Go Green: Eco Travel 101

Go green, you say?

go green Why, yes, of course. In this day and age there’s no reason not to go green by choosing eco-friendly options when you are planning your next trip or vacation. It’s easy to do the right thing while seeing the world if you know what to look for in terms of offsetting carbon emissions for air miles, booking green hotels and rental homes, and patronizing tour operators and other vendors who pay attention to sustainability.

Here are some ideas about where to go next while keeping a clean, green conscience…

Where the Organic Flowers Grow

Bed & Breakfasts from Maine to California are touting their green features, from organic gardens and local menu ingredients, to compact fluorescent lights and solar power.

Banking on the Bahamas

Andros Island, the least-developed and largest of the 700 islands and cays that make up the Bahamas, is just a 10-minute plane ride away from the mega-resorts, golf courses and party vibe of tourist-oriented New Providence Island. Andros supplies fresh water and workers to its high-profile neighbor, but has retained most of its natural resources and beauty.

Made in Maui

As agri-tourism and “locavore” movements boom, Eastern Maui in the Hawaiian islands offers multiple temptations for tourists and locals alike.

Peru’s Wild Life

With hundreds of species going extinct every day in the world’s tropical rainforests, eco-travelers need to see Peru’s cradle of the world’s biodiversity while there are still intact tracts. Posada Amazonas, an eco-lodge along the Tambopata River deep in Peru’s Amazon basin, provides the ultimate jumping-off point to learn about the region’s wildlife and ecology, while also helping the local indigenous community make a sustainable living.

Wide Open Spaces

Traveling green through Wisconsin and Minnesota with stops at the starkly beautiful Apostle Islands, local farms and green bed and breakfasts.

The Roof of the World

Tourism in Nepal Strikes a Delicate Balance To reach the best place to see Mount Everest (known locally as Sagarmatha), from Nepal’s capital city of Kathmandu you first take a half-hour flight on a small plane to Lukla, then walk 31 miles to the small city of Namche. The trekking is by foot, up 12,000 […]

Amazon Adventure

Imagine a lone fisherman quietly and gracefully paddling his dugout canoe through the submerged grasses of an Amazonian lake. He is there today, following a centuries-old tradition of nourishing his family with the many species of fish which once proliferated in the world’s largest river basin. A few years ago, however, his future was not […]

Buying Vermont

Bill Adams’ tractor goes putt, putt, putt. It’s a 1957 John Deere, the last of the two-cylinder models, and just one of the many venerable pieces of agricultural equipment around the Adams Farm in southern Vermont, which has been under one family’s ownership since 1865. Adams’ tractor has been used for maple sugaring, for sheep […]

Breathing Easy

In America's First Environmentally-Smart Hotel To what some may consider a rather stagnant hotel industry, the newly opened Sheraton Rittenhouse Square is a breath of fresh air…literally. Every 34 minutes, guests of this Philadelphia establishment are bathed in an atmosphere that's been completely filtered of such air pollutants as mold, pollen and bacteria. The hotel's […]

Ocean Escapes

Dreaming of an ocean getaway? Rather than hop on a ferry or spread out the beach towel, dive into the world’s most pristine waters while helping to support conservation efforts. Biosphere Expeditions is one of the pioneering organizations behind this philosophy. Since 1999, the nonprofit has joined “voluntourists” with scientists working in remote areas around […]

Traveling Light

Traveling can be a challenge for those trying to lead an eco-friendly life. From room deodorizers and potpourri to non-organic breakfasts and sheets that reek of bleach, the typical overnight stay can seem so toxic you’d almost rather stay home. But no more. Over the past decade, there’s been a welcome rise in eco-friendly bed-and-breakfasts.

The Sounds of Silence

Jonathan Rogers travels to the Turks & Caicos in the British West Indies to relish in the sounds of silence…

Sustainable Slopes

Sustainable Slopes: Aspen Skiing Company Makes the Environment Its Business

Tenting Tonight

Every so often we need to interrupt our regular lives and go off and live in a tent. I don’t say this for the usual benefits associated with camping—the simpler living and getting close to the outdoors, though those things go far in renewing our perspective. More importantly, we need to spend time away from home, constructing a shelter at night, taking it down in the morning and moving on, because that gets us close to a truth we usually deny. We are merely passing through this life.

Turtle People

Tagging loggerheads and patrolling Wassaw’s beaches during nesting season are just part of what the Georgia-based Caretta Research Project does…

Riding the Green Coaster

Theme parks have come a long way & a couple of eco-themed parks are even in the works, boasting environmental literacy centers & conservation programs.

Treading Lightly in Alaska

The Sadie Cove Wilderness Lodge, only 10 miles from the fishing village of Homer, Alaska, was world’s away from the rat race I was leaving behind….

Light in the Black Forest

In just two decades, Freiburg, Germany, a sleepy 12th century village, has transformed into a progressive 21st century city that’s being called the world’s first eco-municipality.