Of course, the greenest honeymoon would be to stay local and with a bit of imagination, create a beautiful, fun and magical honeymoon that is also kind to the planet. Staycations are all the rage and if you get the weather right, you can have a cheap and guilt free holiday in your own country.

However, some of us (especially those living in cold climates) dream longingly of a sun-kissed beach in an exotic country. But we’re reluctant to call us ourselves “environmentally conscious” while at the same time travelling half way across the planet and (let’s face it) contributing a very dirty carbon footprint.

It’s an ethical dilemma. So what’s an eco girl to do to balance both of these desires?

Let’s face it. Some of us will travel on planes around the globe for our honeymoons and it’s pointless to spend the whole time feeling guilty. My own honeymoon spanned the UK, Singapore, Indonesia and Australia, and now in our jobs as The Honeymoon Testers, we’re travelling around the world for six months. This definitely does tug at my environmental conscience but I still, perhaps ironically, think of myself as someone who cares about the future of our planet.

I know I’m not the only one with this moral predicament. Our generation longs to be global citizens, but nobody wants to create more damage to the planet than is necessary. Rather than be hypocrites and tell you to stay at home, we’ve been gleaning ideas to share with other honeymooners with itchy feet.

By any means, these actions don’t cancel out your globe-trotting altogether, but here are some small and easy tips that you can do to reduce your impact without spending every second worrying about it.

Choose your holiday wisely

Start with the end in mind and support destinations that use renewable power, have community programmes and implement relevant environmental policies (not just the one about reusing your bath towels). This includes water usage, waste disposal and building materials.

Most importantly find places that are creating jobs and wealth in their communities including sharing clean water and sanitation for local people. Do employees get paid fairly, or are they reliant on tips to earn a living wage? Does your resort benefit the community or is an oasis of wealth and privilege amongst grinding poverty?

Holidays involving animals should have ethical conservation policies as well as being respectful to preserving environments for animals to live in the wild. We’ve heard horror stories about dolphins being kept at pets in resort pools (and committing suicide), tourists offered photo opportunities with toothless and chained tigers, and performing elephants trained with violence and intimidation. Don’t give these places your money and contribute to the problem. Eco-tourism can be profitable and beneficial so spread the word about inspiring enterprises.

Air conditioning

Every hotel and resort I’ve been to cranks the air-conditioning to nipple-popping levels, making the contrast to outside even more unbearable. Make sure you turn it off whenever you leave the room, and check back after breakfast to ensure that the housekeeper hasn’t turned it back on to run all day.

If you have good mosquito nets, consider not using the AC all night and open a window instead. On our honeymoon in Indonesia, we lived in a cabin on stilts in the water and the warm ocean breeze was our air-con.

Bottled drinks

In many developing countries bottled water is still a necessity, and you could get seriously sick from drinking the tap water. In these cases find the most local brand, buy the biggest bottles so you don’t go through hundreds of the smaller ones and dispose of them carefully. Ask your hotel if they recycle.

What’s better, glass or plastic? In most countries, glass is more easily recycled and you’re more likely to see plastic trashing beaches and littering oceans.

If the chances of getting sick are slim, filter and boil your own water using tablets, special drinking straws and filtering water bottles.

Many countries such as Singapore and Mauritius have tap water that is absolutely fine to drink so always ask and don’t be paranoid, but use the filtering options mentioned if you’re worried. Fill up your reusable water bottles in the morning to use all day.

A great alternative to bottled drinks are fresh green coconuts served straight off the tree. Coconut water is extremely good for you, tasty and is nature’s version of sugary energy drinks. The coconut shells are biodegradable and in some countries are used as a fuel source. It’s also money that’s going straight back into the local economy, as they grow wild and aren’t owned by a global bottling company that gives a pittance profit margin.

Food and drink

Going meat-free on honeymoon will give you a much better chance of avoiding food poisoning or sickness. Many countries have low standards around battery farms or humane slaughtering practices, so even if you aren’t vegetarian or vegan, consider doing it for your honeymoon.

