Notes From a Neuro Nerd: The Science Behind Living Your Best Life
Welcome to Notes from a Neuro Nerd, where brain science meets practical tools for living with purpose, clarity, and joy. Join Monica—a certified life-purpose coach and neuroscience enthusiast—and her partner, Austin, as they explore the mindset shifts, habits, and tools that can help you build a fulfilling life.
Tune in to uncover the ‘why’ behind your thoughts and behaviors and get actionable, science-backed strategies to boost your well-being. If you're ready to design your best life, you’re in the right place!
Notes From a Neuro Nerd: The Science Behind Living Your Best Life
92. Sustainable Travel as a Digital Nomad | Myrthe Van Brempt
What exactly is sustainable travel? How can we, as digital nomads, be more intentional about taking care of our planet?
In this episode, we're inviting our friend and traveling wildlife biologist Myrthe to talk about sustainable travel! You'll learn about your environmental impact on the planet as a constant traveler and how you can reduce your carbon footprint and negative impact. The best part? She debunks the myth that travel inevitably means a heavy carbon footprint.
The food on your plate, the destinations you choose, the modes of transport you take – all of it sends ripples through the environment. In this episode, we explore how individual decisions can contribute to a healthier planet.
Links mentioned in the episode:
https://sustainabletravel.org/
Calculate your carbon footprint: https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/carbon-footprint-calculator/
Follow Myrthe on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wild.myrthe/
Join Myrthe's Be Wild & Reconnect Community
Join us for an adventure meets self-love retreat in Cartagena, Colombia! Happening Feb 2nd - 6th, 2025. Sign up here to join us!
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Get access to my Trust Your Gut Decision Making Guide.
Visit me at my home on the web for more resources.
Hello and welcome to the Profitable Nomad Couple podcast. This is a show where we share all of our secrets about building a sustainable, location-independent lifestyle.
Speaker 2:We're Austin and Monica. We're a digital nomad couple here to help you develop an entrepreneurial mindset, ignite your passions and develop a purpose-driven online business.
Speaker 1:Get ready for weekly insights and inspiring stories to empower you to live life on your own terms.
Speaker 2:So are you ready to unlock the nomad mindset and embrace a life of limitless possibilities? Let's dive in.
Speaker 1:All right, you guys, welcome back to another episode of the Profitable Nomad Couple podcast. You guys, today I am so excited because we are introducing you to our friend Mirtha. Mirtha, thank you so much for being on the podcast with us today. Yeah, thank you for having me.
Speaker 3:I'm super excited.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you have a really fascinating background and I'm not even going to try to like explain what you do, I'm just going to send it back to you. But you introduce yourself to us, explain a little bit about what you do and where you're at in life.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, so my name is Mirta and I'm from Belgium. I am a traveling wildlife biologist, so I did my studies in biology and I graduated as a climate change ecologist, and after that I've actually just been slow, traveling around and working four to six months contracts as a biologist while traveling around. Yeah, that's where I'm at right now.
Speaker 1:I love that A traveling wildlife biologist. It is so fun to talk to somebody who traditionally, like when you think of a biologist, you think of a very like location dependent job. But you have been able to merge your love of biology with your love of travel and create this beautiful life for yourself yeah, I'm really happy with that.
Speaker 3:I've been really enjoying my life the last few years, so I'm hoping to continue that yeah, I love that so inspirational.
Speaker 1:I know there's a lot of people who are listening, who are interested like instantly, just like fascinated with how you like set up your life and things like that. But today we really want to talk to you about an issue that kind of has been weighing on our hearts and minds but also on a lot of digital nomads the hearts and minds and that is how we can travel more responsibly when it comes to taking care of the earth. And so you mentioned today that you really want to talk to us about carbon footprints, and so I am just even curious what the heck is a carbon footprint?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a great question. Well, I guess everybody has heard about carbon footprint. It's basically everything we are like when we are living our lives, everything we do, like the food we eat, um, how we warm our house, or like how to go, how we go to work everything is like creating, uh, like releasing co2 emissions in the air, and this is warming the climate, basically. So our carbon footprint is a way to measure how we are having an impact on the earth.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can go very deeply into this, but I guess this is the most easy way to explain it yeah, I appreciate that explanation because I feel like a lot of times we hear that tossed around and there might be people listening who maybe, like have heard it before, don't know exactly what it is we're talking about. So I think it's nice to be starting off on the same foot and all kind of make an understanding of what we're going to be discussing here. So, when we're talking about sustainability and our carbon footprints as travelers, what's your take on your carbon footprint as a traveler versus someone who's just living in one area their whole life? Like how is that different?
