Green Travel - The World's Best Eco-Lodges & Earth-Friendly Hotels

Here is a great book coming your way. People who had sneak preview say it is money’s worth. Green Travel is a guide to eco-lodges & green hotels around the world. It features 100 eco-lodges & green hotels that support local communities in their endeavour to deliver clean, green, holistic experience. It also tackles issues like questions about poverty, the politics of boycotting certain destinations, and the environmental impact of travel. First-hand accounts of green travel experiences on each continent and practical information about the greenest ways to get there are great additions. If you are in to travel business or happens to be an inveterate traveller go ahead and buy it when it hits the stand in April.

Green Travel: The World's Best Eco-Lodges & Earth-Friendly Hotels

Written by Fodor’s
Format: Trade Paperback, 320 pages
Publisher: Fodor's
ISBN: 978-1-4000-0753-0 (1-4000-0753-4)
Pub Date: April 29, 2008
Price: $25.00

Galápagos Islands - Perils of Mass Tourism

Galápagos Islands, the world’s first World Heritage Site is under threat due to mass tourism. Galápagos Islands has unique native species that are said to be the instigation behind Darwin’s theories on evolution and natural selection. Visitor numbers to the islands have grown phenomenally. The crisis afflicting the islands is not only a direct result of the rise in tourism but also from a change in the type of travellers visiting the area. Nature-loving tourists, who were easily accommodated by smaller, locally owned tour operators characterized early tourism in the Galápagos. The new type of tourists often prefers high level of comfort available from large tour operators and vessels. Tourists coming by big vessels are not staying in locally run hotels or eating in the local restaurants. Local guys are finding it increasingly difficult to compete with the mainly foreign-run large-scale operators. Out of $418 million generated by tourism annually in the Galápagos, only $63 million is estimated to enter the local economy. Increased risk of infection and introduction of non-native plant species looms large. The delicate ecosystem is in great danger.

Top 10 Eco-friendly Destinations of the world

IgoUgo, (owned by Travelocity) selected the following 10 Eco-friendly Destinations as real top class and money’s worth. If you are a green buff these are the destinations you should plumb in for.

1. Buck Island Reef National Monument – St Croix, US Virgin Islands
2. Sea Turtle Watching in Rekawa – Rekawa, Sri Lanka
3. Napo Wildlife Center – Quito, Ecuador
4. Artisans D’Angkor Silk Farm – Siem Reap, Cambodia
5. Celestun Biosphere Reserve – Yucatan, Mexico
6. Rainforest Hike to Middleham Falls & Ti Tou Gorge with Ken’s Hinterland Adventure Tours – Dominica
7. Sadie Cove Wilderness Lodge – Kachemak Bay State Park, Alaska
8. Volcano Trekking at Gunung Batur – Gunung Batur, Bali
9. Strokkur Geyser – Geysir Center, Iceland

10. Canopy Tour – Quepos, Costa Rica

National Geographic Green Guide

National Geographic has come out with a new publication called National Geographic Green Guide. It is what you expect from National Geographic. Class stuff.

The Green Guide offers advice on living green and tips on how to reduce your carbon footprint. The magazine is printed on recycled paper and uses ink, which contains no heavy metals and is derived from renewable sources like soy, corn and linseed.

The blurb says “Written for general consumers, not for enviromaniacs, Green Guide is chock-full of simple, useful ideas, broken down into achievable steps that make "going green" a gradual and affordable process rather than an all-or-nothing plunge.”

carbonfootprints

Couple of guys has requested me to give tips on how to calculate carbon footprints. The site carbonfootprints.com gives excellent tips on how to go about it based on your house, flights ,car, bus, motorbike, rail, food preferences, fashion, packaging, furniture and electricals, recycling, recreation, finance and other services. So go ahead and calculate your carbonfootprints. Click here to go to their site.

Here is another good site. Click here

Yet another site. Click here