Take the opportunity to try local beers and wines where possible, and talk to the chef about where and how fish and vegetables are sourced.

Tropical countries have an abundance of fresh fruit, so take advantage of supporting the local economy and as long as it has a peel (pineapple, mango, passion fruit, bananas etc) then it’s almost always safe to eat.

Find your own off-set

There are definitely controversies around flight off-set schemes, so find one that feels right for you. You may want to support a local regeneration programme, a global organisation that plants trees or an animal conservation charity instead.

Considering doing some charity work with the local economy, donating time, money or materials such as pens and books to local schools.

You can ask your wedding guests to donate to the community in lieu of a wedding present, or give you give vouchers for low impact activities such as bike tours or massages.

Spend your money ethically and avoid illegal DVDs (it can support crime), don’t take home shells or coral, don’t buy products made with plastic, endangered or rare materials and buy locally made, sustainably produced souvenirs such as beaded jewellery or woven handicrafts.

Of course, there are many other small actions you can take that are probably second nature to you. Always pick up your trash (but I know you do that anyway!), switch off lights, don’t charge electronics unnecessarily and reuse your beach and bath towels.

You could spend the whole honeymoon debating the merits and relative damage of each activity, but you are there to enjoy yourself and live this wonderful time together according to your values and principles. Do what you can and try to benefit each place in some way.

Lastly, travelling the planet and meeting other cultures is a wonderful and life-enriching thing, and wouldn’t it be great if our children can do it (relatively) guilt-free? There will be better ways to travel in the future if we demand it, using renewable sources of energy to power our planes (hey, maybe even teleportation) so always support organisations that are paving the way so it becomes unacceptable (and unprofitable) for the holiday industry to exploit the natural resources of our beautiful planet.

Just being conscious about your every day actions will give you plenty of ideas that you can share with others too. It’s hard to get this 100% right, so enjoy your honeymoon as much as possible, and spread love as you go – for each other and for planet Earth.

…

Denise Duffield-Thomas is a blogger, writer and speaker who is currently travelling the world with her husband Mark as “The Honeymoon Testers”, reviewing the best wedding and honeymoon destinations on behalf of travel company Runaway Bride and Groom.

• Behind Locked Doors dvdrip

If you’re anything like me, you’ll also be wanting to indulge yourself a little on this once-in-a-lifetime trip and are seeking some low carbon luxury… if only for a day or two before you get back to the serious business of trekking across Nepal (for example!).

So I’m guessing that through your ethical honeymoon investigations, you may well have come across some great green holidays that really need nominating for the annual Responsible Tourism Awards!

The Awards were created to show that responsible holidays come in all shapes and sizes. 

It’s not just about volunteering – you could be relaxing in the most luxurious hotel in the world but if it’s super energy efficient, hot on water conservation, eco-architect designed, built from sustainable materials and well integrated with the local community, employing local people and paying them a fair wage… then it could just be worth a nomination in this year’s Awards!

The Awards are looking for everything from responsible dive operators in the marine category, and low carbon transport to get you to and around your destination, to eco-friendly B&Bs and mountain-based holidays.

• Tough Guys release

• Jurassic Park divx

Braveheart psp

If you think you’ve stumbled across something that might fall into one of the 13 categories, why not nominate them now – all you need is their name, basic contact info and a few words about why you think they might merit an Award… then leave the rest to our judging panel!

You’ve nothing to lose and you might just win a holiday… If your nomination becomes an Award winner when the Responsible Tourism Awards are announced at World Travel Market in November, you’ll go forward into the prize draw to win a holiday for 2 to India!

To get an idea, why not read some of the other nominations or read interviews with some of last year’s winners to find out how winning an Award has made a difference to them.

Happy honeymoon hunting!

