Green Options

Showcasing the most environmentally-friendly hotels in the world, Eco Hotels of the World is a leading global online guide for the ultimate in green travel accommodations, from sustainably designed new hotels or resorts to once-in-a-lifetime ecotravel experiences like staying in an igloo in Switzerland.  Each accommodation is evaluated based on a five star rating system that examines energy, water, waste disposal, eco-activity (communication), and ecological protection.

Based in England, Eco Hotels of the World searches the globe for leading examples of hotels that appeal to the eco-adventurer in us all.  Who doesn’t want to bivouac in style on the Dark Continent with elephants passing near by at a safe distance — and where the money paid to the hotel helps conserve the habitat, support the local community, and protect the elephants?  There’s a dizzying range of size, scope and degree of comforts and amenities for hotels included in Eco Hotels of the World, so you’re not just getting a listing of the ultra-swank-eco-hotels that will break your bank (even if some of the funds do, in fact, go to helping preserve the environment or benefits the local community).  It’s all about choice with a conscience, and Eco Hotels of the World is a great place to plan your green getaway.

The 131 hotels now featured in Eco Hotels of the World have been personally selected by the website’s editors to ensure that they meet the standards required to be considered an eco-friendly hotel, including stewardship of the natural environment, ecological sustainability, proven contribution to conservation, provision of environmental training programs, incorporation of cultural considerations and provision of an economic return to the local community.   A departure from most other eco-hotel review processes, hotels cannot pay for inclusion in the listing, nor does Eco Hotels of the World accept commissions on bookings in order to remain independent and objective.

Tucked in forest, perched alongside coastal sand dunes and a brief stroll from the California surf in Pacific Grove on the Monterey Peninsula rests the Asilomar Conference Grounds.  It’s owned by the people of California as a California State Park, but the conference facilities and lodging is managed by Delaware North Companies Parks and Resorts, the same company that manages other accommodations in some spectacular environs including the Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks.

You don’t need to be a conference-goer to experience the grounds or even bed down in the rustic, immaculately clean, and camp-like accommodations.  Besides being a conference hot spot, ecotravelers can stay as leisure guests.  Many also come to Asilomar to celebrate their wedding, share a family reunion or host a corporate retreat — especially if they’re trying to do it more green.

Upon arriving with my family, two Black-tailed deer greeted us just before we passed between Asilomar’s welcoming stone columns at the entrance.  The hub of Asilomar Conference Grounds — which includes 313 secluded guest rooms housed in a unique collection of historic cabins and lodges, many with fireplaces, balconies or private decks — is their Social Hall, with outdoor seating, wireless access, board games and ping pong.  During our stay, a complimentary Jazz ensemble in the Social Hall provided a relaxing way to wind down the day.  The spacious guest rooms are designed for the tranquil enjoyment of nature, so TVs, radios and telephones are refreshingly absent.

Rightly deserving its “refuge by the sea” namesake, the 107-acre Asilomar Conference Grounds both inspires our appreciation of nature and is inspired by it. The grounds got its start in 1928 as a Young Women’s Christian Association (YMCA) camp, created, built and funded by women.  California’s first registered female architect, Julia Morgan, designed the buildings on the grounds in the Arts and Craft style which embraced harmony, community and natural beauty.  Every building has a face to the ocean.  I found every door opened to the outdoors (try that at your typical convention center).

Japan Airlines became the first airline to demonstrate camelina as a successful biofuel this week, as the fuel surpassed traditional 100% Jet-A fuel in efficiency according to pilots. The biofuel blend used, which was 84% camelina, 16% jatropha and less than 1% algae, brings optimism that the airline could be flying full passenger flights using only biofuels within 3-5 years.

The remarkable crop, camelina, has been eyed for years as an affordable biofuel that can be grown easily in rotation with traditional food crops like wheat. Used as biodiesel, camelina could also potentially power cars and trucks cheaper than its petroleum counterpart. But for all of its use as a biofuel, it might be most exceptional as a cooking oil. Loaded with Omega-3 fatty acids, vegetable oils made from camelina are good for the heart and the brain, and could also be used as a cheap feed for fish and livestock.

A day at the zoo brings back classic kiddie flashbacks for just about everyone. Who doesn’t remember an afternoon of lions, tigers and bears? But – oh my – as our eco savvy radar grows savvier over the years, the zoo experience can be a bit of a conundrum: How can we justify the variety of issues zoos bring to the plate – from cages to carbon footprints – for today’s world?