Speaker 3:yeah, I find that very interesting because to me it's very similar. Because if you're living in like your whole life in the same place, you're also having a carbon footprint, same as if you're traveling like you cannot. You cannot live your life without having a carbon footprint. Everybody has to live, everybody has to eat food, so anything you do, you will have an impact on this planet. Um, so to me it's. It's like a lot of people are like oh, you travel a lot, so you're not thinking about the climate. But I'm like no, that's not true. Like I can totally think about the climate and how I'm impacting the planet while I'm traveling. I can even do more or live more responsibly than somebody who doesn't care at all and lives his whole life in the same place. They can have a bigger carbon footprint than me. So I think it's a very interesting thing to think about.
Speaker 1:Even yeah, okay, I love what you just said because I have talked to a lot of people, not a lot. I've talked to a handful of people who have actually given up their love of travel and this digital nomad dream because they just feel so guilty about the impact that they have on the planet and so they're like I better, I just not travel at all. And I love what you just told us here that as long as we know what we're doing and as long as we're conscientious about what we are actually doing to the planet, you can still travel and and really reduce your impact on the planet and just also how like permission giving that was to just understand that as humans there is always going to be an impact. But if we know, if we are informed, then we know how we can, like, reduce it as much as possible and we can bring a lot of good into the world instead of just taking, taking, taking yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Mirtha, I would love to talk to you about, like, why is this something that is like, why do we need to be having a conversation about this type of thing, why is it important and why is this something that we should be caring about?
Speaker 3:Well, I think it's important to talk about carbon footprint because it's such a normal thing like we all have a carbon footprint and I feel like a lot of people never really think about it. I think it's important to think about it and to know, like when you're living your life, how everything is like coming together and like interconnection with everything. Yeah, I feel like traveling is also part of that. A lot of people like to travel and, um, people will always travel, and travel is also part of like economy or like development of like some regions or there are a lot of maybe small communities that are really dependent on travelers. So if we all stop, then those people have like no livelihoods. So, like, travel is a big thing of life and I feel like it's important to think about carbon footprint in travel as well.
Speaker 1:So when we are talking about carbon footprint first of all, is there a way to even know, like what our carbon footprint is, or, like what are we doing that's contributing to it, or there are things that we can do to like? Is there an even way to like know what our base level carbon footprint is?
Speaker 3:I guess is my question yeah, yeah, there are like carbon footprint calculators. There are many of them online, so you can basically just google one, find one, and then they will, like you, put some information in it. For example, like there are many of them you can use to like calculate how much your carbon footprint is of one flight. So, for example, if you're flying from new york to washington, you can just put in that flight and it will calculate the footprint just for that one flight. And then, um, you can do that with a lot of things, like you can enter what kind of food you eat or how big your house is or whatever. Like it's kind of a baseline thing where you can start from knowing, like, do I have a big carbon footprint or a low one? Or just to make you aware of things you can do to make it smaller. So there are many calculators like that.
Speaker 2:That's cool. I didn't know about those, never used one. Maybe I should go check one out yeah, it's pretty cool often.
Speaker 3:Often they're actually used like for carbon offsets. I don't know if you've heard about that term before. It's like I I guess it's used a lot when, like, for example, companies or maybe businesses are having a negative impact on the world or having a high carbon footprint, they can buy carbon offsets, which is basically, if you are putting CO2 emissions into the air by an activity, you can buy these offsets and basically give it back to nature, restoration or community development or like good things in the world, and so those carbon footprint calculators are often used to calculate how much emissions you have put into the world from an activity and then give exact, exact amount back into those like green projects, basically okay or sustainable projects is.
