I'm a dual German/American living in California while all my close family lives in Germany. I pledged to be flight free in 2020 and thought it would be easy as I still had a lot of California to explore. After the pandemic hit, I took a temporary COVID-related job in Washington state. My company approved for me to drive my car there for 14 hours instead of flying, which allowed me to make a few brief stops along the way to explore the scenery I was passing through. However once I was in Washington, I received the shocking news that my dad in Germany got diagnosed with advanced cancer. I did not expect him to live to the end of the year and knew I had to fly as soon as I could (which in itself was very difficult due to the pandemic). To mitigate the unavoidable and at least decrease emissions, I booked a direct flight. Later in the year, I went on one unexpected brief domestic flight for a business trip to Utah on a short notice.

So in a sense, it may seem that I broke my pledge, but I did not fly for leisure, and I certainly could not have justified not flying to Germany under the circumstances.

I now pledged to be flight free again in 2021. I have come to realize that due to my family situation I won't be able to avoid ever flying again, but I will continue to be very mindful about the environmental impact. Instead of flying in 2021, I hope to do several hiking trips with my dogs in California that I had to cancel in 2020 as a result of the pandemic.