It takes 8 hours on a plane from Plymouth, United Kingdom to New York.
But 16-year-old Greta Thunberg took 15 days to reach the Big Apple as she hitched a ride on a zero-emissions yacht, making the entire trip without leaving a carbon footprint.
Thunberg, the teen climate sensation, made the trip across the Atlantic to attend a United Nations climate summit taking place in September.
For the uninitiated, 16-year-old Thunberg has incited students across the globe to strike for the climate. She started skipping school to protest climate inaction outside Swedish Parliament in August 2018. Since then, tens of thousands of young people have joined in on the movement, walking out of class on coordinated “Fridays for the Future.”
Thunberg began her journey to New York on board the Malizia II, a 60-foot yacht equipped with solar panels and underwater turbines that produce electricity onboard. The boat has no shower or toilets.
After landing, Thunberg, looking slightly embarrassed, said "all of this is very overwhelming" of the crowd who welcomed her to Manhattan.
"It is insane that a 16-year-old would have to cross the Atlantic Ocean to make a stand," she said. "The climate and ecological crisis is a global crisis, the biggest crisis that humanity has ever faced, and if we don't manage to work together and to cooperate and to work together despite our differences, then we will fail."
Speaking of her journey on the seas, she was quoted as saying the trip was surprisingly good and that she did not feel sea sick once, despite the choppy waters.
In fact, she said that she will miss the “peace and quiet” she had sailing across the Atlantic, but is looking forward to being dry, and eating food that isn’t freeze-dried after two weeks at sea.
She has another journey ahead of her later this year: travelling to Santiago, Chile by bus, train, and boat for another United Nations climate conference in December.
