I feel the belief that many long-haul conferences are necessary for academic career progression is exaggerated. I will only consider a long-haul visit in exceptional circumstances, such as initiating collaborations in low-income countries.

Train and ferry services in Europe are improving all the time – new overnight service from Brussels was introduced in Jan 2020. I am trying to do more to question conference organisers on what provisions they have made for no-travel attendance. Even asking the question has the potential to show that attitudes are shifting (and I don’t even need to plan on going to a conference to ask the question).