I wonder how overlanding compares to flying for carbon emissions. Next year, I plan on overlanding from Bali to London, possibly kicking on to New York and the

I wonder how overlanding compares to flying for carbon emissions. Next year, I plan on overlanding from Bali to London, possibly kicking on to New York and then the West Coast of the USA or Canada, depending on how much money I have and spend on the way. It would be interesting to see how that compares to flying for carbon emissions. Now I'm interested, so lets crunch some numbers: The drive from Bali to London is roughly 18,000 km (Bali -> Bangkok -> Hanoi -> Beijing -> Ulan Bator -> Moscow -> London). Using numbers from a spreadsheet I found [1], a bus emits roughly 27 grams of CO2 per passenger km. So the bus trip is 490 kg of CO2. Flying emits 280 grams of CO2 per passenger km (from the same spreadsheet), the flight is about 13,000 km (DPS-KUL-LHR). That's 3600 kg of CO2 emitted. Clearly I'm saving the planet by taking the bus. However, it takes time to drive from Bali to London, and just existing causes CO2 emissions. According to Rome2Rio [2] it's almost 7 days (168 hours) of non-stop travel. Let's assume 12 hours of travel a day, because we aren't complete masochists, that's 14 days of traveling. The Rome2Rio route does include trains, but let's imagine that it's busses all the way and they're magically as fast as a train (which they are certainly not). Apparently as a New Zealander I emit somewhere around 10 tonnes of CO2 per year [3], let's imagine that I continue emitting that much while travelling through the developing world. That's 27 kg per day. For 14 days that's 380 kg. So the total emissions from overlanding from Bali to London is roughly 870 kg of CO2, or around a quarter that of flying. So, in summary: If you have too much time on your hands and want to save the world, don't fly, take a bus. Of course, it will probably take me closer to 3 months than 14 days to get from Bali to London, which would clearly tip the balance in favour of flying, but the trip isn't about getting from A to B, but getting from A to Z and visiting the 24 letters in between, to terribly paraphrase Grace Slick. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/datablog/2009/sep/02/carbon-emissions-per-transport-type https://www.theguardian.com/environment/datablog/2009/sep/02... [2] https://www.rome2rio.com/trip/sbcgbmie https://www.rome2rio.com/trip/sbcgbmie [3] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/datablog/2009/sep/02/carbon-emissions-per-person-capita https://www.theguardian.com/environment/datablog/2009/sep/02...