When people ask me about sustainable travel, the first thing I try to clarify is what it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean camping. It doesn't mean forgoing comfort. It doesn't mean choosing the most obscure experience over the most rewarding one. What it actually means, and what I think about when I'm building a trip for a client who cares about this, is choosing providers and experiences that put money back into the communities and ecosystems they're built around, rather than e
If you have spent any time researching a Costa Rica trip, you have seen it everywhere. Pura Vida. On coffee mugs in the airport, on the lips of tour guides, on bumper stickers and Instagram captions. By the time most travelers land in San Jose, they have already filed it away as a pleasant local saying, the way you might file away aloha or ciao bello. A greeting. A vibe. Something you say when things are going well. That is not quite what it is. I grew up in Costa Rica. I hea
Greenwashing has become one of the most frustrating things to navigate in travel, partly because it is so easy to do, and partly because most travelers have no straightforward way to detect it. The term refers to companies that market themselves as environmentally responsible without making any meaningful changes to their actual operations. A hotel that puts a card in your bathroom about reusing towels but still waters its grass lawn daily in a region that should have no gras
