Technologies

Zero Waste Travel: The Ultimate Plastic-Free Packing List

How to pack smarter and lighter when traveling the planet.

Travel comes at a cost and it isn’t just fiscal. Every flight leaves a footprint — a carbon footprint. Many people are aware of the carbon footprint created by air travel but you might not be aware of another travel consequence: plastic use and waste. Every year, millions of single-use travel-sized bottles, disposable utensils, plastic-wrapped snacks and shrink-wrapped souvenirs end up in landfills or oceans.

There’s no exact figure detailing plastic use during travel but travelers contribute significantly to plastic consumption, especially through bottled water and other single-use items. According to Adventure.com, 139 million metric tons of single-use plastic were produced in 2021, an increase of 6 million metric tons, or almost 5%, from 2019. The widespread use of disposable products, particularly plastic bottles, plays a major role in the amount of waste created during travel.

For sustainability-minded travelers, one of the easiest and most impactful changes starts before the trip even begins and that’s during the packing process.

Traveling with zero waste, whether by airplane or on a road trip, requires forethought and planning but it’s possible to significantly reduce your environmental impact. This guide breaks down practical, low-waste strategies to help minimize plastic use without sacrificing convenience while exploring the world and knocking out your bucket list.

For more travel tips, learn about the best way to pack a carry-on and the best time to book flights for the cheapest tickets.

BYO containers

Traveling with your own food and drink essentials is a simple yet impactful way to reduce waste while staying prepared. A collapsible, BPA-free water bottle from brands like HydraPak or Que Bottle offers a space-saving solution for staying hydrated without relying on single-use plastic. Bringing a compact travel utensil kit made from bamboo or stainless steel means you’ll always have cutlery on hand, making it easy to skip disposable forks and knives when dining on the move.

For snacks and leftovers, reusable silicone bags or beeswax wraps provide a washable, eco-friendly alternative to plastic baggies. And whether you’re grabbing coffee from a café or brewing tea in your hotel room, a compact travel mug or tumbler lets you enjoy your beverage without the waste that typically comes with takeout cups.

You might read these suggestions and think it’s just too inconvenient to be worth it. I totally get it — it’s so easy to justify grabbing a plastic bottle or cutlery at the airport when you’re tired, rushing or just forgot to pack your reusable items. But if you travel often, those little decisions really add up. A collapsible or lightweight bottle or small dinnerware set that lives in your luggage can make it way easier to stick with the habit.

Go solid, not single-use

When packing toiletries, choosing solid alternatives over single-use plastics can make a meaningful difference. Instead of relying on travel-sized bottles, consider shampoo and conditioner bars from eco-conscious brands like Ethique or HiBAR. These compact, spill-proof bars eliminate the need for liquid soap and come free of plastic packaging. If you need to bring liquids, choose refillable silicone travel bottles that can be used again and again.

For oral care, toothpaste from companies like Bite and Hello offer a fresh, TSA-compliant option that comes in recyclable or compostable containers. For dental floss, seek out compostable options like those from Dental Lace, which are packaged in refillable glass containers designed with function and the environment in mind.

Shaving also can be made more sustainable by switching to a stainless steel safety razor or a refillable razor system, reducing waste and long-term costs.

Conserve water and reduce plastic by packing smarter

Choosing the right clothing and laundry essentials can significantly reduce your environmental footprint while keeping your travel routine simple and efficient. Fabrics like merino wool and other high-performance materials are naturally odor-resistant and quick-drying, meaning they stay fresh longer and require less frequent washing. This not only lightens your laundry load but also conserves water and minimizes detergent runoff into local ecosystems.

When it’s time to do laundry, skip the bulky plastic detergent bottles and pack lightweight, plastic-free alternatives such as laundry sheets or natural soap nuts, which can be stored in a small reusable pouch.

Instead of relying on disposable hotel laundry bags, bring a reusable cloth bag for your worn clothes. This is an easy swap that keeps single-use plastic out of the waste stream.

Tech and accessories for a lighter footprint

Traveling sustainably extends beyond toiletries and clothing — it includes the tech and accessories we rely on every day. Investing in a durable solar charger or a reliable power bank not only keeps your devices powered but also eliminates the need to purchase low-quality chargers or disposable batteries on the fly.

