Over 1 billion tourists travel the globe every year vacationing anywhere from Hawaii, to Europe, to China or the Galapagos Islands. It is important for us to work together to minimize our impact on the natural and culture treasures. When traveling there are many ways to give back and cut back to make your vacation more green.
A few tips include:
Choose your method wisely. Those that select motor choach travel cut their carbon footprint nearly in half, compared to even traveling via hybrid car.
Fly non-stop when possible. Take offs, landings and ground operations produce a lot of carbon, select non-stop flights when possible to reduce your carbon footprint.
Offset your travels. Many companies including TerraPass.com and CarbonOffsets.org allow travelers to purchase carbon offset credits. Use one of the many carbon calculators easily found online.
Keep showers short while vacationing, and remember to turn off lights, TVs and other electronic devices when leaving your hotel room for the day.
In partnering with Tourism Cares, we are working to preserve today’s treasures for tomorrow’s travelers. It is hard to imagine the joy of travel without many of today’s most famous destinations being around.
The following are just a few of locations that benefit from the Save our Sites program:
Located in Pennsylvania, Independence Hall is known as the birthplace of America. This is where the Declaration of Independence was adopted, as well as where the Constitution of the United States was debated, drafted and signed.
The Crazy Horse Memorial is unique in that it is not yet fully constructed. The project began in 1946 by sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski. In 1982, Ziolkowski passed away, but his family continues the work through the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation.
It is our responsibility to preserve the attractions that travelers go to great lengths to experience so that future generations can enjoy the experience of travel as well.
Enjoy this short video by Tourism Cares and learn how this non-profit organization uses their new program, Save Our Sites to preserve today’s treasures for tomorrow’s travelers.
In honor of Earth Month, and in celebration of Earth Day on April 22, we will be highlighting how you can make your travel more “green”.
Over the next two weeks, we will discover together several ways to help preserve the travel experience for future generations. On our journey you will also learn about some of the vacation destinations known as “American Icons” that we are working to protect and restore.
By partnering with Tourism Cares™, established by the United States Tour Operators Association (USTOA), we are able to translate the need to help save our world’s treasures into action.
Join us this month as we prepare to take steps to ensure that generations to come can enjoy the experience of travel to all of the world’s wonderful sites.
The Teton Range rises sharply from the basin floor and includes eight peaks over 12,000 feet in elevation. This wall of giant mountain peaks runs for over 40 miles. Seven pristine lakes, created by glaciers, run along the base of the range.
Even if you can’t stay overnight, be sure to visit the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone, perhaps the most beloved of all National Park historic accommodations: its soaring, 92-foot lobby, erected in 1904, is a marvelous thatch-work of gnarled and knotted tree trunks, evoking the sensation of being inside the primeval forest of Yellowstone. Its architect Robert C. Reamer wanted to capture the wild, unruly essence of nature, arguing that the Inn should look as if it actually grew on the spot. (“I built it in keeping with the place where it stands,” Reamer wrote. “To try to improve upon it would be an impertinence.”)
Today, the Inn’s older rooms still have their original raw pinewood walls, marble sinks and claw-foot cast-iron baths; on cooler nights, the wind can sometimes whistle through old logs that make up the exterior walls. In 1959, an earthquake caused some structural damage, and its famous gabled roof is now sadly off-limits to the public – except for two individuals who are permitted to accompany a staff member raising and lowing the flags every dawn and dusk. (Not surprisingly, the ritual is hugely popular and booked up a year in advance, although it is worth asking at the reservation desk if someone has canceled). Would-be roof-climbers should be aware that it’s not a trip for those leery of heights. Starting from the lobby, one ascends a series of rickety old stairs that seem to be suspended in mid-air as they sway underfoot like trapeze ropes. These pass by the precarious ‘Crow’s Nest’ – a tree-house for adults, where in the early 1900s a small musical ensemble would gather after dinner, to serenade the guests dancing below in formal dress. But for those lucky few visitors who make the climb, the view from the roof across the steaming fumaroles of the Upper Geyser Basin is magical.
Thanks to HBO, no Western town is as well-known today as Deadwood in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The series has brought a flood of history-lovers to the real town of Deadwood – an outpost that still has a wild edge, since every saloon and bar has been turned into a lively casino. In the summer, motorbike enthusiasts cruise the streets like modern-day cowboys. But was the original Deadwood quite as raunchy and violent at the show depicts? As with so many dramatic recreations of the Old West, the answer is yes and no.
The basis of the series is absolutely true: In 1874, gold was discovered in the Lakota Indian Reserve, supposedly off-limits by treaty with the United States Congress, and white miners immediately made their way illegally into the area to found the rough-hewn town of Deadwood in its heart.
The first sheriff of Deadwood was indeed named Seth Bullock, as in the series, and there was a Gem Saloon run by a certain Al Swearingen, of whom little is known. But perhaps the most famous real-life character was the gunslinger Wild Bill Hickock, who arrived in 1876 to try his luck in Deadwood with the notorious Calamity Jane; not long afterwards, a cowardly poker player named Jack McCall walked up behind him in the so-called Number Ten Saloon and shot him in the head. Hickock usually sat with his back to the wall, but for reasons unknown changed his practice that day; his poker hand of aces and eights is still known as “the dead man’s hand.” (Today, the event is recreated throughout the summer in Deadwood for enthusiastic tourists inside a saloon that has been rebuilt on the site; the original burned down).
While most other plot lines of the HBO series are fictional, the writer David Milch was trying to depict a broader historical truth about the Old West, where civilization was born from chaos.
See the remarkable Delicate Arch at Arches National Park in Moab, Utah. The forces of nature have created over 2,000 natural sandstone arches, the greatest density of natural arches in the world. While vacationing at Arches expect to see the colorful collared lizard basking in the sun.
For information about the history of Arches visit the National Park Service website.
Family films set in popular travel destinations are a fun way to build excitement about an upcoming vacation. If a picture is worth a thousand words, than a movie is worth thousands of famous sights, historic buildings and dramatic landscapes. Inspire your family to travel to US National Parks with these recommended films.
For 8-12 year olds we recommend:
Before you explore the Wild, Wild West or Canyon Country on a family vacation, check out our list of recommended books. We’ve found some favorite tales for kids and teens about U.S. National Parks and other family vacation destinations. The books will help your children understand the setting and culture of your upcoming travels—and also inspire them to visit.
For 8-12 year olds we recommend:
“Expedition Yellowstone, A Mountain Adventure” by Sandra Chisholm Robinson
“The Great Yellowstone Fire” by Carole G. Vogel and Kathryn A. Goldner
“Brighty of the Grand Canyon” by Marguerite Henry
For 13-17 year olds we recommend:
“The Great Yellowstone Fire” by Carole G. Vogel and Kathryn A. Goldner
“Mount Rushmore: The Story Behind the Scenery” by Lincoln Borglum
