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Costa Rica Eco Travel – Top Eco-Friendly Travel Packages

January 22, 2020
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Costa Rica is a beacon for sustainability and environmentally friendly tourism. Sustainable tourism, eco-friendly travel, green hotels, responsible tourism – you can find it all in Costa Rica.
The country has become an example for the world with nearly 30% of its land protected. Visiting national parks is a great way to enjoy some of Costa Rica’s beauty while being sure your money is going to support something like the national park system.

Ecotourism in Costa Rica is one of the key activities of the tourism industry in the country. Ecotourism draws many tourists to visit the extensive national parks and protected areas around the country. Costa Rica was a pioneer in this type of tourism, and the country is recognized as one of the few with true ecotourism.

Almost half of all international visitors participate in ecotourism, according to The Costa Rican Tourism Institute. Ecotourism tours in Costa Rica usually are focus on great outdoors epic adventures and wildlife observation.

Here are the best vacation packages highlighting the prime locations in Costa Rica.

Arenas Del Mar
Photo credit: Arenas del Mar / Facebook

Arenas Del Mar

Arenas del Mar Beach & Nature Resort is bringing the two concepts closer together — Sustainability and Luxury. This a 38-room resort with a beachfront is located within an 11-acre private nature reserve overlooking Manuel Antonio National Park. This was the first luxury hotel to receive the Five Sustainability Leaf Award in Costa Rica. Arenas del Mar has led the way in the area of using sustainability and is a carbon-neutral practice.

Some of the sustainable practices at Arenas Del Mar include chlorine-free pool water, solar-heated water, underground electricity systems that do not affect nearby wildlife, use of electric cars, low-flow toilets, energy-efficient lighting, recycling and composting, and the use of recycled materials and soap produced at the hotel from leftover cooking oil from the kitchen. Other eco-friendly amenities include in the resort routine are the use of organic and biodegradable personal care products, complimentary reusable water bottles, and organic coffee.

At Arenas Del Mar get rid of all plastic water bottles from our resort. You’ll have access to two beautiful beaches, Playitas Beach and Espadilla Beach.

It’s within walking distance from the most renowned national reserve, Manuel Antonio National Reserve. You can check their Sustainability Tours at any one of their hotels and lodges and explore the wildlife and jungle that surrounds this ocean property will take you on an exotic tropical journey.

Zipline Rainforests
Photo credit: Pattaya Unlimited / Flickr

Zipline Through the Rainforests

Costa Rica is world-renowned for its canopy tours, also known as zip-lines. Ziplining is one of the best ways to experience the country’s lush and thriving forests. these tours offer travelers a unique chance to experience the rainforest as never before.

Many of Costa Rica’s national parks offer canopy tours, among the most popular, are in Arenal, Monteverde and Manuel Antonio.

Imagine sailing through the treetops hundreds of meters in the air with a chance to spot some of the country’s diverse wildlife. Don’t worry, safety is a top priority. With nearly a quarter of the land covered with rainforests, there are dozens of family-friendly locations and companies to take you on this thrilling adventure.

Costa Rica nation’s environmental services payment program established in 1997 to support property owners who leave the forest untouched.

It isn’t hard to find a hotel or lodge with zip line activities available on-site!

Explore Local Farms

The National Program of Organic Agriculture (PNAO) promotes the development of organic agriculture in Costa Rica. In 2000, more than 3,500 organic producers were registered with certification agencies, and in 2003 that number increased 13% to nearly 4,000.

A tour around Costa Rica’s organic farms is one of the best ways to enjoy local fare and learn about how the nation produces its fresh ingredients and best practices from local farmers. These tours provide a chance to learn about organic farming and make visitors think twice about where their food comes from. There are many eco-lodges and resorts that have their own organic farms where guests can volunteer. This is a perfect opportunity for adventurers who want to learn more about local farming while enjoying their stay in Costa Rica

Take the El Trapiche Sugar Mill Day Tour and explore the plantations in Monteverde.