Speaker 2:Is that something that, like, depending on the company you're buying something from, like you can choose to like toggle that on when you purchase? Or is that like a separate company you go to to buy those offsets like? How does that work?
Speaker 3:uh, often it's a separate company, but some companies have it like included and you can just like click on which one you want, but it's I think it's not very broadly used yet. Like often it's very hard to find. A lot of people don't know about it. It's very vague thing. You really don't know where to find one. Which are the good ones, because they're also like almost fake ones. You know they just want people to buy carbon offsets and then they just keep the money and they don't give it to like real sustainable projects and your money is basically like wasted. It's not like going to the charity you want it to go to. So it's a very, very vague thing. You need to know where to look for, where to go and how, how it's like a real good project as well so it's kind of complicated.
Speaker 2:The one I always think of is Uber. I know whenever you get on an Uber there's always an option. I haven't looked at the details, but there's always one option that has a little green leaf and it talks about it being more eco-friendly. I don't know what their program is to give back to that.
Speaker 1:I've noticed flights have that now too like you can look. It tells you what the co2 emission is for every flight and you can pick which flight you're on based on the admissions as well do you have any recommendations of like specific companies that you enjoy or you would go to in order to like?
Speaker 2:if you did want to go purchase more of those carbon offsets like, where would you go?
Speaker 3:well, I really like this website. It's called sustainable travelorg. You can find a lot of information on it, and they also explain a lot of things about slow travel and about like the carbon footprint or like ways to travel more sustainably or reduce your carbon footprint, and they have like a whole list of like tips to know which organizations are good, and also for buying carbon offsets. If you want to like reduce your carbon footprint by buying carbon offsets, then you can choose organizations that are certified by this website, so I would recommend that one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll definitely make sure we link that down below for anyone who's interested. I'm excited to like dig into that a little bit more too, but I also just want to know, like how? So okay, now that we know that it like all of us have a carbon footprint and we now have a way to figure out what our carbon footprint is, how do we know, like, how to reduce it? What are some tips you can give us, especially for, like, travelers, but really just anybody listening how can we reduce our carbon footprint?
Speaker 3:yeah, I guess the first thing would be like try to avoid flying with planes as much as you can. It's a very like I know it's hard sometimes if you want to go too far place, you kind of have to take a plane. But if you can and if you're going to like places that are pretty short distances, just don't fly. There are many other ways you can get there. Um, because planes or like plane emissions are like the biggest contribution to like the carbon footprint of tourism, like it's really bad. So flying as as less as possible is like a really good thing. If you want to like do slow travel or like sustainable travel. If, if you have to fly, it's also better to like choose direct flights instead of flights that have a layover Direct flights. Choose direct flights instead of flights that have a layover. Um, direct flights flights have a lower carbon footprint than layover flights.
Speaker 1:Is that just because there are less flights involved?
Speaker 3:yeah, it's because the the carbon emissions from a plane are like more emissions are released for the takeoff and the landing, not from just being in the air. So the more you land and take off, the more emissions you put in there interesting yeah, so direct flights are always like the better option than you have lots of layovers well, that's nice, because I feel like a lot of people don't like taking layovers.
Speaker 2:Anyway, if you can find a direct flight, I feel like people are going to take that one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now you can do it guilt-free. You don't have to pay the extra money for a direct flight. Now you know that you are actually making the world a better place when you do that.
Speaker 3:That's true.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, and I feel like there's really something to say for the kind of travel you do when you're not in an airplane, like we've been traveling by bus a lot lately and it's it's really and it's a lot more relaxing, I feel. Do you feel that way? Like I feel like the hustle of going through security and like running to your gate and making sure everything's on time and then eating crappy airport food? I don't know, just something about being on a bus just feels so much nicer yeah, well, I mean, we traveled from here in peru.
Speaker 2:We traveled from trujillo down to lima by bus and it was on the bus and just sleep, watch movies, just chill, like it was a little bit more relaxing because there wasn't the I feel like sometimes there's anxiety around being in airports, like you said, a lot of hustle and bustle. So yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's true, it's the same for traveling by trains. Actually, I love traveling by trains it's so relaxing like you can go anywhere and you just take a book or listen to podcasts or, like you do, whatever.
