Ready to enjoy a sustainable tourism moment?
With the end of confinements and the relief of rules in many countries, it’s about time for the deserved holidays to rest and recharge your energy. But how about planning a more sustainable trip? How about exploring the world while giving back to the local communities where you will wander?
From travel experiences to hospitality and transport, we’re sharing 10 sustainable tourism companies to help you plan a more eco-friendly and fair trip.
Travel Experience – do a random act of kindness during your trip
Travel Foundation – help to rethink travel and tourism.
Want to support sustainable tourism?
Travel Foundation is an international tourism charity aiming to reduce the negative impact of tourism and trigger opportunities for local livelihoods and conservation.
Through training and stakeholder engagement programmes, the foundation helps tourism businesses, destination authorities, and community groups implement more sustainable tourism practices.
Furthermore, any person/business can partner up or make donations to help them enable tourism that benefits local people and protects the environment.
Find more about sustainable tourism and travel sustainably.
Greener Act – participate in local causes and initiatives while travelling.
How about supporting a local community while travelling?
Greener Act was born to give awareness to travellers about sustainable activities, purposeful events and responsible places near your destination. This app allows travellers to make positive changes and empowers organizations to create, measure and deliver more conscious and purposeful experiences.
On a mission to improve local communities and protect the natural environment, Greener Act enables you to travel and act in a more sustainable way.
Discover more and learn how you can join a greener revolution. Make positive changes during your trips.
My Green Trip – pick up trash while travelling.
Better than travelling and leaving nothing behind is travelling and cleaning everything at your sight.
My Green Trip is a non-profit organization from Switzerland. Contributing to preserving the environment, this community of travellers and tourism organizations are united to pick up trash left behind in nature.
You can join this clean revolution by ordering your clean-up kit or contacting a local partner to help out during the next activity. Furthermore, by cleaning local places, you can benefit from special offers.
Leave a place cleaner than you found it.
Me to We – volunteer during your trip.
Founded in 2019, MEtoWe is a social enterprise providing positive impact products, enabling people to change the world with every choice.
Beyond the socially conscious and eco-friendly products, MetoWe provides volunteer experiences to WE villages aligned with 5 core pillars: education, water, food, health and economic opportunity. With 3 main destinations (Kenya, India and Ecuador), travellers immerse themselves in the culture of the communities and understand the challenges and joys of their daily routine.
From building classrooms, to cleaning water systems, travellers are involved in projects to give back and leave any place better than they found, together with MEtoWe. Its impact is immense as more than 40,000 travellers already volunteered globally, and 90% of the profits this organization generates are donated to the WE Charity.
For the moment, MEtoWe Trips are suspended due to Covid-19 but soon you might have the chance to experience a volunteer trip abroad. If you want, add it to your bucket list.
Earth Watch – make a difference by joining expeditions.
Do you imagine a trip with professional scientists?
Earth Watch is an international non-profit organization that connects people with scientists worldwide. By providing expedition experiences, Earthwatch gathers researchers and volunteers to conduct environmental challenges research and equips them with the knowledge to inspire planet conservation.
Discover their current expeditions and find how you can make a difference.
Be more than a tourist.
Hotel – Choose a sustainable and fair place to stay
FairTrip – find & share local and authentic places.
Committed to making tourism inclusive and sustainable, Fairtrip is a free collaborative travel app that helps travellers find and share authentic local places with positive environmental, social and economic impact.
Every place must respect 5 selection criteria (authentic, green, local, social and fair) to be presented on the app. This means that any showcased organization must respect local heritage, support local communities and businesses and follow honest and inclusive employment practices.
FairTrip is available on IOS and Android and shares 3000 sustainable places you can explore worldwide. Moreover, this app donates 10% of its revenue to local charity projects.
Explore authentic and fair places in your destination.
Kind Traveler – Give and get hotel booking.
What if the place where you spend the night is giving back to the local community?
Kind Traveler is a socially conscious hotel booking platform showcasing hotels with sustainable practices and donates up to 10$ per booked night to support affiliated local charities.
Moreover, Kind Traveler Platform is aligned with the Sustainable Development goals by preventing poverty and hunger, protecting the planet, and promoting wellbeing for individuals and animals.
Book your hotel, and impact positively the community that welcomes you.
Transportation – travel with lower carbon emissions
Spinlister – rent a bike anywhere.
A bike isn’t the first vehicle considered every time you reach a destination. But how about giving it a try with the help of Spinlister?
Spinlister is a premier bike rental that helps active people connect with trusted bike owners in any city in the world. Replace your cab or public transport and hop on the nearest bike.
Rent bicycles for around $15 per day and visit any city with zero carbon emissions.
If you are a fan of surfing or snow sports, you can head over to the application, rent your board or snowboard and have some fun.
Glooby – find the most sustainable flights.
Flights represent an impressive amount of your travel carbon footprint when visiting a faraway place. But there are more sustainable alternatives to consider.
Glooby is a travel search engine that helps you compare the prices of flights and hotels, showcasing the most eco-friendly flights and presenting eco-labelled hotels. By searching other travel sites, this search engine shows all the information to help you make the best travel decision.
Type your dates, compare the best flights and hotels and book the eco-friendlier and cheaper flight.
Byway – slow travel by boat and train.
Looking for slow travel holidays? Byway is the best option.
Founded in 2020, Byway helps you define a travel and accommodation package away from top visited places by using trains, boats, buses and bikes.
This travel firm coordinates customized journeys, recommends hidden spots and selects local and sustainable places to help you travel kindly on our planet. Currently, Byway is waiting for the B Corporation Certification.
Travel slowly and enjoy every lesser-known place.
Enjoy your sustainable trip and stay safe
Hope we inspired you to live a more sustainable and enriched trip this year.
You have the chance to give back to communities and protect the environment while exploring the world. Feel free to use one of these apps to book your sustainable trip, select your eco-friendlier transport or leave a positive impact in the visited community or place.
Enjoy your deserved holidays, and stay safe. Remember, check the current situation of the country you will visit before travelling and protect yourself.
Is there another sustainable tourism app or company we should know about? Share with us. We are really eager to listen to you.
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And if you want to know more about Sustainable Tourism, we had the opportunity to interview James Clark. He is a travel writer who enjoys every trip with sustainability in mind. Learn more about his experience here.