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Archive for the ‘Eco-Friendly’ Category

National Park Week

Monday, April 22nd, 2013


Looking for the next budget-friendly spring destination? Starting today, travelers will have five days of free entry to nearly 400 National Parks coast-to-coast as part of National Park Week.

Yosemite National Park, CaliforniaFrom marvelous landscapes and seascapes to the nation’s most precious arts and culture exhibitions, each national park offers breathtaking views and unique outdoor experiences that can help relax and recharge travelers.  Hotels.com, together with The Active Times, has listed the perfect lodge or hotel, plus activities to explore to help make your trip a complete success.

Yosemite National Park

Where to Stay:  The Ahwahnee (4.2 guest rating): This four-star luxury property is located at the foot of Yosemite Village and has some of the park’s most iconic locations, such as Glacier Point, Half Dome, and Upper Yosemite Falls.

What to do: Take a short, 2.2-mile roundtrip hike into the heart of the Mariposa Grove, where walking among the hundreds of 200-foot-tall sequoias—the biggest living things on earth—reminds us of how small we are in the grand scheme of nature.

Glacier Bay National Park & Preserve

Where to Stay:  Gustavus Inn at Glacier Bay (5.0 guest rating): Located minutes from Glacier Bay National Park & Preserve and the ocean, this quaint bed and breakfast offers complimentary daily breakfast and locally-sourced, fresh cuisine served daily.

What to do: Take a day-long boat tour cruising through the park’s rich waters, spotting sea lions, puffins and whales, making brief island stops and, at last, getting you close enough to hear the dramatic thundering of building-sized chunks of ice calving from the glaciers and dropping into the ocean.

Acadia National Park

Where to Stay:  Primrose Inn (4.9 guest rating):  Walking distance from Bar Harbor, the Primrose Inn is in close proximity to Abbe Museum, Bar Harbor Whale Watching, Acadia National Park and Cadillac Mountain.

What to do: For one of the best views, head up the steep but rewarding Precipice Trail, a hike that incorporates stone steps and iron-rung ladders up a cliff-face to the 1,058-foot summit of Champlain Mountain.
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Glacier National Park

Where to Stay: The Lodge at Whitefish Lake (4.7 guest rating): Located close to Whitefish Mountain Ski Resort and Glacier National Park, this property offers a full-service spa, onsite recreation in the winter like snowshoeing and ice skating, and in the summer hiking and biking trails and kayaking.

What to do: Take a day-hike into the rugged-yet-spectacular Granite Park Chalet will introduce you to the local bighorns and take you past gushing waterfalls.

What are your plans for Earth Day and National Park Week? Let us know in the comments!

 

 

 
 

 

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5 Tips for Traveling Green

Tuesday, April 12th, 2011

Nicole and friend taking a pedi-cab to a Colorado Rockies game

How eco-conscious are you when you are on vacation? Is it like your diet – a distant memory until you return home? Or are you aware of your environmental impact even when you are away? In the United States alone, more than 43 million people consider themselves eco-tourists.

Here are a few of my tips for things that you can do to conserve and protect our earth while you are traveling:

1. Pack your own reusable water bottles. Simple enough! Not only is this cost-effective for you but it significantly cuts down on plastic waste. More than 31 million single-serve plastic bottles end up in landfills or as litter every day. You can light a 60-watt light bulb for six hours a day from recycling a single plastic bottle.

2. Bring your own toiletries, instead of using the hotels’ bath products. You can purchase travel size refillable bottles for almost anything from shampoo to contact solution. Simply fill them before your trip and never be without your favorite incidentals. This is a significant change you can make as solid waste disposal and landfills become an even bigger environmental issue. Operation Clean the World collects leftover and discarded soaps and toiletries from hotels, reprocesses them and distributes them to homeless shelters and across the world to stop the spread of infectious diseases.

