Sri Lanka – Photo: Russ Johnson

What is green tourism?

It is not all about recycling and saving energy, it is about how tourism fits with a local community, its environment and its people. Green, or Good Tourism, as I like to call it, contributes. Bad tourism – tourism that overwhelms – destroys.

I have seen many travel destinations and experiences deteriorate over the years. I still enjoy small cruise ships and river boats. This new generation of floating cities, which carry four thousand or more passengers, have been likened to floating strip mines due to their effect on small ports they visit, changing once-pristine places to crowded, greedy carnivals. Places like Cambodia’s Angkor which I, almost shamefully, helped introduce to the world of tourism, are jammed with hotels, tourists and the destructive culture that comes with them. But wait, there is hope. There are many places in the world where Good Tourism still has the upper hand. Here are six.