Go Green Travel Green

Let’s face it, as much as we love camping, hostels, and eco-lodges sometimes a hotel is the most reasonable option. Luckily, even when staying at the least environmentally-friendly hotel you have a lot of control over your environmental impact. Here are 11 of our favorite tips and tricks for being a little friendlier to Mother Earth during your next hotel stay:

1. Unplug, unplug, unplug. The first thing you should do when you walk into a hotel room is unplug. 5 lamps? Unplug 4. Mini-fridge? Unless you’ve brought a turkey and mayo sandwich, unplug. Coffee maker? Unplug. Hair dryer? Unplug. Appliances drain energy even when they’re not on. If you just spend 2 minutes unplugging items you will already have made a difference.


photo credit: trekkyandy

2. Hang your towel. In my experience housekeeping is haphazard in their pledge to “save the environment one towel at a time.” Most times I hang the towel and come back later to find they’ve replaced it anyway; but about 50% of the time they leave it for me.
3. Move the soap. An easy trick to reduce your waste is to bring the bar of soap with you to the shower when you shower and leave it by the sink the rest of the time. Seriously, when was the last time you used two full bars of soap at a hotel? (Or even one full bar?)
4. Stick the “Do not Disturb” on your door. Or just call housekeeping and tell them you won’t need their services during your stay. To prevent the hotel from wasting water by changing your sheets and towels, wasting electricity by vacuuming, and spraying harsh chemicals all over your toothbrush, just ask them to refrain from cleaning your room during your stay.
5. Adjust the thermostat. By lowering the temperature by 2 degrees in the winter or raising it by 2 in the summer you will save a lot of energy. And you won’t notice the difference.
6. When you leave the room turn everything off:
   • Lights
   • TV
   • Thermostat (if the weather is mild)
7. Flush less frequently. No need to flush every time. Practice the “if it’s brown flush it down, if it’s yellow let it mellow” rule.
8. Bring your own toiletries. I personally know the pains of the 3 oz of liquids on planes rule. A liter of genuine, carried-back-from-Ireland Whiskey was confiscated from us on a 6 am flight the day the emergency (and now permanent) rule came down. True story. But think of all of the plastics that are used to create tiny bottles of shampoo and conditioner. And all of the extra packaging in luxury hotel items. Plus, by bringing your own shampoo you can prevent a bad hair day from bad shampoo.
9. Take shorter showers. Sometimes a long, hot shower feels incredible. But do you need that every day? The average US shower head spits out about 2.5 gallons per minute, which means in a 15 minute shower you use nearly 40 gallons of water. Yikes!
10. Leave the pen (and other freebies) behind. I don’t know why, but I’m a sucker for free pens. Even the crappy ones that explode in my purse on the airplane ride home. Do the earth a favor and leave these items behind.
11. Recycle. Find out if the hotel recycles. If they do, ask if they separate it out from waste-bins. If they don’t, take your free USA Today and empty cans and bottles and toss them in an extra pocket in your suitcase to recycle later. They weigh almost nothing.

What tips or tricks do you have that help you be a (more) responsible hotel-goer?

11 Tips and Tricks for Greening your Hotel Stay is the sixteenth post in Go Green Travel Green’s 25 Days to Green Travel series. If you haven’t already, subscribe to our feed (also available via email) and stay up to date.

As our last post in the “before you go” section of 25 Days to Green Travel, we’ve chosen to write about finding green accommodations. As greenwashing becomes ever more popular, it’s critical that we are cautious when searching for environmentally-friendly lodging. There are 5 basic types of accommodations to consider when you are looking to lessen your impact: hotels, eco-lodges, hostels, camping, and what I’m going to call “shared housing.” Camping is generally the greenest and hotels are generally the least green.

But before you make your reservations, consider your preferences. Do you want the most environmentally-friendly? The most convenient? The most centrally located? How much are you willing to pay? All of these considerations will factor into your choice of accommodation.

After you’ve answered those questions, use these resources to explore your lodging options.

Camping

Tip: When camping, practice leaving no trace. The Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics is an educational, nonprofit organization dedicated to the responsible enjoyment and active stewardship of the outdoors by all people, worldwide.

If you’re looking to camp with your furry friend, check out Kimberly’s 5 Tips for Camping Green with Your Dog.

U.S.

About.com’s Find a Campground Just click on a state to get started.
ReserveAmerica /Reservations.NPS.gov / Recreation.gov These three sites recently merged. You can search by type of campground, state, park name, and dates.

International

L.L. Bean’s Park Search Thousands of campsites across the world, searchable by country, outdoor activity, or park name.

photo credit: stereogab

European
Europe Camping Guide 5,600 campsites searchable by country.
European Federation of Campingsite Organisations and Holiday Park Associations
Interhike Book 4,200+ hostels and find information about 19,000+ camping sites in Europe.

Australian
Aussie Camping Information on the many camping and caravan sites around Australia.

camping.com.au Over 2,800 listed campgrounds and holiday parks, hotels and resorts, campervan, RV and motorhome rentals.

Hostels

HostelWorld Over 15,000 Hostels in over 168 Countries.
Hostels.com Featuring 22,897 Hostels and other cheap places to stay worldwide.

Shared Housing

CouchSurfing Meet locals and stay for free, then host travelers in your home. It’s a worldwide network for making connections between travelers and the local communities they visit.
WWOOF: World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms - Volunteer on organic farms across the world.
You can find more shared housing options in: Vagabondish’s 8 Tools to Help You Travel Forever and Live Rent Free.

Eco-Lodges

Eco Hotel & Lodge Collection An association of environmentally and socially responsible hotels, lodges, inns & resorts.
ResponsibleTravel.com A selection of eco lodges that caters to the responsible traveller at all budget levels.

