10 Ways to find luxury and have an Eco-Friendly vacation
Luxury travel denotes well-appointed hotel suites, fine dining, and massages at an on-site full-service day spa.
To the uninitiated, ecotourism conjures up images of pup tents, manual labor, and, if you’re lucky, hot water for your shower.
Where the two meet are often exotic or an urban adventure that satisfy your wanderlust in ecofriendly style.
And here are the 10 Ways to find your perfect green luxury adventure.
1 Vero Beach Hotel and Spa, Vero Beach, Fla.
This Green Seal-certified beachside resort not only makes great efforts to save water and energy, but also rewards guests for doing their part, including parking discounts for hybrid vehicles.
2 Inn by the Sea, Cape Elizabeth, Maine
The first hotel in Maine to be carbon-neutral through offsets also offers plenty of luxuries to its green-seeking guests. Stroll down the private boardwalk to a mile of sandy beach or stay inside and indulge yourself at the LEED-certified spa.
3 Pinehurst Inn, Bayfield, Wis.
This serene inn softens its environmental impact without skimping on the guest services. Complete with whirlpools, fireplaces and a full organic breakfast, it also includes solar-paneled roofs and energy-efficient appliances.
4 Sadie Cove Wilderness Lodge, Homer, Alaska
This eco-lodge puts up a maximum of 12 guests per night and groups of six or more can have the lodge to themselves, so it’s a true escape. The lodge relies entirely on wind energy and hydropower and works hard not to interfere with the untouched wilderness on its doorstep. You might even be lucky enough to spot a whale, seal, porpoise, or one of many other sea creatures right outside!
5 Orchard Garden Hotel, San Francisco, Calif.
This LEED-certified hotel is in the heart of what is arguably America’s greenest city. Skip the car while in town and take a stylish refurbished tram, or rent a Prius to visit nearby Point Reyes National Seashore and dine at Alice Waters’s Chez Panisse in Berkeley.
6 Buttermilk Falls Inn and Spa, Milton, NY
About 90 miles from New York City, this inn on the Hudson River serves local, organic foods grown on site and relies on geothermal and solar energy to warm its spa waters.
- Dunton Hot Springs Resort and Spa, Dolores, Colo.
This resort, in a former ghost town located in the San Juan Mountains, is close enough to the desert for trips to Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly.
- Jean Michel Cousteau Resort, Fiji
The resort itself is modeled after of a traditional Fijian village and makes use of traditional architecture and construction techniques along with natural materials. “bures,” or bungalows, are used as the individual guest rooms and are topped with steeply pitched thatch roofs. The tall ceilings let the hot air rise, while louvered windows allow for natural cross ventilation when open and project the interior from rain or storms when closed.
- Tierra Patagonia Torres Del Paine, Chile
This rustic-mod 40-room hotel and spa—designed by Chilean architects Cazú Zegers (a past winner of Buenos Aires’s architecture biennale), Roberto Benavente, and Rodrigo Ferrer—sits on the shores of Lake Sarmiento at the entrance to Torres del Paine National Park and the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, its gentle curves evoking the windswept dunes that surround it.
10 Park Hyatt Hadahaa In Gaafu Alifu Atoll, The Malddives
This private-island hideaway in the Indian Ocean eschews the rustic-chic aesthetic of so many equatorial escapes. Instead, its 50 villas—14 of which are built over the water, many with their own pools—exhibit a thoroughly modern sense of style.
What are your thoughts about luxury green vacation?
