Green Travel

In today's Wall Street Journal, there was the article about hotels going green. It talks about how hotels are trying to be eco-friendly to attract more environmentally-conscious people. Very timely one, I thought. To be honest, I have not done anything "green" while traveling, so I thought it is a good idea to do some research for the future travel.

There are numerous ways to be environmentally responsible when we go on a trip. You can:

• offset the carbon emissions (air plane & cars)
• stay earth-friendly hotels
• choose hybrid rental vehicle

Here is the resource page.

I know that most of us try to save as much money as possible while traveling. I am one of them. When I am shopping for the air ticket, I usually go for the best bargain, so paying extra 10 or 40 bucks for carbon emissions, I would have to pause and consider. But I found that I could still be green without spending any extra money. Easiest thing would be to reuse a bed sheet and towels at a hotel. If towels are neatly folded, usually those won't be replaced with new ones. Or some "Green Hotels" have a card to let the guests decide. Or we can just leave a little note, saying it is not necessary to change the sheet and towels. That costs zero dollars!!

Here is a list of what you can do with no extra cost. At a hotel, you can:

• reuse your sheets and towels at a hotel
• turn off the air conditioning, heat, television, lights or any other electric devices when you leave a hotel room
• check your hotel's recycling program. If none, take your bottles etc with you, or use the public recycling bin if available.
• give your feedback to hotel; encourage them to go green

For the transportation, you can:

• choose earth-friendly transportation (walking, biking, public transportation etc)
• choose a smaller rent-car if you need a car
• choose train instead of air plane if applicable

You don't need to stretch your purse to go green. So let's start today to be green even when we are away from home