The Inn at Dos Brisas
Photo Courtesy of Katie Park
Celebrating Earth Day is a lot more meaningful when you do it with those who practice eco-friendliness more than one day a year. Case in point, these six hotels value going green in unique ways all of the time, but they still make for excellent Earth Day escapes:
The Inn at Dos Brisas
The Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star restaurant at this intimate Texas ranch outside of Houston is as locally focused as can be. The seven-table eatery sources food from the property’s 42-acre USDA certified organic garden, which means all fertilizers and insecticides are all-natural and the seeds are non-GMO (genetically modified organism), too. There’s also a 7,000-square-foot greenhouse, which is used to grow food in colder months. Environmentally friendly farming isn’t where the Four-Star inn stops with green initiatives, though. Larger hacienda guest rooms have geothermal climate control and outdoor lighting is minimal, which means there isn’t much light pollution but ample opportunity for amazing stargazing.
Hyatt Union Square New York, Photo Courtesy of Hyatt Corporation
Hyatt Union Square New York
Several days a week Manhattan’s Union Square is filled with local purveyors and farmers selling fresh fruits and veggies, cheeses, plants and flowers, and a slew of artisanal eats — we like to think of it as the ultimate urban farmers market. Book The Greenmarket Experience at this Four-Star hotel, located just off the square, and you’ll get a two-night stay, a copy of The New Greenmarket Cookbook, Greenmarket wheat beer from Brooklyn Brewery, a canvas shopping tote and $20 credit to use while shopping for the oh-so-fresh goods.
Hotel Santa Fe The Hacienda and Spa
This pueblo-style boutique hotel in the heart of downtown Santa Fe has a long history of adhering to eco-friendly initiatives and, this past December, it upped its green game even more when it became the first property in the U.S. to rely completely on solar energy to power its guest rooms. The Picuris Pueblo Native American tribe is the majority owner of the hotel and their influence is seen in both the traditional Southwest décor and artifacts as well as in environmentally sound business practices like using water conservation and applying recycled materials — just check out the reclaimed mesquite wood floors in the lobby.
Mukul, Photo Courtesy of Mukul Beach Golf and Spa
Mukul
Nicaragua is known for its eco-friendly resorts, but this $250-million wonder is both green and grand. The luxury beachside resort has a super luxe spa, rooms with gorgeous views and a sustainably built golf course. It recently introduced a new option for guests looking to connect with locals in a meaningful way: during one of the personalized excursions, you are taken to a small village where you hear about the effort to collect plastic bags off the street and transform them into usable items like purses and baskets. Guests can even learn the art of weaving recycled plastic bags from local experts.
The Allison Inn & Spa
Tucked away in Oregon’s gorgeous wine country, this elegant Four-Star spot has long adhered to practices with light environmental impact — in fact, it’s one of a few hotels in the world with a LEED Gold certification. To mark Earth Day, the luxury inn is offering a 15 percent discount on services at its luxe Four-Star spa. Guests will get a discount on treatments like the signature pinotherapy spa rituals (the 90-minute Grape Seed Cure comes with a grape seed scrub and an organic honey and wine wrap) and take home a lavender starter plant (packaged in biodegradable container, of course).
Cypress Inn, Photo Courtesy of Cypress Inn
Cypress Inn
This lovely inn in downtown Carmel-by-the-Sea knows how to keep things eco-chic, which comes as no surprise considering its primo locale on California’s naturally gorgeous Central Coast. Day-to-day operations are conducted with an eye on preserving the beauty all around the campus, from using chemical-free cleaning products to providing earth-friendly bath products and reverse-osmosis filtered water in guest rooms (no more plastic water bottles here). And the inn’s recent renovation also ushered in reclaimed wood, recycled denim insulation and low-VOC (volatile organic compounds) paint.