• Love’s Unending Legacy release Ultimate Gretzky movie download

Katie
responsibletravel.com founded and run the Responsible Tourism Awards – check out their great selection of honeymoons with a heart

We decided for this holiday we’d go the low carbon route again but a bit further this time (last year was via Eurostar and TGV to the Loire Valley) and took the train all the way from Worthing in West Sussex to Girona in northeast Spain. 

The tempting sleeper cabin option was rejected due to lack of funds so on the downside we did spend most of 2 days making the journey there and back but on the upside got to see some gorgeous countryside and coastal beauty spots as we sped along.

On the way down we broke our journey at Perpignan staying at a stylish B&B called ‘le crocodile rouge’.   

Stylish did not mean snooty, I’m pleased to report, as our extremely friendly hosts invited us to share dessert with the family and then spend a pleasant evening chatting about this and that (chance to use my French!), including ethical weddings and responsible travel!

Travelling through France and Spain by train allowed us many opportunities as we sat by the window to pick out potential future holiday spots that we never would have seen had we gone by plane and it struck us what a wonderful honeymoon it would make – a couple of hours on the train then a few nights at the first destination that takes your fancy, then on to the next, checking in at different places on your return journey.

Before going to university, everyone was off interrailing around Europe for the summer, now air fares are so cheap it’s all about jetting around the world.  Maybe your honeymoon could be a good time to think about reliving your youth and dusting off that interrail pass again for a break at a more leisurely pace!

If you’ve been on a great rail journey for your honeymoon we’d love to hear about it.  Coming soon…we’ll have the Man in Seat 61′s honeymoon by rail tale for you, so watch this space!

Katie
For the latest ethical wedding tips, chat, articles and more, free to your inbox, sign up to the monthly Ethical Weddings Newsletter

We went to the Stanford Inn, a vegetarian “resort” in Mendocino, California. We rented a hybrid car for the three hour drive which took well under a tank of gas. I put the word “resort” in quotes, as this location was so much more. Their restaurant recently made the switch form “vegan-friendly” to “everything on the menu is vegan by default,” but some dishes have the option to add cheese, or eggs.

In addition to boasting some amazing meals, the Inn is an animal sanctuary. They have rescued horses and llamas on site – presumably also for composting purposes, as everything grown there, including their lush flower gardens, is organic. Food leftovers are composted as well. There were also adorable resuced cats all over the place, which was one of the highlights for us, as several of them lived outside our barn suite, and made us miss our little guy less. They’re pet-friendly as well though so I suppose we could have brought him along.

We felt much better about indulging knowing that we were doing so at a place with such a strong commitment to the land and to animal welfare. Ok, I guess the canoe trips, organic wine, hot tub, and massages helped us relax a little too. More of our honeymoon pictures can be seen here.

And not to upstage Katie’s last post, go add Ethical Weddings on Facebook. I’m on there as well if you’d like to add me.

responsibletravel.com is proud to announce the launch of the Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Awards 2007

The annual Responsible Tourism Awards - founded by responsibletravel.com in 2004 to celebrate responsible tourism businesses around the world – look set to be bigger and better than ever this year making it even more important that we
receive your nomination for the organisation you think is doing the most for responsible tourism.

By nominating you will not only be making a positive contribution to responsible tourism, but will also be entered in our holiday prize draw to win a trip to Nepal or Uganda …

We’re all on tenterhooks as we wait to be flooded with news of new and exciting responsible tourism holidays – along with many old favourites of course – from travellers just like you scouring the globe for worthy and wonderful winners to celebrate at the 2007 Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Awards  which launched in The Times on Saturday.

This year we’re hoping to rival the record result of 2006 when over 1200 nominations were received from the travelling public.  We love finding out about new places doing great things or old friends doing new things but perhaps not shouting about them as they should be – which is where you come in of course!

You are The Nominator

Responsible Tourism is all about making better places for people to live in and better places for people to visit.  It’s about minimising the negative impacts and maximising the positive ones.