Arenal Volcano

Visits the Volcanoes

Costa Rica has over 60 volcanoes but only six of them are active. The Arenal volcano has been considered as one of the best places to explore in Costa Rica. It is Costa Rica’s largest and most recognized volcano with its natural volcanic-fed thermal springs, waterfalls, Lake Arenal – Costa Rica’s largest lake, and a rich ecosystem of exotic wildlife.

Some tours combine several activities into one action-packed, fun-filled day like canopy tours, waterfall rappelling, mountain bike rides, rafting trips.
You can join an offer private luxury SUV with a private tour guide/driver and explore some of the areas around volcanoes.

Costa Rica volcano tours is an amazing destination for adventure vacations that include climbing, exploring and just marveling at the sight of volcanoes.

Parador Resort and Spa
Photo credit: S. Rae / WikiPedia

Parador Resort and Spa

The resort offers plenty of activities, pools, spas and restaurants on-site and it is close to nature trails, beaches and the ocean.

It is spread on 12 acres of rainforest just minutes from the country’s best beaches and the little, lovely Manuel Antonio National Park. Parador Resort & Spa is an award-winning full-service resort that proudly is offering responsible luxury.

It takes big participation in reforestation and beach clean-up programs, composting and recycling, energy and water saver programs, use of rainwater and biodegradable soaps and detergents.

Research Adventure Park
Photo credit: Geoff Gallice / WikiPedia

Veragua Rainforest Research & Adventure Park

The Veragua Rainforest Research & Adventure Park is a worldwide model for tourist attractions in terms of conservation, research, and sustainability.

The province of Limón provides amazing national parks, whitewater rafting and pristine beaches with nice surf. The Research & Adventure Park is located only 40 minutes from the Caribbean town of Limón. The park includes among other attractions, the largest indoor nocturnal frog exhibit in the world, butterfly garden, reptile vivarium, hummingbird garden.

How to travel eco-sustainably

Avoid bottled water
Travel with sustainable, eco-friendly or fairtrade travel agencies
Reduce consumption of meat
Use eco-friendly products
Book eco-friendly accommodations
Support local economies

Questions to ask when booking ecotourism tours

  • One of the first things you can check to be sure you are supporting local community is if the majority of employees are local?
  • Ask the tour guides and operators what sort of training or licenses do they have?
  • How does the tour operator reduce its impact of plastic waste?
  • Do they guarantee animal sightings? This should never be done as we can’t promise when wild animals will come out and say hello.
  • What kind of accommodations are you staying in? Are you staying at eco-friendly hotels and going on true ecotours?

Featured image photo credit: Mario André Cordero Alfaro / Flickr

Want to learn more about Costa Rica? Check our other posts:
Sustainable Tourism in Costa Rica
The 10 Best Costa Rica Eco Tours

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Related Posts
Eat Environmentally Friendly

5 simple tips for environmentally friendly eating

March 18, 2018
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A healthy environment goes hand-in-hand with a healthy lifestyle. There are many ways to go about supporting the environment while eating nutritious foods. Every meal you eat has an environmental impact, from the pollution caused by farming to the carbon footprint of delivering it to your home. There are some simple steps you can take to help the planet and to be sure that your environmentally friendly eating actually helps the environment.

So, here we put together a few tips that will help you start your environmentally friendly way of shopping and eating:

1. Eat Sustainable Seafood

Fishing is one of the most significant drivers of declines in ocean wildlife populations. Overfishing not only damages the marine environment, but billions of people rely on fishing for their income or for protein. Fishing is not inherently bad for the ocean, except when is done in size that can recover – overfishing. Overfishing and climate change are negatively affecting the fish population.
As CTVNews pointed out here, the Bluefin tuna population has fallen 97 percent from its historic levels. In the last few years, many governments have introduced regulations to help fish recover, but it is important the consumers to understand what steps they can take to ensure they are buying seafood that is not raised in any way that hurts the environment.

2. Buy Local

When you buy from stores that feature local products, like the food at farmers markets, you help the environment, because these goods were not shipped to you and no fuel has been used and cause less environmental harm. The ‘Buy local” movement is growing, you have to understand the environmental benefits of buying local. Understanding how is your local produce grown is important to keep in mind. For example, if you buy local produce from a greenhouse gas perspective compare to grown in fields you may not be doing any good to the environment. So if you want to support the local economy, understand how the local produce is grown.

