Protect - What you can do

We Need You – Travel Lightly!

These destinations are special and every visitor and resident has an impact.

When visiting, please keep the following in mind.

• Be Aware
  Your travel has an impact on the destination and the little things you do like conserving water and recycling has significant impact when multiplied by millions of visitors.
• Be Responsible
  When making choices about your travel needs, consider the impacts of your choices and make choices that make sense, for you and for the resources in the destination.
• Be Respectful
  When visiting a destination, please understand that the locals and their culture must continue to thrive after your visit.  Please follow the rules, laws and regulations as they have been established to help protect the integrity of the destination.

How to Travel Lightly

Go Paper Free

One of the easiest ways to be responsible while planning your vacation is to set a goal to travel 100% paperless.  You can request virtual confirmations and emails among many other options.

Plan Ahead

Make a plan for preparing your home as well as yourselves. Look for ecotourism standards that include minimal environmental impact, preserves natural habitat, involves the local community and supports sustainable development.

We’ve done the legwork for you and created Green Pages on our websites where you can find businesses who have made the effort towards sustainable practices. You can find them by clicking “Vacations” and then “Green Vacations”.  In order for businesses to be listed on these pages, they must practice 5 of AllTrips' Green Requirements.

• Green Leaf Activity Guidelines
• Green Leaf Lodging Guidelines

Offset Your Carbon Footprint

Traveling to the places we love has a negative impact on the environment.  An increasingly popular way to negate the effects of your travel is to purchase carbon offsets. While this doesn't directly affect the impact of your vacation, it reduces the impact you have daily.  Other ways to offset your impact are:

• Energy
  Invest in development of wind power, solar power, biofuel and hydroelectric power; or subsidize the costs so that it is more commercially viable.  Invest in initiatives to lower energy demand and usage.
• Research
  You can do research, just make sure that offsets are validated by a 3rd party.  A non-profit company that does third party verification is www.carbonfund.org and www.terrapass.com You can calculate your carbon footprint and choose the area you would like your offsets to be applied.
• Volunteer
  If you are spending a week in a National Park or Resort Area, there is an easy way to give back – volunteer!  you can participate in local pathways or trail programs, clean up roadsides, public lands and waterways or volunteer with organizations or at local festivals.
  At AllTrips, it is our goal to volunteer in our communities 2 times a year!  We find this activity brings us closer to each other and to the areas we love.
  You can find volunteering information for National Parks here
  www.nps.gov/getinvolved/volunteer.htm
  And for National Forests here
  www.volunteer.gov/gov/
• Buy Local
  One of the easiest ways to reduce your carbon footprint is to Buy Local!  Visit a local Farmer’s Market while you are visiting a community for lunch or to stock the fridge in your condo.  Many of our destinations have markets that supply local produce. You can also find many of the area farmers markets on our events calendars. These typically happen weekly or twice a week so you are sure to find one while visiting any area.
• Transportation
  Rent a Fuel Efficient Car – evaluate your needs for transportation carefully.  Many rental fleets now feature hybrid and extremely fuel-efficient cars.  Weigh your needs with your impact to find the most sensible (and often most affordable!) option! If you do rent a car – don’t let it idle while you are taking pictures or running into a store.  Many resort areas have a shuttle bus system so that you can be completely car free for your entire vacation!  Other options are just walking to as many places you can or rent a bicycle.
• Stay Smart
  At your hotel reuse your bath towels, opt out of daily linen replacement, and make sure to turn off lights when you are not in the room. Reuse What You Can - It is important to stay hydrated, but carry reusable bottles with you.  When you are shopping bring your own reusable bags.

Leave No Trace

We encourage everyone to practice the Leave No Trace policy while traveling. The Leave No Trace policy allows us to enjoy the places we love for years to come.

1. Plan Ahead and Prepare: Poorly prepared people, when presented with unexpected situations, often resort to high-impact solutions that degrade the outdoors or put themselves at risk. Proper planning leads to less impact.
2. Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces: Damage to land occurs when surface vegetation or communities of organisms are trampled beyond repair. The resulting barren area leads to unusable trails, campsites and soil erosion.
3. Dispose of Waste Properly: Though most trash and litter in the backcountry is not significant in terms of the long term ecological health of an area, it does rank high as a problem in the minds of many backcountry visitors. Trash and litter are primarily social impacts which can greatly detract from the naturalness of an area. Further, backcountry users create body waste and waste water which requires proper disposal according to Leave No Trace.
4. Leave What You Find: Leave No Trace directs people to minimize site alterations, such as digging tent trenches, hammering nails into trees, permanently clearing an area of rocks or twigs, and removing items.
5. Minimize Campfire Impacts: Because the naturalness of many areas has been degraded by overuse of fires, LNT teaches to seek alternatives to fires or use low-impact fires.
6. Respect Wildlife: Minimizing impact on wildlife and ecosystems please stay on the designated trails, keep a safe distance from all wildlife, do not distract, throw items or call to animals.
7. Be Considerate of Other Visitors: Following hiking etiquette and maintaining quiet allows visitors to go through the wilderness with minimal impact on other users.

For more information please visit the Leave No trace website at www.lnt.org

Sustainable Travel Planning Resources

See our list of Local Recycling Resources in the Yellowstone Region.

• Yellowstone Region Recycling Resources [PDF Format]

AllTrips has worked hard to present our visitors with sustainable travel options and resources.  We thank you for helping us protect the places we love for future visitors!