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Choosing vacation destinations -- and deciding how to get there -- often involve many different considerations: time and money budgets; different interests of kids, parents, and friends; and the relative greenness of all your plans. Considering the environment can actually make your travel planning easier -- it might take that cross-country flight off the table, for example -- but if you aren't sure which choices are better, the Sierra Club has a few handy tools to help you make greener decisions when booking your next vacation.
Offering options for both your destination and the journey itself, because getting there is half the fun, right? Between the two, you'll have help in vacationing greener from start to finish, from choosing the location to booking the return travel.
Choosing greener destinations
When it comes to the destination, you'll need to consider the logistics of your vacation, including where you'll stay, and how you'll get around once you arrive. Closer to home is better, and choosing lodging based on green amenities -- including close proximity to all the stuff you want to do, so you don't have to drive miles and miles every day -- and not just price earns you green points, too. And don't discount service-oriented trips as boring and filled with work nobody wants to do; The Sierra Club, for example, offers a archaeological service trip for families in Utah's Dixie National Forest that combines hunting for Paleo-Indian stone tools and fixing hiking trails. Group activities are balanced with free time to hike, swim, or fish. There are lots of possibilities, so give them a look when considering where to go.
Choosing greener journeys
Once you've decided where you're headed, we think it's important to give equal weight to how you'll get there. If you've chosen to stay close, you have lots of easy options -- it's often easier to find and plan train travel for shorter trips, and, as we've mentioned before, trains offer a great combination of comfort and eco-friendly travel; according to the U.S. Department of Energy, Amtrak's passenger trains are 18 percent more efficient per passenger mile than commercial flights.
If a train trip isn't in the cards, staying close will help keep a reasonable car trip as a possibility; it's a lot easier to stomach a car trip with a family of four if you're driving a matter of hours, not days. And, as the Sierra Club reports, a family of four in a car that gets 30 miles per gallon is the least carbon-intensive way to get from, say, Los Angeles to Seattle, when compared with the same trip in an airplane or SUV. If you decide flying is the only way to go, be sure to book straight-through flights as much as possible; just as with a car, a lot of starting and stopping results in poor fuel efficiency.
Click on over to get the full run-down on both greener destinations and greener journeys. Safe travels!
Difficulty level: Easy
More vacation-related reading on Planet Green and TreeHugger
Plan an Eco-Friendly Vacation
Take a Low-Carbon Vacation: 4 Ways
Stay at Green Hotels When You're on the Go
If You Are Going to Travel, Do It Green
Visit the Golden, Green City on the Cheap!
Happy Trails: Americans Want Eco-Friendly Travel, But Not If It Costs Too Much
Eco-friendly Travel Destinations
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