Traveling Long-Distance with Bad Conscience? Discrepancies Between Everyday and Long-Distance Travel of Urbanites

The currently growing awareness about the climate change is in conflict with one’s own behavior
resulting from global trends such as the globalization and new lifestyles, that involve an increase
of long-distance travel. Whereas people living in urban areas tend to travel short distances with
environmentally friendly means of transport in everyday life, studies indicate a higher amount of
long-distance travel of urbanites. The question arises whether behavior and norms in everyday life
affects long-distance travel behavior. By using data from surveys in Hamburg and Berlin
(Germany), we analyze the long-distance travel behavior of urban people in a comprehensive
context including everyday travel, attitudes and norms, sociodemographic as well as spatial
characteristics as a proxy for urbanity. Of particular relevance is, whether there are discrepancies
or similarities between the behavior in everyday life and the long-distance travel behavior. The
results indicate, that people who live in highly urban areas are most likely to travel more than 3,000
km, which involves primarily air travel. This effect is reduced only by the ecological norm of the
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individuals. People who pay attention to sustainable means of transport in their daily lives are less
likely to be long-haul travelers. We see, however, that the effect of living in dense urban areas
overcompensates the effect of the ecological norm. Shifting leisure activities to everyday life also
reduces the probability of traveling to distant places. This indicates an offset between the everyday
and the long-distance travel behavior of individuals.