Speaker 1:It's amazing we just need more train systems here in the west yeah, yeah, I guess it's harder over there yeah, honestly, I did hear that they're working on it, like they're working on restoring the railroad systems in the states, for example. So I'm hopeful, I'm really hopeful that'd be so nice, that's really cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's really funny because I, coming from europe, I take trains like a lot everywhere, like daily almost, and then when I was living in canada I was like, oh no, distances are so far, because I was actually planning to go everywhere by bike, because I used to go and then I came to canada and I bought a 50 bike, thinking I could go anywhere, and then I was like oh, that's not gonna work, things are so far over here yeah and then I was like what are all ways to go to places?
Speaker 3:and then I found this train and I took it. And then like people would ask me like oh, how did you come here? You know which flight did you take? And I'm like I came by train and people were like what do we even have trains here? Can you go by train? Like no Canadian had ever taken that train and I had taken that train. I was like wow, really don't ever think about taking a train.
Speaker 2:It's, yeah, really funny yeah, it's kind of the same thing in the states. There are some trains like there's a really popular one called amtrak that you can take. Um, there's a really extensive bus system called greyhound that you can take, but most people don't know about it because almost everyone has their own car at least one, sometimes like two or three. So most people don't take trains and I have no idea that there are those options out there yeah, it's crazy, I think it's crazy.
Speaker 3:Everybody has a car. Yeah, yeah, like I've never owned a car in my life, I've been going around everywhere without a car they're it's. They're convenient, but they're also money suckers I was gonna say like did you know, traveling one person in a car is as bad as taking a flight.
Speaker 1:Really For traveling? Yes, I would not have guessed that much.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's almost the same carbon footprint of like taking a flight or like going on the long like road trip just by yourself, like one person in a car. It's like the same.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so is there like a number that offsets it, like if you have two people as an offset, or do you have to have like three or more?
Speaker 3:Well the more people the better of course, but I guess the rule of thumb four would maybe be like best. Well, I mean, if you can fit more people in your car, that's even better. But yeah, like carpooling is a really big one. Like to reduce your carbon footprint. If you can not take your car by yourself, then just don't do it. Like, if you know other people are going the same direction, ask if you can ride with them. Or like carpool or take a bus. It's like so much like more sustainable than just traveling in your own car yeah, that's, that's really fascinating.
Speaker 2:I would never have guessed that it was that those two things would be comparable, honestly driving in one car and one airplane flight and as travelers, and our experience, um, I mean, we only use our car when we are in the states and we do need to like the like you said. The distances are really big and so we need a car to get around. But when we're not in the States, when we're traveling basically anywhere else, we're either taking a flight to get there or, when we're there, we're either walking a ton we do a lot of walking or occasionally we'll take an Uber. A lot of times we'll take, like the public transportation, like on a bus, um, so just, I feel like knowing that can be really comforting, knowing that basically when, like when you take a bus, you're carpooling with 100 other people, right, and more more yeah, maybe a bus that should only have 100 people, but you got 300 in there.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah and yeah you are.
Speaker 3:It's like mass carpooling and I feel like that knowing that can make you feel a lot better about like not driving your own car and contributing in that way to reducing your carbon footprint yeah, exactly because if you think about it, if you like drive alone in your car vs you're like carpooling in a bus, like carpooling in bus is the same as like being in a flight with 100 people, you know like it's kind of the same thing. So if you're in your car alone, you're like putting a lot of emissions in the air, just that way it's crazy yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:So so far we've got like take planes as little as possible, let's do more trains, let's do more buses, let's do more like boats, maybe I don't know other modes of transportation. And then also, once you are in a place, don't drive by yourself, like let's look at carpool options, let's look at walking, let's look at public transportation, those kind of things. What else can we do to to help reduce our carbon footprint?
Speaker 3:well, another thing would be pack light, for example. Like your carbon footprint, like when you're taking the plane, is calculated in like how much your weight is basically. So if you have a very big suitcase, it weighs a lot. Your carbon footprint will be higher than if you're traveling with a light suitcase. So in that way you can also reduce your carbon footprint, just traveling very lightly, or like for example, leave heavy equipment at home and rent it when you're in the place you are and yeah, that's also something very small you can do.
