has long been controversy about ‘voluntourism’: an industry that caters to (mostly) Westerners and places them on volunteering programmes in developing countries. The industry offers those on a gap year the promise of making a difference in the deprived lives of others. On the surface, if a volunteer is flying to the other side…

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Having CCTV in Slaughterhouses Won’t Prevent Animal Cruelty

Animal rights organisation Animal Aid has long campaigned for the introduction of mandatory CCTV in UK slaughterhouses. Animal Aid has secretly filmed inside 13 randomly chosen slaughterhouses and found that 12 of them were violating animal welfare laws; so it seemed clear that stricter regulation was needed. Without transparency, animal abuse can continue unabated. Mandatory…

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