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What are the Best Travel Green Destinations?

By P.M. Willers
Updated: May 17, 2024
Views: 6,408
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Green travel destinations exist on nearly every continent. In many ways, the manner in which one travels is more important than the destination when it comes to traveling green and acting in environmentally friendly ways. Travel green options include eco-tourism, agritourism, volunteering for environmental causes and organizations, and visiting ecoparks. Offsetting carbon emissions is another way to travel green. When selecting a green travel destination, there are several basic questions to keep in mind.

The three most important topics are the activity level, budget, and preferred environment or ecosystem. Green travel destinations vary from a relaxing but earth friendly to performing difficult and physically demanding tasks. One way to travel green is to go on a volunteering trip that involves working on an organic farm or building eco-friendly homes or buildings. Such trips usually devote a certain number of hours per day to tasks. These trips are an excellent way for a budget traveler to travel green because accommodation and food are sometimes very low cost or even free of charge.

Organic farms or volunteer opportunities can be found worldwide in places like Mexico, British Colombia, Costa Rica, and other Central American countries, as well as locations in southeastern Europe. Volunteering websites or green travel magazines are an excellent place to look for sources. There are also dozens of eco-tourism and green travel websites that can provide helpful green travel information. Travel magazines often highlight environmentally friendly or green travel destinations, and many provide tips on making vacations even greener.

Agritourism is another green travel option. The concept is fairly new, but more and more people are enjoying this relaxed and environmentally friendly form of tourism. In agritourism, visitors head to a destination, many times someone's farm or home, and enjoy the local products, trades, and specialties. Agritourists may go out to an orchard to pick fruit for breakfast or visit the farm's chicken coop for eggs to make fresh pasta with the family of the farm.

This type of travel is greener because of the local, fresh, and homemade emphasis on every part of the experience. Recently, the most popular agritourism sites have been in regions well known for organic farming and regional cuisine. Locations include Italy, Greece, Spain, California, and ranching areas of the United States, such as Wyoming and Montana.

Another way to travel green is to reduce your travel footprint. This can be done by traveling by greener forms of transportation such as hiking, bicycling, or public transport, such as bus or train. One of the easiest ways to be green is to explore local travel destinations and utilize local products.

Travelers who are not ready to give up the more luxurious forms of travel have still more options. It is now possible to buy or pay for carbon emissions. Most major air carriers or travel agencies offer this option and can provide further information.

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Discussion Comments
By Heavanet — On Dec 31, 2014

@spotiche5- I think that this is a great idea, because it is a relaxing, earth-friendly vacation. It is also quite easy to do, because there are trails all over the country that offer safe riding areas and accommodations for people who want to travel green.

To begin planning your green bicycle vacation, you must first make sure that your bicycle is ready to go. Have it checked out by a bicycle repair person to make sure that the tires, chain, and brakes are all in top working order.

Next, you should either check online or with your travel agent to find out about available green travel bicycle riding vacations. These trips usually revolve around trails that may take your through rugged areas of the country, or paved trails that run through several states. If you want to keep your trip as green as possible, you will probably want to camp along the way. Many bicycle trails have campgrounds along the route for vacationers to use.

Once you choose the green bicycle trip that is right for you, make sure that you have all of the supplies that you will need. This may include provisions like food and water, clothing, a tent, and camping equipment.

By Spotiche5 — On Dec 30, 2014

I recently got back into riding a bicycle, and would love to take a vacation with it to save fuel and travel green. What is a way to do this that will allow me to explore many cities and town in the United States?

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