Long before green and ecotourism became travel buzzwords, I chose to sleep on woven mats in stilt huts in Asia in order to give a meager donation to the village chief for my stay. Now, ecotourism—defined by The International Ecotourism Society (TIES) as, “responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the welfare of local people,” is a booming industry, with eco resorts springing up like rice in paddy fields after monsoon season.Travelers are going green and spending more green in their efforts to be responsible. Tourists who stay in eco resorts on the Caribbean island of Dominica, spend eighteen times more than the average cruise passenger. And independent travelers who go to Komodo National Park in Indonesia to witness the Komodo dragons spend almost one hundred U.S. dollars more than those on an “irresponsible” holiday package tour.
I went on a hunt to seek out ten spectacular green getaways, because I figured if I’m going to lay down the green, I may as well “tread lightly” when I go.
Lapa Rios
Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica
A couple from Minnesota sold it all to create this eco resort on 1,000 acres of lowland tropical rainforest—the last of its kind in Costa Rica. Sixteen thatch bungalows sit overlooking where the Pacific Ocean connects with the Golfo Dulce on the Osa Peninsula near Corcovado National Park. The lodge employs fifty locals, helps to preserve the primary forest reserve, and educates their workers at the Carbonara School. Guests can enjoy ocean activities, camp in the jungle, and observe wildlife all while their stay supports the preservation of their natural neighbors.
Ecocamp
Torres del Paine National Park, Patagonia, Chile
Ancient inhabitants lived in huts that blended harmoniously with Mother Nature, which was the inspiration for EcoCamp’s geodesic domes that allow 100 mph winds to roll off their design. Patagonia’s eco concept is to expose guests to the elements with the comfort of a four-star hotel. With their nomadic spirit alive (the hotel is portable and can be removed each winter to allow the terrain to recover), thirty guests can enroll in any of Patagonia’s surrounding adventures and come home to their toasty dome and composting toilets.
Hotel Terra
Jackson Hole, Wyoming
During summers spent near Jackson Hole two years ago, I watched the Terra Resort Group build this six-story green hotel in town using Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification as their process. By using reclaimed lumber, crushed glass, and even seatbelts in finishes throughout, as well as a runoff water system that collects in an underground tank, filters and releases drip water back into the environment, Hotel Terra reduces any pollution from flowing back into the surrounding habitat. Jackson Hole boasts natural wonders in nearby Teton and Yellowstone National Parks, as well as some of the best skiing, fly-fishing, and rafting in the world.
Jungle Bay Resort & Spa
Dominica, West Indies
As winner of Condé Nast Traveler magazine’s 2007 World Saver Awards for poverty alleviation, Jungle Bay is an eco resort dedicated to its community. Built using TIES principles, thirty-five cottages sit on wooden posts beneath the canopy of Gomier and Cedar trees in order to minimize any soil disturbance, Jungle Bay donated $53,000 to help develop a community-operated facility for indigent children with severe disabilities from Dominica’s southeast and continues with a new venture in their House of Hope. Guests can scuba dive, hike to waterfalls, or hire a local guide trained in responsible travel techniques for a guided tour of the surrounding ecosystem.
Chumbe Island
Zanzibar, Tanzania, Africa
Named one of three conservation finalists for the Smithsonian Magazine and Tourism Cares for Tomorrow Sustainable Tourism Awards, Chumbe Island allows only fourteen people on the island at one time. Seven eco beach bandas made with local materials (one banda has a palm front wall that can be lowered in order to take in the waves and beach just outside the front door) is rustic in nature but introduces guests to incredible biodiversity from the ocean floor. A non-profit run by local employees manages the resort while one of East Africa’s most diverse coral reefs allows for snorkeling trips by local guides. Those here to relax can also visit the old lighthouse at sunset or get to know the other guests and staff while enjoying a mixture of European-Swahili cuisine.
Teniqua Treetops
Near Western Cape, South Africa
Guests should ask to stay in Loerie’s Nest, so the sunrise can shine through the trees as you bathe in your personal bathtub while looking out over the trees through the flap of your tented tree house. Teniqua Treetops Eco-Friendly Tented Treehouses give guests the remote experience of relaxing in the canopy of the forest. They harvest their rainwater for guests’ use and process grey and black water by using the latest toilet systems in to keep any waste out of the catchment areas.
Mauna Lani Resort
Kohala Coast, Hawaii
Mauna Lani’s solar energy innovations have earned the resort the distinction of generating more solar electric power than any other luxury resort in the world. The golf water system pumps brackish water into its thirty-eight golf holes and the 8,000 square foot air-conditioned pro-shop uses solar power during peak hours. Guests can enjoy the pools and ocean or take part in the resort’s green sea turtle program, which collaborates with Oahu’s Sea Life Park by Dolphin Discovery to raise turtles in its saltwater ponds until large enough to be released into the wild.
