Go Green: Eco Travel 101

Canoeing in Canada’s Barrenlands.

Tuolumne County, California is best known for housing Yosemite National Park. Yet the county itself is chock-full of hidden treasures…

November 28-29, 1999. Our delegation of journalists, winners of the annual Population Institute reporting awards, arrives in New Delhi in the middle of the night and drives through nearly deserted streets to our hotel. The 4 a.m. calm is deceptive: at first light, the streets fill with belching diesel taxis and two-stroke motorcycle-based rickshaws, colorfully […]

Think Florida vacation and the mind turns inevitably to Disney World, which takes up 47 square miles of prime Orlando real estate and is as big as San Francisco. But there’s another side of Florida, one that places you amid some of the nicest white sand beaches anywhere, and within shouting distance of the state’s unique and sporadically protected wildlife.

There are still many ways to immerse yourself in unspoiled beauty in Florida, and there are many people working hard to preserve what’s left of this lush paradise.

The Turks and Caicos government has banned jet-skiing, waterskiing & spearfishing & is focusing on wastewater “pretreatment” for area hotels to curb chemical & fertilizer runoff…

A Hammock in the Palms: Bangaram Island is a model tropical island: white sand, turquoise lagoon, green coconut palm trees, coral reefs and thatched-roof cottages. And the it’s putting environmental concerns first.

When the first European travelers saw Hawaii, they thought they’d found paradise. But the 50th state, Hawaii is no longer so Edenic. Waikiki Beach has become a high-rise hell, and Honolulu, on the main island of Oahu, is America’s 11th largest urban center (though it remains the only U.S. city with a rainforest).

Finding Paradise in the Dominican Republic – As the plane skids to a stop on the tarmac of Punta Cana International Airport, the first impression of the Dominican Republic is of open-air breezeways and thatched roofs.

One of the first distributors of Segway Human Transporters (HTs), Amelia’s Wheels at Amelia Island Plantation Resort in Florida has offered guided tours and rentals since 2004. The option to rent Segways is relatively new for the resort, but a tradition of environmental integrity is not. Development of the property was restricted in 1971. Now, the site has been transformed into a destination that has harmony with nature in mind.

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.

Ogden, Utah is poised to become a popular year-round tourist destination for outdoorsy types who seek an alternative to Colorado’s saturated ski resorts and sky-high tourist towns. It features miles of hiking and mountain biking trails and two ski resorts, tucked into the valley of the Wasatch Mountains. But Ogden faces the same challenge as many nature-centered towns—how to best enjoy the natural world without exploiting it.

Stroll barefoot along Jamaica’s white sand beaches, get acquainted with dolphins in crystal-clear water, and ascend mystical mountain peaks through rainforest pathways. But before you arrive, make sure the place where you stay has made a commitment to preserving this biodiversity hot-spot for the future.

Zimbabwe Emerges as the Newest Eco-Destination Coasting along fiery-red African waters, with the bellowing of hippos drawing attention from the pristine quietness of sunset, Zimbabwe’s Zambezi River offers an ideal way to get in touch with an unspoiled ecosystem. On one bank, five elephants stroll single-file to the water’s edge, where they snatch up lilac-plumed […]