For travelers, picking places (Tasmania, Tanzania, Tashkent?!) involves a complex matrix of choices. An increasingly important factor is among the hardest to measure: sustainability practices adopted to secure a brighter future for destinations.



On our Best Trips List 2020, the Maldives is heralded as an environmental protection trailblazer. This low-lying, 1,200-island archipelago in the Indian Ocean will soon be carbon neutral, but it will still be threatened by rising sea levels caused by climate change. It will take the world to protect these islands.



Would you pay more for a more sustainable vacation? Travelers are now considering this question and others (including their own carbon emissions) before choosing their next trip. In a National Geographic