Danzante Eco Resort
Baja, Mexico
With no TVs, phones, or internet to distract guests, this 100 percent solar powered resort overlooking the Sea of Cortez includes a communal dining palapa amidst eight other casitas. Helping to maintain the local fishing village, fishermen’s wives cook the daily catch in the kitchen and a local hiking guide helps guests discover the wild. Danzante also helps local families by providing no-interest loans to help them incorporate solar panels into their architecture and each guest’s stay includes entrance to the Loreto Marine Park, which doubles as Danzante’s donation to the park for maintenance, operations, and program development.
Whitepod
Near Les Cerniers, Switzerland
Perched like life-size snowballs in the Alps at over 5,000 feet, Swiss local, Sofie de Meyer, designed five pods around a traditional 1800s Alpine chalet. The resort encourages its ten guests to use low-impact travel by train, and then clip into skis or snow shoes to access their highly insulated pods (with a luminescent wall for passive solar heating), each equipped with a wood-burning stove. Whitepod also contributes to local organizations and charities to help the environment and restore landmarks, making this a ski holiday that allows guests to leave more than just their ski trail.
Three Camel Lodge
Gobi Desert, Mongolia
This eco resort uses wind and solar power to run its main lodge, which artisans built using ancient architectural techniques (without one nail) as well as the thirty Gers—the indigenous felt tents of nomadic herders—where guests can relax after venturing out into the Gobi desert by camel or horseback. The owners worked with the local government and National Park authorities to agree to a No Hunting clause within a twelve-mile radius of the lodge, which doubles as a wildlife research center and includes nature conservations clubs for local schoolchildren.
With these rewarding options, I think I’m going to have a hard time choosing which environment I’ll want to tread lightly on—the snow, jungle, or the desert.
[Via - DivineCaroline.Com]
Katrina Victims Claim $3 Quadrillion In Suffering
10 Oddest Things Sold On Amazon.Com
1. Developments in Dairy Cow Breeding: New Opportunities to Widen the Use of Straw
3. High Performance Stiffened Structures
4. Butterworths Corporate Manslaughter Service
6. The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories
9. The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification
10. If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start with Your Legs
[Source -Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year]
More Strange Top10 Lists:
Ten Best Sites About Corporate Greed And Mismanagement
10 Books Are Just As Good As Freakonomics
10 Totally Stupid Online Business Ideas That Made Someone Rich
2. http://10qdetective.blogspot.com/
3. http://www.accountingobserver.com/blog/
4. http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/
5. http://angrybear.blogspot.com/
6. http://bigpicture.typepad.com/
8. http://proxyland.blogspot.com/
9. http://www.lewrockwell.com/
10. http://www.informationarbitrage.com/
More Top 10 Sites To See:
10 Books Are Just As Good As Freakonomics
1. Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets: Surviving the Public Spectacle in Finance and Politics
In Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets, Bonner and freelance journalist Lila Rajiva use literary economics to offer broader insights into mass behavior and its devastating effects on society. Why is it, they ask, that perfectly sane and responsible individuals can get together, and by some bizarre alchemy turn into an irrational mob? What makes them trust charlatans and demagogues who manipulate their worst instincts? Why do they abandon good sense, good behavior and good taste when an empty slogan is waved in front of them. Why is the road to hell paved with so many sterling intentions? Why is there a fool on every corner and a knave in every public office?
2. A Demon of Our Own Design: Markets, Hedge Funds, and the Perils of Financial Innovation
Why do markets keep crashing and why are financial crises greater than ever before? As the risk manager to some of the leading firms on Wall Street–from Morgan Stanley to Salomon and Citigroup–and a member of some of the world’s largest hedge funds, from Moore Capital to Ziff Brothers and FrontPoint Partners, Rick Bookstaber has seen the ghost inside the machine and vividly shows us a world that is even riskier than we think. The very things done to make markets safer, have, in fact, created a world that is far more dangerous. From the 1987 crash to Citigroup closing the Salomon Arb unit, from staggering losses at UBS to the demise of Long-Term Capital Management, Bookstaber gives readers a front row seat to the management decisions made by some of the most powerful financial figures in the world that led to catastrophe, and describes the impact of his own activities on markets and market crashes. Much of the innovation of the last 30 years has wreaked havoc on the markets and cost trillions of dollars.
3. Poop Culture: How America Is Shaped by Its Grossest National Product
Poop Culture is an excellent book about a topic that is largely (and unfairly) ignored. Perhaps the greatest asset and the greatest weakness of the book is its breadth. The author covers many different approaches to the topic–from the psycho-social elements of poop (i.e. shame) to the history of the toilet to cultural symbolism to poop in art to the economic/ecologic effects of the way we as a society deal with our poop. It’s at once odd and heartwarming to see a diagram of the best way to poop (squatting) or talk of South Park in the same book that also contains theoretical musings on Jonathan Swift and Marcel Duchamp.
