Most advice about sustainable travel is either guilt or vagueness. This is neither. Below are the actual numbers, which choices move them, and which popular gestures do almost nothing.
Figures are grams of CO₂ equivalent per passenger-kilometre, from DEFRA/BEIS 2023 conversion factors and IPCC AR6 ranges. They are averages — occupancy and route change the real number — but the ordering is stable and that is what matters for decisions.
| Mode | gCO₂e per passenger-km |
|---|---|
| Walking, cycling | 0 |
| E-scooter | ~22 |
| Long-distance coach | ~27 |
| Electric train | ~35 |
| EV car | ~47 |
| Car with three sharing | ~57 |
| Diesel train | ~60 |
| City bus | ~80 |
| Auto-rickshaw | ~110 |
| Petrol car, driving alone | ~170 |
| Long-haul flight | ~195 |
| Domestic flight | ~250 |
Delhi to Jaipur is about 280 km. By domestic flight that is roughly 70 kg of CO₂e. By electric train it is about 10 kg. Same journey, same day, one seventh of the emissions — and on that particular route the train is often faster door to door once airport time is counted.
This is the pattern almost everywhere in India. The single highest-impact decision on most trips is whether you fly a route that has a decent train. Nothing else you do on the trip comes close. Not your towel choice, not your water bottle, not your accommodation.
Some routes have no realistic alternative — Delhi to Port Blair, mainland to the far Northeast on a short trip. Flying is not a moral failure. Knowing which of your flights were avoidable is the useful part.
Charging infrastructure has improved sharply on major highway corridors and remains thin in hill regions. An EV road trip on the Delhi–Jaipur–Agra triangle is straightforward. An EV road trip to Spiti still requires planning around specific charge points and accepting some risk.
Electric two-wheelers are the quiet success story — for city travel they are cheap, widely rentable, and at roughly 22 g/km they are close to the cleanest motorised option available.
Choosing a train over a flight avoids emissions that would otherwise have happened. It does not remove carbon already in the atmosphere. Both matter, but only one is honest to claim — which is why RoamWise reports avoided emissions and says so explicitly.
Do not aim for a zero-carbon holiday; it does not exist. Aim to know your biggest emission on each trip and to replace one of them. On a typical Indian itinerary that is a single domestic flight becoming a train, and it is often the more interesting journey.