3. Don’t Waste Food

The global volume of food wastage is estimated at 1.6 billion tonnes of “primary product equivalents.” Total food wastage for the edible part of this amounts to 1.3 billion tonnes.
The movement to reduce food waste is gaining traction. France has introduced legislation preventing grocery stores from wasting food, new apps can connect retailers with consumers willing to buy food near expiration, and people are becoming more aware.

environmentally friendly eating
Photo by Clem Onojeghuo from Pexels

4. Consider Food Packaging

Packaging not only protects food quality and safety, but also brings damage to the resources and the environment, and even leads to serious ecological problems. Most of the things we use at home and at work are produced somewhere else so that they have to travel to get to us. Consumers benefit from packages because they protect products as they travel, whether fast food or refrigerators, no matter how far they have to go.
It is important to recognize the potential reduction in pollution that would result from reusing and recycling containers. A new system is needed in which consumption is decreased, and materials are reused and recycled.

5. Reduce Meat Consumption

Eating less meat is better for animals, people and the planet. Sustainably produced meat is slightly more expensive than that from animal factories, reducing the amount of meat you eat will also mean you save money.

You can reduce your overall meat intake by eating some vegan or vegetarian meals and by reducing the amount of meat you eat in each meal.

Check out these tips if you don’t know where to start.

Photo credit: Anikona – Freepik.com

Air Travel impact

7 Ways to Reduce the Impact of Air Travel

August 14, 2019
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Dismissing air travel entirely is unrealistic in this day and age, but we can try to reduce the impact of air travel. People fly for many different reasons, and doing it in a less impacting, more eco-friendly manner is always a good idea.

You try to keep your travel as eco-friendly as possible, but sometimes, you have no choice but to fly up.

The International Council on Clean Transportation says:

Taking one roundtrip flight abroad generates one metric ton of carbon, which is roughly equivalent to driving a Prius 20 miles (35 km) to work every day for a year!

We should all try to fly less and stay for longer when we go, but there are things everyone can do to lessen the impact and make your trip as green as possible by following these suggestions:

“I think we’re on the brink of a new era of flying responsibly,” says Sophia Leonora Mendelsohn, JetBlue’s Head of Sustainability. “The vast majority of carriers [are] completely focused on the upcoming United Nations ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) agreement.” This mandates that all airlines cap CO2 and commit to carbon neutral growth after 2020, among other significant measures.

A progress being made — from buying newer more fuel-efficient airplains to NextGen technology — but our collective high-altitude emissions are still staggering. There are about 100,000 commercial flights per day, and the number of air travel will only continue to grow, says Scott Mayerowitz, airlines reporter at The Associated Press. “Last year, U.S. airlines burned through 16.2 billion gallons of fuel [or 340 billion pounds of carbon dioxide emissions],” says Mayerowitz.

Take a nonstop flight

As much as 50 percent of a flight’s emissions come from takeoff and landing. We could mention also the fuel burned while waiting for a runway. non-stop flights are exponentially better for the environment.

Keep in mind that taking off and landing use up more fuel than cruising at high altitude. It’s better for the environment to seek a different airline when you’re searching online to make a flight reservation than many low-cost airlines that fly via a third location rather than non-stop.

It is always better for the environment to take a non-stop flight.

Book an air travel that uses newer model planes.

Newer planes usually have better fuel economy than older ones.
If you have a choice between an older aircraft and a newer, more fuel-efficient aircraft, book the modern aircraft. Green, options include Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner and the Airbus A350. Many leading airlines use new versions of 737s and A320s/A321s for shorter flights. A 2016 study on airlines’ fuel efficiency revealed a huge discrepancy between carriers when it comes to how much fuel they burn. This is caused by two main differences – the number of premium seats and the type of aircraft. In the U.S. Alaska Airlines is the most fuel efficient, followed by Frontier and Spirit. In Europe, Norwegian Airlines is 51 percent more efficient than British Airways, the worst ranking. Porter Airlines, which operates in Canada and the U.S., uses turboprop planes that fly much lower than jets and use 64 percent of the fuel that jets do.