Green Hotels

Finding an environmentally-friendly hotel is tricky as I learned when writing Finding Environmentally-Friendly Hotels through Green Accreditation Directories. Many of the directories are pay for link services which don’t require any true standard for listing. Some green accreditation directories include: EnvironmentallyFriendlyHotels.com, Sustainable Travel International, and Audubon International.

How to Find Green Accommodations is the twelfth post in Go Green Travel Green’s 25 Days to Green Travel series. If you haven’t already, subscribe to our feed (also available via email) and stay up to date.

If you already make efforts to be a “green” traveler, what does it take to be even greener? This week we will explore various ways to step up your green travel efforts using our shades of green travel spectrum. If you’re not familiar with the spectrum, it ranges from “pea green” travelers who are least likely to make extreme efforts to travel green; to “Kelly Green” travelers who make moderate efforts to be eco-conscious while traveling; to “forest green” travelers who will go to almost any length to leave no impact while traveling.

Accommodations

Green or Pea Green Travel Accommodations

Green travelers who want to make some efforts to be more environmentally friendly with their accommodations, but don’t want to sacrifice their own room, bathroom and the comforts of maid service can look for a green hotel. Be careful when browsing green hotel directories, however, as some may “directories” are merely advertising websites where hotels pay for membership.

Greener or Kelly Green Travel Accommodations

If you want to be a more responsible traveler you can conserve electricity by opting for accommodations with shared space. Hostels and couchsurfing are both better for the environment because you are sharing lights, heat, air conditioning, etc with others. Plus it’s a great way to meet other green travelers!

Greenest or Forest Green Travel Accommodations

photo credit: Rick McCharles

If you want to be the greenest of travelers you should opt for leave no trace camping. Leave No Trace offers a great set of resources for leave no trace camping.

Even if you are really set on green hotels as a green traveler and you have little desire to move to permanently become greener, consider staying one night in a hostel, or camping for a day or two on your next trip. It’s a great way to experience something new– that’s what traveling is all about!

With the 3 ounce bottle restrictions TSA has placed on carry-on liquids, more and more people are using hotel toiletries and leaving their own at home.

photo credit: Daniel Morrison

Here are 4 reasons to reconsider:

1. Hotel toiletries use a lot of packaging for a small amount of product.
2. The product itself isn’t earth friendly. (I have yet to see paraben-free product in my hotel room.)
3. They give you too much product; e.g. two bars of soap that will each last two weeks longer than my two night stay.
4. Most people use some of the product and throw the rest out.

If you insist on using the hotel toiletries, consider bringing the soap and shampoo bottle home with you. Put the soap in your shower at home and refill the bottle with shampoo before your next trip.

Hotel amenities (soap, shampoo, conditioner, etc.) can be extremely wasteful and one of the biggest wastes comes from packaging.

For instance, at a recent Sheraton stay I found this Bliss Shine “Vanity Kit” waiting for me in the bathroom along with the usual soaps and shampoo. Check out the contents:

So as you can see, the “vanity kit” is make of up several components:

• 1 post board box, clearly not recycled, containing
  • 1 plastic bag containing
    • 2 cotton balls
    • 2 more plastic bags containing
      • 1 emery board
      • 2 q-tips

The end result is: 3 items (q-tips, emery board, cotton balls) wrapped in 4 different packages!

How could Sheraton make this more environmentally friendly?

1. Only give this kit out as requested, rather than placing it in every room
2. Ditch the box
3. Ditch the two bags inside the main plastic bag

The end product would be one bag holding 3 items (resulting in 3 fewer packages), given only to people who need it. Not only would this decrease excess packaging resulting in lower packaging costs, it would also reduce the amount of space needed to transport these items.

How does one go about finding an eco friendly hotel? How do you know if a hotels efforts to “go green” are actually paying off?

As I began researching standards for green hotels, I became increasingly interested in the newly created “green” accreditation programs and standards that exist. What I found, as you will see below, was absolutely atrocious. Many of these “green standards” merely involve a hotel executive filling out a survey and sending in their self-administered questionnaire with their membership fee. I don’t know about you, but to me this is unacceptable.

Thus, while these sites are helpful to a certain extent, none are foolproof. Use your best judgment when looking for an environmentally friendly hotel.

EnvironmentallyFriendlyHotels.com shows the most promise only because individual reviewers can submit their ratings. But unfortunately, not many folks have done that yet. Their rating system is a series of green trees where hotels that are the least green receive 1 tree and hotels that are the most green receive 7 trees. If people started reviewing these hotels this site could become beneficial.

Eco Hotels and Lodge Collection seems to have hotels and lodges that are more environmentally conscious, but there are fewer of them. One piece of information I found to be interesting on their site:

There are over 2500 Properties (including camp grounds) around the world claiming to be either “eco” or “green”. EHLC estimates that no more than 5% of these Properties fully deliver on all the required criteria, while another 15% are in the process of attaining truly Sustainable Tourism status. This top 20% segment is EHLC’s select target group from which we invite Properties into membership.

Green Hotels Association while it has a nice name, seems to be more of an advertising membership directory where you pay to be listed.

Sustainable Travel International offers an eco-directory. (look under lodgings) Generally, I have found STI’s information to be excellent.

Responsible Travel specializes in holidays and tours and has an accommodation only section of their site.

The EU has the EU Eco-label and through their search catalogue you can search for tourist accommodation.

Energy Star rates American buildings including hotels. According to their website these facilities “are among the top 25% in the county for energy performance” .

Eco-Index Sustainable Tourism focuses on Latin America and the Caribbean.

Green Globe is a consulting and advisory company that allows you to search for accommodation.

International Ecotourism Society members must sign a code of conduct stating that they meet certain requirements.

Audobon offers a “green leaf” rating system. However, it is based on self-evaluations and a membership program.