Sustainable Travel & Ecotourism

Each time you take a flight or drive a car, CO2 is released into the atmosphere. You can help neutralize this danger to our planet through "carbon offsetting" -- paying someone to reduce your CO2 emissions by the same amount you've added. Carbon offsets can be purchased in the U.S. from companies such as Carbonfund.org (www.carbonfund.org) and TerraPass (www.terrapass.org), and from Climate Care (www.climatecare.org) in the U.K.

Although one can argue persuasively that any vacation including an airplane flight can't be truly "green," you can offset carbon emissions from your flight in other ways. Choose forward-looking companies that embrace responsible development practices, helping preserve destinations for the future by working alongside local people. An increasing number of sustainable tourism initiatives can help you plan a family trip and leave as small a "footprint" as possible on the places you visit.

Responsible Travel (www.responsibletravel.com) contains a great source of sustainable travel ideas run by a spokesperson for responsible tourism in the travel industry. Sustainable Travel International (www.sustainabletravelinternational.org) also promotes responsible tourism practices and issues an annual Green Gear & Gift Guide.

You can find eco-friendly travel tips, statistics, and touring companies and associations -- listed by destination under "Travel Choice" -- at The International Ecotourism Society (TIES) website, www.ecotourism.org. Also check out Conservation International (www.conservation.org), which, with National Geographic Traveler, annually presents World Legacy Awards (www.nationalgeographic.com/traveler/worldlegacyaward.html) to those travel tour operators, businesses, organizations, and places that have made a significant contribution to sustainable tourism. Ecotravel.com is part online magazine and part eco-directory that lets you search for touring companies in several categories (water-based, land-based, spiritually oriented, and so on).

In the U.K., Tourism Concern (www.tourismconcern.org.uk) works to reduce social and environmental problems connected to tourism and find ways of improving tourism so that local benefits are increased.

The Association of British Travel Agents (www.abta.com) acts as a focal point for the U.K. travel industry and is one of the leading groups spearheading responsible tourism. The Association of Independent Tour Operators (www.aito.co.uk) is another group of interesting specialist operators leading the field in making holidays sustainable.

Landscape Is Not Just Scenery

The countryside of the Atlantic Provinces is not just scenery -- it's home to millennia of natural history (of volcanoes, icebergs, polar bears, whales, and caribou, oh my!), as well as human history (of Vikings, native Canadians, fishermen, and hunters who predate the earliest European settlers, lobstermen). And the story this history tells continues today, creating the place we call eastern Canada. Understand the history, and these creatures and landscapes you'll be interacting with, before you get there and you'll have a better trip -- and become a more ecologically aware traveler with a deeper respect for what you're experiencing.

Pick up the books of Canadian author Farley Mowat; a locally written book on eastern Canadian geography, geology, natural history, or native Canadian culture (library book sales and local gift shops are two great sources); or a novel by E. Annie Proulx. For information about the whales you'll be glimpsing (and how to respect them), for example, visit the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (www.wdcs.org). For info on traveling lightly in general, see Tread Lightly (www.treadlightly.org) online.

It's Easy Being Green

• Whenever possible, choose nonstop flights; they generally require less fuel than those that must stop and take off again.

• If renting a car is necessary (it might be, in Atlantic Canada), ask the rental agent for the smallest, most fuel-efficient car available that will serve your traveling party's needs. Not only will you use less gas, you'll save at the pump.

• At hotels, request that your sheets and towels not be changed daily. You'll save water and energy by not washing them as often, and you'll prolong the life of the towels, too. (Many hotels already have programs like this in place.)

• Turn off lights and air conditioners (or heaters) when you leave your hotel room.