Speaker 2:There's one I'm really curious about. When you were talking about the carbon footprint calculator, you mentioned that you can enter in the food that you eat and that changes the number. So what does the food that we eat have to do with the carbon footprint that we leave?
Speaker 3:eating vegetarian is better for a planet, so we don't need a lot of meat just to be healthy. As a person like meat shouldn't be like the main thing of our diet. When you're producing meat, like all the land that's used to feed cow or chickens or whatever the biggest thing like it takes a lot of land to produce meat, it takes a lot of water and like crops, and then meat is a very big contribution to our carbon footprint. Like meat consumption is one of the biggest contributions to climate change in general. Meat and dairy, for example. They have around 40 and a half global greenhouse gas emissions, which is a lot. Meat alone is up to 20 or 50 percent of all human-made greenhouse gas from livestock farming.
Speaker 3:It's really crazy how big of an impact like our food has, and not only meat. Like, if you want to, if you eat a lot of foods that are imported from countries that are very, very far, your carbon footprint is again higher than if you eat local foods. So, all those things you can carbon footprint, try to eat as much local foods as you can and try to eat less meat. Like a very high carbon footprint, especially cow meat, or like red meats. So if you still want to eat meat. Just try to eat less of those and maybe eat a little bit more of chicken. It can already change like your impact on the planet a lot so.
Speaker 2:So how much of a difference, like if we decide to cut back on how much meat we're eating, like what type of changes that have, like number wise, do you know, on the environment or the greenhouse gases?
Speaker 3:yeah, like if you, if you want to reduce your carbon footprint, just eating less meat in general, or like eating more plant-based, can cut your carbon footprint with one quarter. So if you want to make an impact and you don't know where to start, you can just start and change your diet. There you go. You're already making a difference.
Speaker 1:And that's so easy. That's such an easy thing, exactly.
Speaker 3:If all people in the world would eat less meat, you don't have to become a strict vegetarian. If everybody would just eat less meat, the world would already like be so much better place I feel like that's a healthier choice anyway, um yeah, I mean especially red meats, but monica and I like whenever we go through phases where we eat a lot less meat.
Speaker 2:We've never been on a strict vegetarian diet, but we do go through phases where we'll eat more meat and other times we eat less meat and we always felt better when we're eating less always so I feel like, not just for the environment, but also just for your bodies, I feel like that's a healthier choice anyway, yeah, this is very much a healthier choice another win-win yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1:It seems like the more that we take care of the planet, the more that we end up taking care of ourselves. Like the more that we take care of the planet, the more that we end up taking care of ourselves, the more less meat we eat. We're taking care of the planet, but also it's better for our health the more we walk instead of drive. That's way better for our health and way better for the planet as well. So it kind of goes back to what you were saying, where everything is connected. The more we look at taking care of the planet, the more we take care of ourselves, the more we we look at taking care of the planet, the more we take care of ourselves, the more we take care of ourselves, the more we take care of the planet, and it's just. We become this beautiful ecosystem where everything thrives together yeah, it's true.
Speaker 3:It's like we are, like we're part of the planet, we are nature, we're not apart from it. So it kind of makes sense when you're taking care of nature, taking care of yourself and the other way around yeah, so so I.
Speaker 2:So I wanted to ask you I don't know, I don't know if this will be a hard question or not, but when you, when you talk about you know mass production of of meat, when you talk about all the flights that are contributing to the CO2 emissions, and you think I'm only one person, like, what can, what can my choices really do? You know, if I choose not to take a flight, that flight's gonna be flying anyway. If I choose not to eat meat, they're gonna be slaughtering those cows and feeding those cows anyway. So, like for me and for anyone else who's thinking like I'm one person, what difference can I make? What advice would you have for that person?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's very funny because I think everybody's having that thought at some point. Like, because I think everybody's having that thought at some point I've had that myself a lot Like what does it even matter? Like the flight's going to fly anyways, exactly Things like that. I think it's important to think about how many people we are on this planet, and if everybody would just think the same way, we're never going to get anywhere. Like it's with everything like that, every innovation, every new technology, if nobody would do something or if nobody would vote, then no, no changes would happen.