It’s about improving the wellbeing of local people through tourism and enabling the visitor to have a better relationship with them, putting something back to conserve their culture or environment and enjoying a more authentic holiday.

But what do you think is important?

We have 13 categories to choose from for your nominations.  Alongside regulars such as Best Tour Operator and Best for Poverty Reduction, the search is on for 2007 for the Best Low Carbon Transport and/or Technology initiative and the tourism organisation doing the most for the Conservation of Cultural Heritage.  So get your thinking caps on!

You can make your nominations at our dedicated Responsible Tourism Awards website.  You don’t need to put forward a nomination for every category – just tick the box to let us know which category your nomination is for (only 1 category per nomination) and tell us why you think that particular tourism related organisation is responsible and deserving of an Award. 

Win a holiday for 2 to Uganda or Nepal!
And don’t forget, your motives for nominating don’t have to be entirely altruistic!  Tell us about an excellent example of a responsible tourism holiday and you could be heading off on one yourself thanks to our annual Responsible Tourism Awards Win a Holiday competition.  This year we have two amazing prizes generously donated by i-to-i and The Adventure Company.

Nominate a winner and you could be packing up your troubles and trekking off on a 14 day tour of Uganda for 2 people courtesy of i-to-i, taking in the legendary Bujagali Falls, the stunning scenery of the Queen Elizabeth National Park and the chance to teach English to local children in the remote village of Niyakasiru.

Your tour ends with a relaxing stay in the natural paradise that is the Ssese Islands.

Or you could bag the perfect prize trip for a first visit to the kingdom of Nepal thanks to The Adventure Company. Starting in Kathmandu, this 19 day tour for 2 people sees you cycling through medieval streets to Swayumbhunath.

Then on to Pokhara for a 7-day trek deep into the foothills of the Himalayas discovering villages whose way of life has gone unchanged for centuries.

White water rafting on the Seti River will get the adrenaline pumping before finishing your trip with a jungle safari through one of Asia’s greatest wildlife reserves.

There’s no chance of winning either prize, however, if you don’t nominate! But worry not, as this year we’ve made it even easier for you to nominate with an online form to make sure you don’t forget any of those important details.
Gumball 3000: 6 Days in May divx
 
And if you’re struggling to choose between that cool community lodge in Lesotho, the tour operator whose practical approach to responsible tourism blew you away, or even a business hotel that was spot on when it came to energy efficiency and water conservation, stop struggling right now! 

You can nominate as many tourism organisations and companies as you like.

Remember, all it takes is one nomination for your responsible tourism hero to be considered for the Awards.

The better your reasons for nominating your chosen tourism organisation, the more chance they will have of getting through to the next stage of the judging process and potentially winning an Award – and you winning a holiday!

About the Awards
The Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Awards are the biggest and best of their kind in the world, a collaboration between our team at responsibletravel.com who founded and organise the Awards, our UK media partners, The Times and Geographical Magazine, and World Travel Market who host the presentation event, which will this year be held at the first ever WTM World Responsible Tourism Day.

The guiding principle behind the Awards is that all types of tourism – from niche to mainstream – can and should be operated in a way that respects and benefits destinations and local people.

The Responsible Tourism Awards are different from other tourism awards in that winners are nominated by you, the traveller.  Now into their fourth year, we are absolutely thrilled to see how the Awards have developed since we first launched them in 2004.

Competition to win a Responsible Tourism Award is more and more fiercely fought each year as the reputation of the Awards has grown alongside travellers’ awareness of the issues affecting communities and the environment in tourism destinations around the world.

Last year’s winners ranged from a community rail initiative in Norfolk helping to keep cars off country roads, to a community lodge in Northern Kenya working to eradicate Trachoma, a cause of painful blindness in over 80% of adults in the area. 

Find out more about our 2006 winners in the Responsible Tourism Awards brochure and nominate now to help us find our 2007 winners!

Deadline for nominations Monday 2 July