Car-free days out: how Good Journey is changing leisure travel

Leisure travel is one of the most overlooked sources of transport emissions, with most UK day trips still made by car. Good Journey is tackling this challenge head-on by working with attractions, destinations and transport providers to make car-free travel not just possible, but appealing and easy

Published: 3 July 2026

The challenge

We travel further for leisure than anything else. On average, each person travels 2,863 leisure miles a year within the UK, according to the DfT’s National Travel Survey.

The leisure and tourism sector is centred around cars. Most attractions and destinations associate more cars with more income, resulting in additional traffic and associated carbon emissions. Around 60% of a typical visitor attraction’s Scope 3 Co2 emissions come from visitor travel.

The costs of car travel – both financial and societal – are largely hidden. In the UK, 25% of people have no access to a car, denying them equal access to leisure, culture and nature.

Car-free travel takes a bit more planning, but is also more rewarding. It opens up places, encounters and adventures that you’d never have when cocooned in your car.

When you leave the car behind, the adventure begins as soon as you step outside your door

Good Journey win the Decarbonising Leisure Travel Award

The award-winning approach

Good Journey works with tourism businesses and organisations like the National Trust, English Heritage and RHS Gardens to boost greener, more inclusive visitor travel. We also partner with destinations including the Peak District, the Cotswolds, Norfolk and Suffolk to help cut congestion for local communities and support regenerative tourism.

The Good Journey website gives car-free travel directions to hundreds of member attractions and places to stay across Britain. These sites offer discounts and freebies to car-free visitors.

The website also offers a journey planner tool, powered by Traveline. And there’s a whole host of car-free itineraries to inspire people to take UK days out and holidays by public transport.

Carbon and transport impact

Since we began working with Blenheim Palace, the number of car-free visitors has increased from 5,000 to 72,000 a year, leading to carbon savings of around 185,000kg Co2e (186t);
The journey planner tool on the Good Journey website was used to plan 467,000 car-free journeys in one year. If just 1 in 10 of those car-free journeys took place, that’s a carbon saving of around 270,000kg Co2e;
RHS Garden Wisley estimates that their shuttle bus potentially saved 16 tons of Co2e in 2023 and 41 tons in 2024;
As part of a project with Visit Peak District & Derbyshire to increase bus usage in the Peak District, the Peak Sightseer bus routes saved around 16,706 kg Co2e, according to Tracsis customer research on behalf of Stagecoach.

Why this stood out

Good Journey is the only national organisation focusing on changing leisure-travel behaviour. We want to make it easy and appealing for people to enjoy car-free days out and holidays, through simple door-to-door journey planning information and rewards for car-free travel.

Small, simple changes – like giving public transport information before driving directions, and rewards for car-free visitors – can get big results.

This is what the judges had to say:

Good Journey's Car-free days out: making the journey part of the adventure is a worthy winner for the Leisure Travel Decarbonising Transport Award. The judges recognised that Good Journey have pretty much invented the arguments that mean that national organisations, whole counties and popular rural attractions realise the benefits and invest in opportunities for people to arrive without a car - and be clear that this leads to a better day out. They have helped to set new standards and write best practice on low carbon rural leisure travel for the UK.

Working with destinations and partners

Attractions: There are hundreds of attractions on goodjourney.org.uk, including around 50 National Trust properties and all five RHS Gardens.

Transport operators: Good Journey has teamed up with a number of train and bus operators – including Go North East, Oxford Bus, GWR and Southeastern Trains – to offer car-free days out, holidays and solutions to the ‘final mile’ from stations to attractions.

Tourism bodies: Partnering with destination organisations to offer discounts and promote car-free travel has been key to delivering change. We’ve also rolled out discounts at attractions and promoted public transport with both the North East and West Midlands Combined Authorities.

To bring these groups together, we hold webinars for visitor attractions and training sessions for staff. We also link visitor attractions with transport providers, such as their local community rail partnership.

Changing behaviour in practice

Practical messaging gives visitors confidence to plan a car-free trip. Good Journey has succeeded in making ‘car-free days out’ a concept, with major destinations like the Lake District and the Cotswolds promoting car-free leisure. Train companies, accommodation providers, visitor attractions, and the media now frequently highlight ‘car-free days out’ and ‘car-free breaks’.

Good Journey has put car-free leisure in the spotlight.

Blenheim Palace have increased car-free visits from 5,000 to 71,000 a year.

The percentage of car free visitors at RHS gardens has risen from 5.8% in 2023 to 7.4% in 2024 at Bridgewater; from 12.9% to 14.3% at Harlow Carr; and from 5.2% to 10.1% at Rosemoor.

A survey of passengers on the Peak Sightseer open-top bus in Derbyshire found that 47% of bus passengers didn’t use their car at all in and around the area due to the bus service, while 37% used their car less.

“Good Journey has been instrumental in promoting sustainable travel and making cultural and natural attractions accessible to everyone.”

Heather Carter, Blenheim Palace

Scaling and replication

Good Journey members, like Blenheim Palace, have shown that better travel information, an attractive discount and positive messaging about green travel can get big results.

The RHS offer a 30% discount on entry to all five of their gardens for car-free visitors. We want other national visitor organisations to follow their lead.

It would be a major win simply to have public transport information listed before car information on attraction, accommodation and destination websites.

The real game-changer, however, would be for government to introduce a requirement for visitor attractions to make provision for car-free visitors and to cut transport emissions year on year.

What happens next?

We’re refreshing our membership scheme so we can offer even more support and benefits to our members. We’re launching a new website this summer to make it even easier to plan great car-free breaks and holidays. And we’re expanding into Northern Ireland for the first time – making Good Journey truly UK-wide.

Role in wider transport decarbonisation

National and local government have tended to focus on regular urban journeys like school runs and commutes. We have decades of car-centred planning, policy and habits to overturn. Changing leisure-travel habits is crucial to achieving net zero in tourism.

Good Journey win the Decarbonising Transport Award

Personal / leadership insight

The biggest breakthrough in changing behaviour has been our work with the National Trust. Now half of all visitors to the National Trust say they would like to be able to visit without a car. If just 1 in 100 NT visitors went car-free, it would save half a million car journeys a year.

Changing how people travel is crucial to reaching net zero – as well as making for a healthier, happier society. These awards give you an inspiring insight into the people and projects doing just that. It feels great being one of them.