4. The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World
I think that I have read all of the recent “economics of everything” (Harford’s phrase) books and this one is, in my view, the best. I also try to keep up with recent research in applied economics and found some gems in these pages that I had missed. The author alludes to about 200 papers and books from recent economics research and presents them in the most reader-friendly way, all in about 200 pages. I call that very efficient. Harford’s summary is also a useful antidote to all the “behavioral economics” that the popular press has picked up. The idea that some of us depart from rational choice on occasion is hardly news. The point of this book, that the rational choice model, has amazing power range is worth reiterating.
5. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
Four hundred years ago, Francis Bacon warned that our minds are wired to deceive us. “Beware the fallacies into which undisciplined thinkers most easily fall–they are the real distorting prisms of human nature.” Chief among them: “Assuming more order than exists in chaotic nature.” Now consider the typical stock market report: “Today investors bid shares down out of concern over Iranian oil production.” Sigh. We’re still doing it.
6. The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas
The book indeed is like Freakonomics in that its purpose is to reveal the economic rational behind everyday matters. It is different from Freakonomics in that it follows a “top-down” approach: each of the book’s chapters corresponds to a basic economic principle (for example supply and demand for a chapter, and signals and asymmetric information for another) that is explained via real world examples. So if one can say that the goal of Freakonomics was in reaching the bottom reason/motive of particular phenomena, it can also be said that the goal of The Economic Naturalist is to elicit fundamental economic principles through questions and answers. In this sense the book is more educational.
The book is full of fascinating stories in which psychology meets economics. The author applies the above concepts and ideas to a wide, wide variety of everyday situations, such as chess, doing the dishes, UN diplomat parking violations, bonuses in the workplace, petty crime, expercise programs, student drinking, tardiness, RSVP’s, meetings, going to museums, buying paintings, reading, buying music, toilet seat positions (a very, very important topic), gift giving, pickup lines, personal ads, marriage, being tortured, recognizing liars, gym memberships, shopping, eating and restaurants and getting the best food, “The Seven Deadly Sins”, sexual intercourse, beggars, charitable giving, and tipping. WHEW! WOW!
In 1906, Francis Galton, known for his work on statistics and heredity, came across a weight-judging contest at the West of England Fat Stock and Poultry Exhibition. This encounter was to challenge the foundations of his life’s study. An ox was on display and for six-pence fair-goers could buy a stamped and numbered ticket, fill in their names and their guesses of the animal’s weight after it had been slaughtered and dressed. The best guess received a prize. Eight hundred people tried their luck. They were diverse. Many had no knowledge of livestock; others were butchers and farmers. In Galton’s mind this was a perfect analogy for democracy. He wanted to prove the average voter was capable of very little. Yet to his surprise, when he averaged the guesses, the total came to 1197 pounds. After the ox had been slaughtered, it weighted 1198. James Surowiecki takes Galton’s counterintuitive notion and explores its ramification for business, government, science and the economy. It is a book about the world as it is. At the same time, it is a book about the world as it might be. Most of us believe that valuable nuggets of knowledge are concentrated in few minds. We believe the solution to our complex problems lies in finding the right person. When all we have to do, Surowiecki demonstrates over and over, is ask the gathered crowd.
9. The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less
Like Thoreau and the band Devo, psychology professor Schwartz provides ample evidence that we are faced with far too many choices on a daily basis, providing an illusion of a multitude of options when few honestly different ones actually exist. The conclusions Schwartz draws will be familiar to anyone who has flipped through 900 eerily similar channels of cable television only to find that nothing good is on. Whether choosing a health-care plan, choosing a college class or even buying a pair of jeans, Schwartz, drawing extensively on his own work in the social sciences, shows that a bewildering array of choices floods our exhausted brains, ultimately restricting instead of freeing us. We normally assume in America that more options (”easy fit” or “relaxed fit”?) will make us happier, but Schwartz shows the opposite is true, arguing that having all these choices actually goes so far as to erode our psychological well-being. Part research summary, part introductory social sciences tutorial, part self-help guide, this book offers concrete steps on how to reduce stress in decision making. Some will find Schwartz’s conclusions too obvious, and others may disagree with his points or find them too repetitive, but to the average lay reader, Schwartz’s accessible style and helpful tone is likely to aid the quietly desperate.
This book deserves the widest possible exposure in America, especially so close to the election, because it an excellent primer on how to guard yourself against the faulty reasoning that governs so much modern political discourse - and avoid adopting it yourself. I first heard about the book because one of its points was mentioned in an essay. The point was basically that just because someone has a motive to hold a certain position doesn’t necessarily mean that the position is false. This seemed pretty obvious, but as I turned to the media I was amazed at how often politicians use this method, and how easily I had accepted their claims if they lined up with my political preferences.