For your phone, consider switching to a compostable case made from plant-based materials. Brands like Pela offer options that combine protection with environmental responsibility. To keep your cords and cables organized, skip the plastic zip bags and choose cloth organizers made from canvas or felt, which offer a more sustainable solution.

Eco-conscious packing from the inside out

Your choice of luggage and packing gear can make a big impact on traveling more sustainably. Choose suitcases or backpacks crafted from recycled plastics or organic materials, with brands like Paravel and Patagonia leading the way in durable options that prioritize the planet.

To keep your belongings organized, packing cubes made from recycled fabrics offer an efficient, plastic-free way to maximize space in your suitcase. And, instead of a traditional vinyl zip pouch for your toiletries, consider a clear-paneled bag made from washable materials like PEVA or silicone.

These small choices, taken together, help ensure your packing is as thoughtful as the journey itself.

Bonus tip: Offset your carbon footprint

Carbon offsetting is the process of compensating for the CO2 or other greenhouse gas emissions you produce in your daily life like when you drive, fly or use electricity. You can do so by participating in activities that reduce or remove an equivalent amount of emissions, including tree planting, conservation or contributing to other renewable energy projects.

Some airlines offer carbon offset programs or you can use third-party platforms like Cool Effect, Carbonfund.org and MyClimate to offset your travel emissions. If you’re road-tripping, calculate your fuel use and offset accordingly. Look for reputable organizations that are certified Gold Standard, Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) or Climate Action Reserve when researching offset providers.

It’s also best practice to look for hotels or Airbnb hosts that prioritize sustainability. Specifically, reusable toiletry dispensers, energy-efficient appliances and composting or recycling programs are all good signs.

You don’t have to overhaul your packing routine overnight but each plastic-free swap is a small, tangible and impactful step toward traveling more consciously. With just a few simple adjustments, your suitcase can become a tool for sustainability, not just convenience, and your trip can become an eco-friendly tour.

Read more: Can AI Help Me Travel More Sustainably? I Put It to the Test

Technologies

I Used to Tell People Wi-Fi 7 Routers Were a Waste of Money. CNET’s Lab Data Just Proved Me Wrong

Technologies

My Camera Test: Comparing the $499 Pixel 10A With the Galaxy S25 FE, Motorola Edge

The Pixel 10A’s cameras are similar to those on the 9A, but it still performs quite well compared to other phones in its price range.

Google’s $499 Pixel 10A uses nearly the same cameras as last year’s Pixel 9A, but I wanted to see how its photos directly match up to its midrange Android rivals: the $650 Samsung Galaxy S25 FE and the $550 Motorola Edge.

I traveled with all three phones around St. Petersburg, Florida, checking how flexible each was in different environments, from bright outdoor settings to an indoor coffee shop and an evening brewery. All three environments can be challenging for the small image sensors on each phone.

While I find the cameras on all three phones to have different strengths and weaknesses depending on the setting, I’m quite impressed with how the Pixel 10A keeps up. In my tests, the photos include lots of detail, even though certain settings appear to involve a lot of processing to improve them.

Wide and telephoto cameras

Starting with photos taken on the sidewalk in downtown St. Petersburg, I notice that all three phones handle bright sunlight slightly differently, especially how it’s depicted on the street.

For the Pixel 10A, the sun provides a slight exposure mark over the Bay First sign at the top of the frame, but it remains fairly cordoned off to focus on the rest of the streetscape. Zooming in, you can see the Century 21 location, but the street is captured in the most detail, with the phone’s camera maintaining its natural gray color.

For both the Galaxy S25 FE and the Motorola Edge, the sun has a more pronounced effect on the rest of the image. The pavement’s color is notably brighter. I also find both the S25 FE and the Edge have slightly more clarity on the business signs on the Bay First building, including the aforementioned Century 21 logo.

Since the S25 FE and the Edge each include a telephoto camera that supports 3x optical zoom, I took a photo at that zoom with each phone. The Pixel 10A uses digital zoom on the phone’s 48-megapixel wide camera, but a lot of the scene’s detail remains preserved.

The Pixel’s zoom photo provides a clear view of the 7th St N sign, the trees and the plants. However, if you look further back at the next intersection, you’ll notice that the 7th St S sign and the Colony Grill are much harder to see. It’s those smaller details that are captured by the S25 FE and the Edge, both aided by telephoto cameras, making them more visible.

