Flexible and eco-friendly through the Alps

People — Oct 20, 2022

Andreas Radin, CIPRA International

The right decision for their wallet and for the environment: 150 young participants in CIPRA’s Youth Alpine Interrail project celebrated the end of their climate-friendly journey of discovery through the Alps by train and bus in Bern at the beginning of October 2022.

In the Yoalin project, launched in 2018 by CIPRA International and its Youth Advisory Council (CYC), participants spend a month exploring the Alps by train with an Interrail pass. It has created an active, constantly growing Yoalin community: many former participants are now active as ambassadors for the project. They support the travellers, answer questions, give valuable travel recommendations or provide places to sleep.

This summer, the Yoalin travellers met repeatedly, for example at the end of August in Bolzano/I, to talk about a Climathon – a creative confrontation with climate change. In mid-September, more than a dozen “Yoalins” gathered in Ljubljana to get to know the city together. In Vienna, one of the funding bodies, the Austrian Climate Ministry, invited them to a talk with Minister Leonore Gewessler on 28 September 2022. At the Climate Ministry, the travellers shared their experiences and expressed their wishes to the enthusiastic Minister.

A grand finale

Almost 60 young adults met in Bern for this year’s final event from 7 to 9 October. They got to know the city and attended workshops on the topics of climate, mobility and community. Many of them want to stay connected with Yoalin and promote environmentally friendly mobility in the Alpine region as “Yoalin Ambassadors”. “This experience was very enriching for us, especially as students of sustainable tourism! We learned a lot about the different forms of transport in the Alps. Merci for all the beautiful discoveries on our trip,” said participants Louise David and Chloé Remy.