Choose daytime flights

Studies show that jet can contribute to warming the atmosphere because as they disperse they can trap heat radiating up from the earth. Especially at night because during the day, the contrails partially offset the heat trap effect by radiating light from the sun away from the earth. It’s believed that flying during the daytime is more eco-friendly. Nighttime flights have a greater warming impact because, as the David Suzuki Foundation explains, the contrails trap heat that would otherwise escape the Earth.

Reduce the Impact of Air Travel

Photo credit: itsbytespixels from Pexels

Lower the window shades

According to Delta rep Ashton Morrow. “Why does the flight attendant ask you to lower your shades and open the vents when it’s warm outside?” Because it helps keep the aircraft cool. When all window shades are closed, the aircraft can be 10 degrees cooler. Reducing the cooling load saves energy and reduces greenhouse gas emissions.”

Purchase carbon offsets for your air travel

Carbon offset programs might be more of a quick fix than a long-term solution, and they go toward reducing the same amount of environmental costs that your trip expends.
In 2007, Delta first started the use of an airline carbon offset program. Up to today this program benefits The Nature Conservancy’s forest projects in Chile, Virginia, and Belize. For example, a roundtrip flight from New York to London will emit one ton of CO2 per passenger, while one tree conserved through the program will capture up to 7.5 tons of CO2 over its lifetime.

“If I have a choice of airlines, and I know one has an effective carbon-neutral program but the other doesn’t, I can chose, as a consumer, to put my money where it does the most good,” – says Skift’s aviation editor, Marisa Garcia.

JetBlue’s CarbonFund.org program supports The Envira Amazonia Project, which preserves 500,000 acres of endangered tropical rainforest in Brazil and also providing the community with educational programs, and health care. When you spend about $13 to offset your flight from New York to Paris, 100 percent of the tax-deductible donation goes to these and other projects, including wildlife conservation or renewable energy.

You can do this voluntarily to some airline tickets at the time of purchase of your air travel ticket. Learn more about how carbon offsets are used.

Use economy class.

The more passengers that an aircraft carries, the less fuel is burned per passenger. When you choose an economy seat, you’re responsible for fewer emissions than if you choose a seat in a roomier class of travel.

Atmospheric scientist Peter Kalmus calculates that sitting in first class emits 1.5 kg C02-equivalents per passenger mile, compared to 0.5 kg CO2e in the economy. A 2009 study by World Bank calculated that first class has a higher carbon footprint than their economy class.

Pack light.

Every pound of weight that a plane carries increases the amount of fuel that it burns, the havier the load the more carbon emissions will be released. Consider reducing your luggage weight which will reduce your environmental impact and it makes your traveling far easier, faster, and more pleasant.

“Delta is packing lighter in an effort to cut fuel consumption and lessen environmental impact by reducing the amount of ice boarded on overnight international flights, replacing heavy pilot manuals (50 pounds) with Microsoft Surface tablets and flight attendant manuals with Nokia Lumia 1520 phablets, as well as installing lighter carbon brakes in place of the high-capacity steel brakes where possible,” says Delta’s Morrow. “If customers pack lighter—making simple changes like leaving that extra pair of shoes at home (two pounds)—the annual environmental impact from reduced fuel consumption is the equivalent to removing 10,500 cars from the road for [an entire] year.”

As you are preparing to take off for your next vacation, consider reducing your carbon impact by using some of these simple tips. You can check our other posts about becoming a sustainable traveler.

Photo credit: Miroslava from Pexels

1 Comment
    ExoRank says: Log in to Reply
    January 23rd 2020, 9:37 pm

    Awesome post! Keep up the great work! 🙂

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San Blas Islands Panama San Blas Panama - Essential Things to Know Before Visitingby padmin / January 7, 2020

“Travel in a respectful way. Don’t harm cultures or lands but seek ways to improve them. Stay in lodges and hotels that are ecologically sound, that use solar, recycle and employ locals. Purchase goods and services that benefit the local economy.”

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