Sustainability

Our mission

Make flight-free travel mainstream

Our goals

  • Reduce the climate impact of travel

  • Combat over tourism and boost local economies

  • Increase tourist spending with sustainable providers

Our values

  • Making slow travel mainstream is a journey we approach with the optimism and openness needed to learn and grow.

    • We enjoy ourselves, celebrate where we are and we strive to do better

    • We know sustainability is a journey

    • We advocate for collective, not individual, impact

  • We go the extra mile: we cover the first miles flawlessly then go a step further, from super scenic trips to superb customer experiences.

    We do this by:

    • Be five stars, from our trips to our products, we aim for excellence

    • Get every mile right insuring all elements work together brilliantly

    • Own it by taking radical accountability and commit to action

    • Be trusted experts who are transparent and honest

  • We listen to, respect, amplify and support all stakeholders. Our product is for everyone.

    • Byway is for everyone

    • We value and actively hire for diversity and empathy

    • We do not accept discrimination, hate or harassment

    • We respect local contexts and listen to and uplift expert and local insights

    • We bring the industry along with us, collaborate with and support others sharing our mission

Why go flight-free?

Emissions from flying stand to triple by 2050 if demand for air travel continues to grow.

Rail travel accounts for just 14g of CO2 per passenger mile, dwarfed by the 285g generated by air travel (Energy Saving Trust, 2018). You could get the train from London to Edinburgh and back five times and your carbon footprint would still be lower than if you flew there.

2024/25 impact report

Overview of our impact 2024/25

This year marks five years of Byway. Five years of joyful flight-free journeys, venturing off the beaten path, and a shift in the travel landscape towards sustainability and thoughtfulness. Five years in which Byway has helped over 15,000 travellers discover the joy of overland journeys and saved 42 million cups of tea’s worth of carbon (2,220 tonnes) in the process.

Byway focuses on creating technology that makes sustainable travel easier, more joyful and more accessible. We’ve always amplified lesser-known places and this year, the launch of Byway Maps was a great leap forward, helping people explore overland experiences based on the time they have available and combine them into creative and delightful routes online. It’s powered by two million miles of overland expertise and is being developed every day.

I started Byway in my back garden in 2020, posting out tickets printed down the road at South Bermondsey station. Five years on, being part of a mission-focused team of 50 bringing beautiful holidays by land and sea to life through unique tech with real impact is such a privilege. It’s the brilliance of the Byway team combined with the support and feedback from our customers, partners, investors, press, and people across the accelerating flight-free movement that has helped us create the impact we have, and continue to challenge and grow it every day.

Thank you all. Here’s to five more years together!

Cat Jones, founder and CEO

2,611

Flight-free Byway trips run

5,607

Customers

1,243

tonnes of CO2 saved
(that’s 23M cups of tea’s worth!)

 84%

Of accommodation costs went to locally-owned businesses

Byway is a B Corporation

We're committed to using our business and product as a force for good in the world, and as a certified B Corporation we join the likes of Patagonia and over 2,700 other companies across the globe who stand behind their greater purpose.

By supporting us as a B Corp, you are saying ‘yes’ to sustainable travel, socially responsible tourism and supporting local economies, and you’re casting your vote for the kind of travel we need for a cleaner, fairer and more equitable world. Thank you.