Find Your Own Eco Hotel
We’re always on the hunt for new and interesting environmentally friendly hotels (you can see some of our recent finds here and here). So we were excited to learn about a new website that’s begun listing some of the best. The aptly-named Eco Hotels of the World has a write-ups of more than 75 “green” properties; their mission is to help people “enjoy [your] next holiday knowing that you are one of the good guys!” We think of ourselves as good guys, so we were happy to have a look.
Click through the site’s handy map to navigate the options: For example, you can crash at the Bushy Point Fernbirds Homestay in New Zealand, a two-bedroom B&B located on a privately-owned nature reserve that uses recycled rainwater and is completely carbon neutral. Or perhaps you’d rather venture to the village of Ulpotha, a Sri Lankan pilgrimage site and yoga retreat that has us longing to do some downward dogs. They don’t use electricity (only lamp oil and a bit of kerosene), offer yoga classes twice daily, and as the listing says: “The villagers that run Ulpotha do not need to know the meaning of the word eco as their lives are inherently ecologically sound.”
The site has a five-star rating system, and asks that hotels fill out a questionnaire about their sustainable practices. Not surprisingly, a majority of the hotels give themselves a five-star rating on nearly every count, but it’s good to know that the hotels are heavily vetted by the site’s editors (and many of them are also on our Stay List). Eco Hotels’ director, Alex Conti, tells us that they’re still growing in terms of listings, but we think it could become a great resource for someone looking to be “one of the good guys.”
- Nat Geo Expeditions