One approach: Select your zoo destination carefully and make a conscious effort to make your experience as green and educational as possible. One suggestion:

Head for the San Diego Zoo. Sure, the San Diego Zoo has been heralded as a zoological leader for decades and remains a southern California pillar of tourism. But there are reasons for that as the San Diego Zoo keeps redefining and reinventing the zoo experience. With a dash of educational effort, your family zoo outing can evolve to an inspiring environmental educational experience.

At their core level, the San Diego Zoo – like other zoos – bring a global array of animals directly in front of one’s eyes. Kids naturally form a magical connection with animals – the challenge is how to further this fascination into a lifelong habit of stewarding the planet and taking the conservation message to heart. The San Diego Zoo offers various approaches to do just that, as my family and I experienced during a recent trip to sunny southern California, escaping the Wisconsin winter back on our farm.

Here’s four tips from our San Diego Zoo outing on greening your zoo experience with kids:

1. Prep Beforehand
A dash of preparation beforehand can significantly enhance the zoo experience.

“I started to see two Americas: the mythic America and the real America. There was a harsh reality to America as well as the dream. I wanted to describe this era of prosperity and Savings and Loans scandals as a spiritual drought. I started thinking about the desert.” - Bono, from the rock band, U2

There’s “a place, high on a desert plain, where the streets have no name,” a place marked by bizarre rock outcroppings and the almost magical forests of the crooked and spiky Joshua trees — a metaphor U2 adeptly used for America’s prosperity and greed of the 80s, as relevant then, as it is today. In December of 1986, the four members of U2 and photographer Anton Corbijn captured the rocky and mountainous terrain and a lonely Joshua tree, summoning us with their The Joshua Tree to call upon our inner spirit to come together for peace, harmony, and love.

Here we are today, more than twenty years later, where such a commitment for change is never more needed. Perhaps a little time in the desert might clear my mind, settle my soul, I thought. Perhaps I can muster the strength we need to move toward a more sustainable and just tomorrow. Located 140 miles east of Los Angeles and just north of Palm Springs and west of Death Valley, the 792,726-acre Joshua Tree National Park provides an escape from urban pressures, a place to experience solitude and wilderness, to reconnect with our hopes and dreams.

The photogenic Joshua trees are neither tree nor cactus; they’re a giant version of a species of yucca, belonging to the lily family, many living for hundreds of years.  Unfortunately, if the U.S. Geological Survey scientists are correct in their modeling, the Joshua trees may not be around in fifty to a hundred years from now thanks to climate change altering the fragile desert ecosystem, average temperatures, and precipitation patterns. The trees they need cool winters and freezing temperatures in order to produce flowers, release their seeds, and reproduce.

To experience the park, my family and I meandered but a few of the 191 miles of hiking trails for our own spiritual walkabout roughly the same time as President-elect Barack Obama was sworn into office. The desert foray was a dramatic ecotourism adventure — a safe one, so long as you bring lots of water with you.  There are also four visitor centers positioned to help guide your enjoyment of the park, depending on where you enter it. Many argue that the best time to visit is during the spring bloom of wildflowers and other plants.

My bet is that U2 never anticipated the global impacts of climate change, now calling into question the long term survival of the namesake Joshua Trees in the Joshua Tree National Park. That Joshua tree made famous by U2 is gone. Others will likely follow.  Besides climate change, invasive exotic species, increasing incidence of wildfires, and nitrogen deposition originating from emissions hundreds of miles away in Los Angeles are also impacting the trees, according to Alice Miller who is involved with on-going research in the park.  “There is no single cause of their decline,” says Miller.  “Everything is interconnected.”

While there are some who say we will (or should) travel less in the coming years — and perhaps some of us will — let’s not forget that the travel industry is the second largest industry on this planet after the industrial-military complex. It’s vitally important to many communities, businesses and organizations, ours included. We operate Inn Serendipity Bed & Breakfast, completely powered by the wind and sun.

My first post on ecotourism presented an approach to travel that sustains, enhances or restores diverse ecological systems, preserves the economic and social well-being of the local and global community, and fosters a greater understanding on the part of the traveler of nature, culture or the community visited. It’s the “triple bottom line of profits, planet and people” I write about in ECOpreneuring, applied to the travel industry.

