Green travel

Green travel  is a travel in which a positive environmental impact is kept to a maximum and a negative environmental impact is kept to a minimum.

A popular type of green travel is ecotourism, which involves traveling to a natural location where your tourism helps to sustain the local population and protect nature at the same time.

Another type of green travel which is similar to ecotourism is sustainable tourism, which is the act of preserving natural resources and eco friendly cultures while traveling.

Green travel is about responsibility and taking control. When tourism includes local communities, helps distribute revenues throughout villages and promotes conservation of natural areas, then all parties – private resorts, local authorities and village residents – are in control of their resources.

Throughout Asia, resorts and ecotourism ventures are learning the lessons of going green. They understand that making the effort to be responsible is a winning proposition. These are some really simple steps you can take to help green up your stay

• Encourage the hotel you chose to go green or thank them for the green programs that they participate in! Speak with the management and let them know that green options are important to you.
• If your hotel has a sheets and towels reuse program, use it. If they don't, start your own! Let housekeeping know that you don't need them to replace your sheets and towels every day; this will reduce energy and water usage.
• Turn off the lights, air conditioner or heater, and the electronics in your room while you're out.
• Turn off the water when you brush your teeth, and take shorter showers. Bring a reusable bottle to drink from rather than purchase multiple plastic bottles, which require a lot of energy to manufacture, collect and recycle.
• Bring your own toiletries, or if you use what the hotel provides make sure to take what's leftover home with you.
• When you're visiting a park or any natural setting, don't disturb the plants or wildlife.
• Never buy anything made from an endangered animal or plant.
• Make sure you save any trash until you find a garbage can, and wherever possible save your recyclables for a recycling drop-off.
• Whenever you can, shop and buy from the local vendors. This helps support the local economy, and submerges you in the areas culture.
• Try to avoid the large chains that carry goods shipped in from overseas. All that shipping creates tons of CO2 and the large chains can push the locals out of business.

Advantages of Green Travel:

Green travel helps to provide the local people with various types of jobs in the parks, sanctuaries, hotels or other places of stay.

Green travel also has been able to improve the quality of life especially of the small children. A country like Malagasy has been able to use ecotourism to command respect for the environment. It has also been able to save wild lands because of ecotourism.