How to Find a Green Hotel for Your Next Vacation

If you're concerned about the impact you are making on the environment, your concern shouldn't stop when you go on vacation. There are a number of ways to green up your vacation, one of which is choosing a green hotel.

There are more green hotels than you might think. Often, though, they don't promote themselves as a green hotel, which makes it difficult to find them. The more we as consumers ask if a hotel is green, the more hotels will realize we do care about environmental issues - and the more they will promote themselves as "green", making them easier for us to find.

When looking for a green hotel, one thing you have to ask is: just how green is the hotel in question? Do they get by with just using energy-conserving light bulbs and then call themselves green, or do they have a fully developed green program that makes an impact in all areas of their hotel?

Green Hotel Ratings

One website, Environmentally Friendly Hotels, will tell you just how green a hotel is and in what areas. They rate a hotel's greenness through 29 different aspects. They ask if a hotel has a towel program, uses alternative energy, serves organic food, educates guests on greenness, conserves water, recycles, and so on. Besides green hotels, Environmentally Friendly Hotels also lists green B&B's, inns, lodges, and resorts in its database, making it an excellent source when planning a vacation.

Depending on how many "yes" answers a hotel gives, Environmentally Friendly Hotels rates a hotel from one to seven "green trees". To be rated a level 7 "green tree" hotel, a hotel has to answer "yes" to all 29 attributes.

People planning a vacation can do a search on this website for a green hotel by location or by name. Then once you have stayed at a hotel, review it on their website to help others looking for a green hotel. Their sister site is The Best Green Hotels, which lists hotels around the world that have been given excellent reviews by hotel guests and that have a minimum rating of six "green trees".

Green Hotels Association

Green Hotels Association maintains a hotel member list, bringing hotels together that are concerned about the environment. While they do not run a certification program, they do give hotels ideas and resources on becoming the best green hotel possible.

As an example, for years Green Hotels Association has been handing out Towel Rack Hangers and Sheet Changing Cards that encourage guests to use towels and sheets more than once in order to conserve washing machine energy and water. Green Hotels Association also has a list of green vendors that do business with hotels, plus a catalog of items a hotel can purchase that will add to greening up a hotel.

For the consumer, Green Hotels Association is a source of member green hotels, listed by state. At the bottom of their home page is a list of hotels and chains that purchase green products from them, which is another indication of which hotels are concerned about minimally impacting the environment.

Search and Reserve a Green Hotel

At iStayGreen.com you can directly reserve a stay in a green hotel. While not all of the hotels they list are green, you can put a filter on your search to include green hotels only. At the bottom of the home page there is a list of cities with green hotels you can click on, or you can use their search option to find green hotels all over the world.

Hotels are given ratings from no green leaves to a maximum rating of five green leaves. The hotels are also rated by happy faces and by stars. It was not entirely clear to me the difference between the different rating systems, nor how each rating was earned or achieved by a hotel.

With a little thought and a little research, you can have a great vacation and still be considerate of our environment. You'll feel better for having done so. Plus, by patronizing only green hotels, we can send a message to all hotels that we will no longer support hotels that are not green and eco-friendly. We as consumers have to do everything within our power to support green businesses - or pay the price for not doing so.