Eco-friendlier Travel Site Launches

While leisure travel by default is not the most eco-friendly thing you can do -- the combustion of mass quantities of jet fuel an obvious case in point -- some getaways leave lighter footprints than others. So if the all-inclusive Sandals resort and its mirage of abundance is not your thing, but visiting and learning about the fragile ecosystem of Costa Rica's sea turtles sounds cool (believe me, it is), then perhaps you should click over to ekoVenture.

The new travel site specializes in eco-friendlier travel adventures such as biking in the Himalayas and diving in the Philippines. It's not the first eco-tourism site, "but most of them look like they were slapped together by hippies instead of Web designers," as a TechCrunch article so eloquently puts it.

This one is sleek and seems highly functional. Users can search through around 10,000 eco-tours and other adventurous outings from around the world, linking travelers to 450 travel operators globally, including jaunts that may be close to home. CEO T.J. Sassani told TechCrunch his goal is to get people active and to help them "break the theme park habit."

As more people use the site, the more crowd-sourced input will improve its usefulness, the article claims:

"Once the site gets going, user reviews will play an important role in the vetting process as well. In addition to connecting travelers to tour operators, ekoVenture also offers tour operators a free booking engine on the back-end, much like OpenTable does for restaurants."

OpenTable, of course, was one of the few companies to launch a public stock offering this year, so that's a helpful association. And as eco-friendlier (I can't bring myself to say "eco-friendly") travel adventures become increasingly popular, a fully realized and professionally designed site should get more than a few eyeballs.

Photo courtesy of Yourface91, via Wikipedia