5 Eco-Friendly Items To Travel With

Often times when traveling you do things that you wouldn’t normally do. It’s common to splurge a little more than usual and do things differently than you would in your every day routine. Which is part of what makes traveling so exciting! One thing we have found is that it’s easy to get in the habit of always using single use items like water bottles, etc. and producing a lot of unnecessary waste. But there are a few things that you can do to maintain some of those good habits even when you’re not at home! Just because you’re traveling doesn’t mean you can’t still use eco-friendly items. Here are 5 eco-friendly items to travel with that we easily can fit in our carry on backpacks!

Disclosure: This post contains Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. This means at no additional cost to you, we will earn a commission if you click through a link and make a purchase. This post may also contain other affiliate links and non-affiliate links to products and websites.

There are so many eco-friendly items that you can use in your every day life to reuse things and use less plastic! We have swapped out a few items that we think are really doable! We have even managed to use these while traveling all over the world. They are not physically big and are easy to use no matter where you are or what kind of lifestyle you have.

1. Reusable Grocery Bag

This is something that you probably already have in your house! It is so easy to swap out those plastic grocery bags for a reusable one. Almost every grocery store now sells a reusable bag that you can buy in the checkout aisle. We love this Baggu one because it packs up so small making it perfect for travel! It packs into a little pouch that is the size of my hand. It’s so easy to tuck into my backpack when we’re packing for a trip. Then when we go out for the day it’s easy to toss in our daypack in case we need it. We actually found that many grocery stores all over the world, and especially in Europe, don’t always offer plastic bags. Keeping this one with us means we never have to worry about having one.

This one is really strong! We have packed quite a lot of stuff in it and it’s held up really well after a lot of uses and a lot of walking back from grocery stores!
Of course you can use a reusable bag for things besides grocery shopping too! We’ve used it to bring clothes to the laundromat, to pack snacks for a road trip, to hold wet clothes we don’t want to put inside our backpacks, or just as another bag to toss random things while we’re packing!

2. Water Bottle

I’m pretty sure you all already have a water bottle but this is probably the easiest eco-friendly item you can use! They are sold literally everywhere in every size, shape and color you could want. We can’t tell you how many beaches we have visited all around the world where you see single use plastic water bottles all over the sand and in the water and its terrible.

I like this sport water bottle because it’s really easy to drink from when you’re walking or driving. Dave likes this Nalgene bottle because he drinks a lot of water during the day. Neither of them are anything fancy or super expensive. But they are so much better than constantly buying plastic water bottles!

We found a lot of airports that have water fill up stations. Having a water bottle means you can fill up your water bottle for free!

In South America and Asia we used this UV water purifier to filter water so we could drink the tap water. Having a reusable water bottle meant we could purify it and then drink it straight from our bottle.
There are actually some places in the world now where plastic bottles are not allowed which is great! On the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu in Peru plastic water bottles are not permitted so we were so glad to have our reusable bottles while hiking!

3. Shampoo Bar

This was a new item for us when we left to travel. It’s basically shampoo but in solid form instead of liquid in a plastic bottle. We buy ours from Lush and love that it’s made from all natural ingredients! We like the Lush Jumping Juniper shampoo bar which smells like jasmine but there are so many to choose from as far as scents and hair type.

Our shampoo bar comes with no plastic packaging and therefore no waste! We carry it in a reusable tin that we reuse every time we buy a new bar! That way we never buy and throw away plastic shampoo bottles!
This reusable container fits the shampoo bar perfectly. If you ever stop using the shampoo bar you could use the container to hold other toiletries or anything else small!

A shampoo bar is great if you’re traveling with carry on bags like we do. As a solid bar it doesn’t count as a liquid which means less things to try to fit in your carry on liquids container.

Travel Truth: If you’re thinking “how in the world does a shampoo bar work” don’t worry- we felt the same way before we used it! In the shower take the shampoo bar and get it wet. Rub it together in your hands with water the same way you would with a bar of soap. It’s really important to get it wet so it gets soapy otherwise it won’t really work. Once it’s lathered up simply put it in your hair like you would liquid shampoo! A little really goes a long way too so you don’t need to overdo it. One bar has lasted us about 3 months while traveling.

4. Reusable Silicon Food Bag

We are the first ones to admit that plastic zip loc bags are really helpful while traveling. They are so small and can be used for so many different things. We would be lying if we said we don’t ever use them especially while on the road. But they are something we are really trying to cut back on! When we do use them we try to buy freezer bags which are thicker and more durable that way we can get multiple uses out of them.

However, we recently added this reusable silicone food bag to our packing list! It’s basically a silicone version of a plastic bag. Simply wash it out and use it again and again! It’s actually microwave safe as well as dishwasher safe which makes it really convenient (although we very rarely have either of those things while traveling).

There are a variety of sizes (and colors) to choose from depending on what you need. It also has over 7,000 Amazon reviews so it’s a good one!

We’ve used this to pack sandwiches for the day, to hold candy (most importantly Snickers bars), or to pack other snacks that we want to be airtight to fend off against bugs. Seriously ants and bugs in Asia are everywhere so you want something to seal your snacks from all the critters! So far we have never had a single bug get inside this bag while it is sealed and if you have ever traveled around Asia you know that is an impressive feat!

It can obviously be used for more than just food! You can store your phone and passport or anything else you want to stay dry and contained.

5. Spoon / Fork / Reusable Straw

This is something that we didn’t start our trip with but we quickly added because we saw how helpful it is. After traveling for about a month we bought a spoon and literally felt like we hit the jackpot. Having our own spoon meant we never needed to use plastic throw away spoons or forks. I can’t tell you how many times we used our spoon to eat breakfast on a train in Europe. We will never travel without one again!

If you’re staying in hostels having your own fork and/or spoon can come in really handy if the hostel either doesn’t have any to use or you don’t want to use the ones provided.

A reusable straw is maybe not 100% a necessity depending on your drinking habits but if you like using a straw then it’s really small to toss in your bag! There are lots of different types of straws to choose from such as metal, bamboo or silicon depending on your preference.

We have a pack of metal reusable straws like these that are so good! They are seriously perfect for drinking iced coffee and the little brush makes them so easy to clean.
Every restaurant we went to on Siargao Island in the Philippines gave you a reusable straw to use which we loved! It was so good to see a small island being so eco-friendly!

6. Reusable Toiletry Containers

Here is a bonus 6th item! Using reusable toiletry containers can also help reduce the amount of plastic bottles that you buy and/or throw away. Simply put a small amount of product in a reusable container like this one for your trip and you’re ready to go! We each used one of these and never had a leak in a year of travel so that’s pretty leak proof!

Obviously you have to buy the actual product (whether it’s shampoo, conditioner, etc.) from some kind of container. But buying a reusable silicon container like this still reduces the amount of plastic that you are using compared to using those small plastic bottles sold in many travel aisles.

We hope this gives you a few ideas of eco-friendly items that you can use even when you’re traveling and packing light! Let us know in the comments if you have any other items that you’ve swapped out for eco-friendly alternatives!