Speaker 3:So if you just think about the power of numbers, like if everybody would just, for example, if everybody would eat less meat in their diet, this could be a huge change in the world we are with a lot of people like yeah it's crazy it's kind of this compounding effect, like the more that you educate yourself, the more that you know what kind of difference you can make and start making those small changes, the more you invite other people around you to do the same thing, and then they invite the people around them, and they invite the people around them, and it really can kind of be this like ripple compounding effect and then we would see some really really big, cool changes yeah, and I think for me the most important thing in that way was that I started to do it not for others, but kind of for myself, like I was, like I want to be somebody who like thinks about my carbon footprint and how I live on this planet and how I impact this planet and if, if I want to eat less meat and I want to think about sustainable travel and I want to do those things for myself, not for others, in that way, like of course, for others, because I want to, you know, help the planet and that everybody has like sustainable future and everything.
Speaker 3:So it's kind of also for others. But in the first place I did it for myself and that helped me. And then you're more powerful as well, because people see you doing stuff and then they would ask you like, why are you eating more vegetarian, or why are you traveling this way, or why are you doing this? And then you just explain I'm doing this because of this or because of that, and then the more you explain things, people would be like, oh, that's kind of cool, you do it for that, and then maybe they will think about their actions as well, and that's like spreading the word or like that's the power of numbers.
Speaker 1:Again, that's how you like get things out there do you have any final tips for somebody who's like, yeah, I just like really am anxious about either learning more or like really starting to implement these things and I really just want to make a difference. Do you have any like final tips you would give?
Speaker 3:I would say keep like researching a bit like what's sustainable travel? How can I contribute to it? Like how can I see if like organizations are true or things are like cause? There's a lot of false information out there on the internet, you know. So do your research, see what other people do and see what you like and do the things you find good to you and feel good to you, and then, if you'll feel natural to you, you will inspire others as well and maybe you will good to you and feel good to you and then, if you'll feel natural to you, you will inspire others as well, and maybe you will. When you start with one thing, you will find other things that work for you and you can just keep going like that yeah, I think that's great, so we're gonna leave the link that you mentioned.
Speaker 2:It was sustainable travelorg yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1:I have some other ones I wanted to share as well, so I can, yeah, send the links and we'll make sure that it's all linked below so those resources are readily available for people. Um, and I just want to take a second and just like thank you for all the work that you're doing and just I know you have a huge heart for this and and I love that you are inspiring people to just like get outside more and to just appreciate the world we're in, and I think the more that we spend time in this beautiful world, the more that we're going to appreciate it and want to take care of it a little bit better. So I just want to thank you so much for what you are doing in this space. And then I wanted to give you a chance to like. I know so many people here are gonna be like man. I just want more of mirtha in my life, because that's definitely how I feel. So how can people connect with you?
Speaker 3:um, yeah, I would say through my instagram um, which is wild about mirtha, and then I also have an email, wildmirtha at gmailcom, that people could send me questions if they want to.
Speaker 2:Perfect. Yeah, we'll make that available for people. I hope people do reach out and continue this conversation with you and I think what you were saying earlier is really powerful, Like having these conversations and sharing with others what you do and why can start a domino effect and it's just going to spread. It's like a little a ripple effect that's going to reach out to even more people.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly I hope. I hope people will start thinking about these things and maybe make a little change in their life. They can. They can start very small. All small fits help. So Awesome.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you so much, Mirtha, for being on here with us. Thank you for this conversation, for this topic, that doing the travel everybody does but you're trying a different avenue.
Speaker 3:It can be very interesting and very fun. So think about it and travel and have fun.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much for joining us here on the Profitable Nomad Couple podcast. We appreciate you listening to us today.
Speaker 1:If you enjoyed this episode, share it on Instagram and be sure to tag us. At Austin and Monica, together, we can inspire others to embrace a location independent lifestyle.
Speaker 2:And while you're there, we'd love to connect with you, so make sure you follow us for more tips and inspiration on living your dream location independent lifestyle.
Speaker 1:Until next week, remember that you have the power to shape your own path. So stay curious, stay adventurous and stay connected.
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