Whatever a website might claim, your best bet is always to ask your own questions before booking, and to look for the greenest independent options first. Try these steps the next time you travel:
Choose a home-exchange instead
Save money and develop connections within the communities you visit when you join a home-exchange service. You offer your own home as lodging for others in exchange for the opportunity to stay in someone else’s home at your destination. Popular home-share programs include homeexchange.com, livekindred.com, and homelink.org.
Look for local options
Keep more of your travel dollars circulating within the communities you visit when you choose a locally owned-and-operated bed-and-breakfast or inn. Green America’s greenpages.org specializes in small, locally owned businesses. Here are some examples of green choices you will find in the Green Pages:
Montfair Resort Farm; Crozet, VA: A family-owned cluster of lakeside cottages in the Shenandoah Valley, Montfair invests in its local utility’s green-power program, uses all energy-efficient appliances and low-flow plumbing, and is a member of the Virginia Green Travel Alliance. “We encourage our guests to get outside and explore nature,” says owner Leora Vicenti. “Canoe along the lake’s edge, identify native plants, and experience the joy of the outdoors and land preservation firsthand.”
Shadowcliff Mountain Lodge; Grand Lake, CO: Located along the route of the Continental Divide Trail in Colorado, Shadowcliff can serve as a way station for hikers who left their car at home. “We maintain a ‘Laws of Nature’ trail on-site,” says Kimberly Carmitchel, Shadowcliff General Manager, referring to a Shadowcliff trail marked with signposts reminding hikers of nature-based wisdom, such as “Nature Favors Diversity,” “Nature Rewards Adaptation,” and “Nature Uses Only the Energy It Needs.”
Thyme in the Country Cottages; Hudson, NY: “We never touch plastic, we use solar panels to heat water and for electricity, and our water comes from our well,” says Mary Koch, owner of Thyme in the Country, a farmhouse inn with outbuildings that Koch is converting into cottages. Other sustainable features include composting toilets, in-season fruits and vegetables for guests, and Koch’s latest addition, a new fence so she can bring in sheep and goats to replace her gas-powered mower.
Ask questions when you book a conventional hotel
To start, check whether the workers at the hotel in question have access to a union, indicating that they enjoy workplace representation and the opportunity to collectively bargain for living wages and improved conditions. Find a unionized hotel by reviewing the listings at fairhotel.org, maintained by UNITE HERE, the US/Canada hospitality union. Then, ask to learn more about the hotel’s environmental sustainability practices when you book. If you can, ask and pressure the hotel to go beyond practices that save them money—such as not laundering sheets and towels daily—and take more ambitious steps like switching to clean energy.
Keeping such questions in front of hotel management not only helps you make your informed decision about where to stay, but also reminds companies that their guests care about the sustainability choices they make.
Safe travels to wherever your journeys take you!
- Does the hotel derive any portion of its energy from renewable sources? Has the company invested in any energy efficiency measures, or follow a long-term plan to reduce its energy-use or shift to renewables?
- Does the hotel offer single-use disposable plastic toiletries? Does the company have a plan to reduce plastic use, manage food waste, or reduce its output of waste overall?
- Does the hotel offer single-use disposable plastic toiletries? Does the company have a plan to reduce plastic use, manage food waste, or reduce its output of waste overall?
- Are any of the hotel’s furnishings upcycled, are any organic or regenerative fibers used in towels or linens, are the walls painted with low- or no-VOCs paints, and are any of the on-site food choices organic or local?
Engage your lawmakers in greening the hotel industry
To try to curb hotels’ reliance on single-use plastic packaging, lawmakers in some states have begun to act. In 2019, California passed the first US law banning hotel distribution of plastic single-use personal care products, beginning with large hotels in 2023, and phasing in smaller hotels in 2024. New York followed suit in 2021, with its law also coming into full effect in 2024, and Washington state passed a law in 2023 that will come into effect in 2027. As of September 2024, the Illinois House of Representatives was debating a similar bill already passed by the Illinois State Senate. If your state has not yet taken on the hotel industry’s plastic waste, consider pointing your legislators toward the bills in California, New York, Washington, and Illinois as examples of what is possible.