This type of travel usually provides the ecotravelers with authentic experiences (read: not merely heads on beds) and the travelers themselves participate in the renewal, restoration or revitalization process underway by the community, business or organization. Ecotourism is a departure from the consumption and luxury focus of the mainstream tourism industry that touts all-inclusive resorts and 4-star amenities with little or no thought given to paying livable wages to employees or producing some of their own energy on site.

Since piloting a green travel program in 2007, the State of Wisconsin’s Department of Tourism, through their Travel Green Wisconsin program, has provided a framework by which already green tourism related businesses can be more easily found while those enterprises that recognize that there’s more green in going green can follow detailed certification requirements to embark on their journey to evolve, as all organizations will need to do sooner, or later, as a restorative enterprise that follows not just the laws of supply and demand, but also the laws of nature.

After a twisting journey up mountain roads or through vineyards, about two hours north of San Francisco Bay area or northwest of Sacramento, and tucked up the side of a mountain, flows the hot springs of what is now Harbin Hot Springs.

The 112-degree Fahrenheit hot springs, one of six distinctive pools of varying temperatures, are the centerpiece of Harbin Hot Springs, a center to experience nature’s beauty while exploring our potential as human beings. A Mecca for healers, sun-worshippers, intentional community seekers, yoga practitioners, over-wired Silicon Valley wizards in need of a break, and droves of people who seek a therapeutic and restorative soak in the springs, embraced by nature.

Historically, the springs have drawn Native American shamans and LSD-tripping hippies. In the 1880s, invalids journeyed to the Harbin Hot Springs Health and Pleasure Resort by stagecoach. Today, Harbin Hot Springs is a thriving intentional community of 175 year-round residents and a growing crowd of over 100,000 visitors each year who come for a soak in the waters, a massage, some bodywork and healing, educational workshops, hikes on some of the 1,160 acres of hiking trails that meander the 1,700-acre property, or some lounging au naturale on the sun decks after cooling off in the pristine, spring fed pool. This is a place to embrace nature, reconnect with your inner self, and enjoy the convivial community.

I’m not sure if I’m surprised or not with the results of a recent survey by Responsible Travel. If you’re not familiar with this website and you’re planning a vacation, here’s a little bit about them from their site.

Since 2001, we’ve been handpicking inspiring holidays from all over the globe to give you a fantastic experience and make a real difference to local people and the environment. We were the first people to link up travelers and responsible operators and places to stay in this way, and still offer the largest selection of responsible holidays anywhere on the web!

A recent survey they conducted found that women were more likely than men to book an eco vacation.

The study revealed over two thirds (67%) of people who booked one of Responsible Travel’s ethical holidays online were women.

Not to be too hasty, the folks at responsible travel are quick to mention that:

… this doesn’t necessarily mean that women are necessarily more environmentally-savvy than men when it comes to travel, it may be just because they’re normally the ones who organize vacations.

This squares with travel industry statistics that show that 70% of all travel decisions are made by women.

So what does this mean for the ecopreneurial travel company?

The Orchard Garden Inn claims to be San Francisco’s “Purely Green Hotel,” and as a one of the only LEED certified hotels in the country, I would say it’s off to a good start. Wanting to support such eco-minded entrepreneurs, I checked out the boutique hotel this weekend.

The hotel staff were lovely and although our room wasn’t ready when we arrived, they made accommodations for our bags while we took a day trip to Napa to visit vineyards, such as Domaine Carneros, a gem for delicious California Bruts made from organic grapes - more on that later. When we returned and checked into our Terrace Suite, the staff were just as welcoming and amiable as they had been earlier that day, a true plus for the service industry.

If you are planning a big holiday trip, check out Fodor’s Green Travel, which features the best eco-friendly lodgings around the world.

The foreword by Richard Hammond discusses how travel can still be responsible and what main elements a savvy traveler should take into account. Fodor’s also explains what criteria they use to rank each resort in different regions of the world.

The “EcoFile” sidebar gives information on rooms, rates, locations, times [...]

Not only is the new Kimpton hotel in Los Angeles exceptionally stylish, but it’s also very eco-chic from the in-room recycling to the locally and organic sourced ingredients at the restaurant.

Immediately upon arriving, I was greeted by lovely hotel staff serving complimentary local organic wines at the Kimpton’s standard happy hour in the very comfortable lobby.

Kimpton hotels recently received the California Environmental Protection Agency’s highest ecological honor, the Governor’s Environmental and Economic Leadership Award, which is given to businesses that focus on preserving the state’s resources.