Responsible travel doesn’t have to mean backpacking and pitching a tent in the wilderness. You could opt to stay in a fabulous eco-luxury holiday lodge instead. These eco-luxury holiday lodges boast all the best bits of a fancy hotel, but also hold environmental and social sustainability at their core. It’s easier than ever to be a conscious traveller, sampling sustainable luxury resorts around the globe without sacrificing on comfortable amenities. Here’s a little sustainable wanderlust to keep your to-go travel list up to date…
Eco-Luxury Private Island
Just off the east coast of Bintan, Indonesia lies Cempedak Isalnd. A secluded unspoilt paradise rich in wildlife, the enveloping rainforest canopy houses a range of birds including hornbills and eagles. The pristine Island also plays host to endangered pangolin and a family of otters. The Cempedak philosophy is the belief that opting for sustainability shouldn’t mean giving up luxury. Their sustainability efforts don’t end with the wildlife though, the resort has a strict ban on plastic, they employ locals to boost the local economy and all organic materials are composted. The bamboo villas with plunge pools are what make Cempedak Island one of the best eco-resorts in Asia. Prices start at around £450 per night.
Sustainable Jungle Hideout
Copal Tree Lodge is a fabulous eco-luxury, sustainable hideout set in the Belize jungle. Surrounded by 22,000 acres of preserved rainforest in the Maa Mountains you will be cocooned by the natural world. The resort also boasts a 3,000-acre USDA-certified organic farm, meaning that 70% of the food they serve at the Copal Tree open-air restaurant is produced onsite. Talk about farm to fork eco-living. If you visit this sustainable utopia you can sign up to learn about organic chocolate and sustainable farming too. They also make furniture and building materials on site from fallen or sustainably harvested wood.
Copal Tree Lodge plants thousands of trees each year as part of an extensive agroforestry program that also supports local wildlife. The estate has its very own rum distillery producing their own rum made from organic sugar cane, canopy water and yeast from the farm. Sustainable regenerative biomass power the stills, supporting full-circle conversion of waste and allowing the distillery to minimise its negative environmental impact. Prices start at around $260 per night.
Sustainable Seafront Escape
This secluded sustainable escape is a 45-minute flight from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Fabulous spacious villas are surrounded by unspoilt views of the ocean and luscious greenery. Six Senses Con Dao have sustainability at their core and are committed to improving the ecological and carbon footprint of the resort.
Guests are encouraged to learn about the hotels sustainable efforts through complimentary Global Sensibility Workshops, where you are taught about organic gardening and have a hand in harvesting some of the produce prepared in the restaurant. Each eco-luxury villa is fuelled by solar panels. The resort is dedicated to conserving and protecting nature and hosts ongoing Sea turtle incubation and research, with 2,904 endangered sea turtles hatched and released into the wild to date. Prices start at $646 per night.
A little wanderlust never hurt anyone! Now is the perfect time to dream, to travel inside and imagine all those places you will one day feel.
Christine