3. Reuse hotel towels. Most hotels now post signs in the bathrooms requesting that you re-hang your towel for an extra use before having it laundered. On average, the washing of linens consumes 35% of a hotel’s energy consumption for the laundry process and 65% for the drying process. According to Zerowaste.org, the average amount of water used (in a luxury hotel) is 475 gallons per room/per day. Wow!  While many hotels are putting in systems to reduce water waste and maximize efficiencies, you can help by simply being aware of your own water consumption.

4. Consider alternative transportation. Choosing a hotel that is centrally located to the sites/interests that you are visiting may enable you to eliminate the need for a rental car. Minimize your carbon footprint and get to know an area by walking to nearby sites. Take advantage of complimentary hotel shuttles or hire a pedi-cab. Many hotels can help you with a bicycle rental as well. Some cities, such as Denver and San Antonio, actually have a bike sharing program called B-Cycle that allows you to take a bike located at a number of bike racks around the city for a nominal charge and simply leave it at another rack when you are done. 

5. Choose Sustainable Hotels and restaurants. Many hotels and resorts realize the negative impact that their business was having on the environment and have taken significant steps to alleviate that strain. Efforts include but are not limited to reducing waste and eliminating toxic chemicals used in cleaning, installing energy efficient lighting, dimmers and timers to reduce energy consumption, installing Energy Star appliances, installing water diverters on existing toilets or low-flow toilets, installing high performance, low-flow showerheads, landscaping with native plants, serving water only when requested, providing recycling areas for guests and staff.  Here are a few of the notable eco-friendly hotels.

How are you reducing your carbon footprint when traveling? Please share any thoughts or questions you may have below!

 
 

 

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The Most Eco-Friendly U.S. Hotels

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

To honor Earth Day, today’s post is merely about saying “Well done and reach farther” to a few U.S. hotels that are making their lightest environmental footprint one critical step at a time.

From offsetting power consumption to using nontoxic cleaning supplies and organic, locally grown produce, it’s not hard (any more) to find a hotel that truly is aware and somewhat responsible for its environmental impact. Being green is a trend that is here to stay in hospitality, and as you travel the globe, enjoy finding these gems (and there are more every day) that make being good to the environment so amazingly cool. For example, The Standard Hotel, both the West Hollywood (Ca.) as well as the Downtown Los Angeles location, just made Boxed Water, because it really is better, available in every hotel room.

Here are a few more hotels that I found (I checked the Green Hotels Association, Green Seal, istaygreen.org, etc.) that are truly committed to being green, while delivering a great customer hotel experience:

  • The Orchard Garden Hotel, San Francisco. This LEED-certified (U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design program) hotel embodies the green concept in its construction and operations.
  • Gaia Napa Valley Hotel & Spa, American Canyon, CA. Nearly three years old, this hotel was created with as many recycled materials and as little energy that could be used.
  • Hilton Vancouver (Wa.). This LEED-certified hotel offers a refueling station for electric cars, a heat-reflecting roof and uses local organic growers to supply its restaurant.
  • Hotel Monaco, Chicago.  Soy ink, recycling bins in the rooms, donation programs and non-toxic cleaning supplies are just a few of the eco-finds in a Kimpton Hotel. Many of Chicago’s hotels are also making green waves. And all of Kimpton’s 42 hotels are not only chic and customer-centric but they even have Kimpton’s EarthCare standards of environmentally friendly products and practices.
  • Habitat Suites, Austin, TX. This hotel’s efficiency programs conserve big: nearly 2.4 million gallons of water and 38,000 pounds of carbon dioxide annually.
  • The Fairmont Orchid, Hawaii. This resort uses biodegradable cleaning products, pesticide-free landscaping practices and supports a local university program that monitors the nearby coral reefs. Fairmont Hotels are hospitality eco-pioneers.  All hotels offer sustainable, locally sourced and organic products, wherever possible.

So remember when you travel, it’s not just about traveling light, it’s about having the lightest travel footprint, too!

 
 

 

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