The January 2009 issue of Ecologist magazine could put just about anyone, from farmers to investment bankers, in a fit of misery.

Add wanderlust devotees to that list. “Out of This World?” an investigative report by Paul Miles, takes a serious lok at the real social and environmental impacts of travel. His conclusions, backed by hard statistics and research, aren’t pretty.

The piece starts out wondering, after we’ve tapped out adventure tourism, where we’ll go next — the obvious answer being, of course, space. (Not to toot my own horn … nevermind, I’ll toot it. I do think I addressed the issue of space travel and the human race’s inability to travel without being destructive much better in this New Year’s post.)

But the real meat of the article is in the investigations into sustainability- and eco-tourism. So-called, that is, since so much of what’s called “eco” and “sustainable” is just pure marketing cotton candy. Some of Miles’s examples are sobering: Wilderness Safaris, “a company with a hitherto good record on social and environmental matters,” has gone ahead with a safari camp, “complete with swimming pool — in Botswana’s Central Kalahari Game Reserve, when nearby Basarwa (bushmen) are denied access to water. [This] seriously challenges the hypothesis that tourism is a force for good.”

“It is well known,” he states, “that as much as 75 percent of tourism income ‘leaks’ from host countries back to foreign-owned companies.” Which explains why, he points out, “98 percent of the population of the Dominican Republic lives in poverty, despite its being the most popular tourist destination in the Caribbean.”

I won’t get into a debate over tourists versus travelers here, because the truth is we’re all responsible. Whether we’re backpackers, travel writers published in glossy magazines, wanderers teaching English abroad, or a couple on our first-ever whirlwind trip to Europe, we’re culpable.

This is especially true for those of us who consider ourselves environmentalists, which I do, and also travel addicts, which I also do. If you care about both, ignorance in this case really is bliss. Once you know, though, that indulging your deepest passion might contribute to drowning the remote island you’re visiting, or that the eco-tour safari you’re on is taking water out of the wells of native people, you can’t forget. And you shouldn’t try if you could.

How does one move forward? I don’t think buying into marketing about volunteer tourism, eco-tourism, or sustainability is really the answer, not unless you do your research first. So how do we actually reconcile our heart’s desires and the issues we feel passionately about?

First, you can’t treat travel as a shopping binge. We should each think carefully about what we’re doing, where we’re going, and what mark we leave — environmental, social, personal, and economic — on every place we’ve tread. You can’t travel consciously or conscientiously if you’re simply bagging countries. It’s like the Slow Food movement: you’ve got to savor, even if your current moment-mouthful is a five-hour delay at the airport.

I’ve taken a hard look at my own travel practices, and they don’t by any means come up to scratch. Like any addict, there is some other need I’m satisfying by the constant urge to be anywhere-but-here.

The going is my environmental sin. When I’m actually there (anywhere), the footprint is relatively small. I am essentially a walker and observor. I try to eat gently, support locally, and, helped now by my son’s extroverted personality, interact with people in a way that leaves us both with a wider worldview.

Curiosity is always my guide, kicked forward by an ever-present laziness that always likes to remind me there’s a cup of coffee nearby and a good novel in my handbag. So far that curiosity has been a good guide, but moving forward I think my choices for food, sleep, and transport, abroad or at home, are going to require more consideration.

There is no one-size-fits-all environmental or socially good choice for travelers. Everyone’s got different habits and desires. For me, I am first and foremost a writer. I can hope that something I say or an interaction or sight I describe will change, even incrementally, the worldview of someone I’ve never met, for the better.

At the end of his article Paul Miles references both philosopher Blaise Pascal (“All of man’s unhappiness stems from his inability to stay alone in his room”) and Alain de Botton, from his book The Art of Travel, in which he says that “the finest journeys are those that can be taken within our own minds, without leaving the house.” Miles asks, in the end, “if what we’re really seeking is simply our own inner selves.” (Well, yes. But if you didn’t know that you’ve got some other issues to resolve.)

My answer is this: long ago, when I was in high school, a friend and I were discussing our desire to travel and that desire’s conflict with Henry David Thoreau, whose Walden we’d just been reading. “I have traveled much in Concord,” Thoreau said, referring to his ability to travel the world in his imagination, through reading. Were we lesser people for wanting to actually see what we read about? No, I said. No. And I still say it. Life is always a journey, whether physical or mental, and for many of us, the path is to find the world in person before we can find it in our own backyards.