Of the three zoom photo examples, I feel like the S25 FE has the best color reproduction while also retaining details like the signs further back. Even though the photo was taken with the S25 FE’s 8-megapixel telephoto camera rather than its 50-megapixel wide camera, the colors remain complementary when comparing the 1x to the 3x. Meanwhile, the Edge’s 10-megapixel telephoto camera looks quite a bit different from the 50-megapixel wide camera — the whole image has a more yellowish hue.

Ultrawide cameras

Moving inside the Southern Grounds coffee shop, I decided to use the ultrawide cameras to capture my sausage, egg and cheese on toast. The three photos came out wildly different.

The Pixel 10A’s 13-megapixel ultrawide and S25 FE’s 12-megapixel ultrawide have a more balanced set of colors and details, in my opinion. The wheat toast appears lighter in the Pixel’s photo than in the darker hues captured by both the S25 FE and the Edge.

When zooming into my notebook, however, the Pixel and S25 FE captured more of the page markings, details that blur together more in the photo taken by the Edge. While the Edge’s 50-megapixel ultrawide camera is a higher-spec number, I noticed it had a harder time distinguishing toast levels, giving more of it a darker look. If I hadn’t eaten it myself, I’d have thought it was burned based on the Edge’s photo.

Night photography

Moving over to a nighttime setting, I used the three phones to take photos outside of 3 Daughters Brewing. I felt like all three did a decent job at producing the colors of the building, but they differ in how they handle light sources.

Both the Pixel and the S25 FE tone back the glare produced by the various lighting fixtures. Meanwhile, the Edge’s photos show noticeable streaks that dominate the sky. When inspecting the photos more closely, I find that the Galaxy captured a sharper view of the furniture, like in the Connect 4 set next to the blue chairs in the center of the frame. The same details are visible in the Pixel’s and the Edge’s depictions of the scene, but they appear smudgy by comparison.

This type of scene needs to take advantage of a phone’s processing power in order to iron out visibility issues, and I do find that the Edge appears to come up short here in this regard, with a lot of noticeable image noise.

Selfies

Each phone takes selfies with noticeable differences in style and color choices. For this test example, I’m in a well-lit daytime room with natural light from a window. The 12-megapixel front-facing camera on Google’s Pixel 10A brightened up my face as if there was a light in front of me, and captured a decent amount of the details of my hair and face.

The front-facing camera on Samsung’s Galaxy S25 FE shows a noticeably darker color tone, but it still captures a similar shade of orange on the wall behind me. Of the three photos, I felt like the S25 captures the most details, including strands of hair, and defaulted to a closer crop than the other two.

The photos taken by the 50-megapixel selfie camera on the Motorola Edge feel a bit smoothed out. The orange color on the wall is noticeably different from the Pixel and the S25 FE, though it does capture a lot of my face details, from hair strands to the fabric textures on my shirt.

The $499 Pixel 10A camera keeps up and, in some cases, exceeds the detail captured by the slightly more expensive $550 Motorola Edge and $650 Galaxy S25 FE. I’m quite impressed by how the Pixel camera handles colors and low-light environments, but the phone’s processing work sometimes makes scenes appear brighter than they are in real life.

The Galaxy S25 FE is no slouch either, with a third telephoto lens for capturing more detail farther away. While I did find the Motorola Edge to struggle in low light, it is one of the lowest-cost phone options currently available for someone who must have a 3x optical telephoto camera.

But if you can live without the telephoto lens, the Pixel 10A’s low cost and photography abilities will likely be a good fit for most people.

Google’s Pixel 10A Looks Stylish for a Low-Cost Flagship Phone

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Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for March 14 #741

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for March 14, No. 741.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Does today’s date seem memorable to you? If so, today’s NYT Strands puzzle might be easy. Some of the answers are difficult to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: A math teacher’s favorite dessert.

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: 3.14

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

RITE, SPIT, TIPS, STAT, STATE, GIVE, RUST, FINE, LAZE, SURE, PEAL

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

VENT, CRUST, FRUIT, EDGES, GLAZE, FILLING, LATTICE

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is HAPPYPIDAY. To find it, start with the H that’s six rows down and three to the right from the upper-left corner, and make — well, a pie shape.