Want inspiring stories and inspiration about ecotourism? You’ve come to the right place.
Newsletter from 2050
Hello! We've all heard the environmental futurecasts and they aren't looking good. They are paralyzing us! Instead, can we imagine a different, better future? Humor me while I pretend to write you from the year 2050 and tell you how we can create that better future....
The Magic of Elephants
I recently read a Facebook post by one of the past finalists of the EcoTripMatch.com Best Nature Tour Guide Award processes. It was so beautifully written, I asked if I could have permission to include it here. Enjoy this piece by Alan McSmith from Alan McSmith...
Journey to Southern Africa
Journey to Southern Africa After three years of planning, including a pandemic delay and replanning, I was finally able to bring a group of nine people on a safari adventure to Botswana and South Africa. Every worry about possible delays and covid dysfunctions...
How Will We Travel Now?
How Will We Travel Now? There is a phenomenon I’ve noticed about travel. The more places you go, the more places you want to go. So now, with more than a year of uncertainty and lockdowns, the list might have grown even longer. But, perhaps the way you travel...
Are We There Yet?
Are We There Yet? If you are a traveler at heart, the pandemic has not been easy for you. Maybe you feel like that kid in the back seat of the car saying, "Are we there yet"! Hopefully you stayed healthy and are now starting to think about your escape. But,...
Travel Dreams: The photography of Timothy Leperes
Travel dreams are running on fumes these days with imagination making up the bulk of our travel experiences. So, imagine this: you finally go on your dream trip to see the wildlife of Kenya, to take some once-in-a-lifetime photos, and while you are watching a cheetah,...
Have You Caught Biophilia?
Have You Caught Biophilia? By Monica Ines Perez-Eguia, Co-founder of Bana Have you ever felt a sense of calm or belonging when looking at a landscape or at the ocean? We know photos of landscapes are the go-to for image in doctor’s offices and spas, but can we name...
The Future is Ten Years Old Right Now
The Future is 10 Years Old Right Now Is anyone else finding that your new, isolated, small world is causing you to look at the bigger picture? While tourism is quiet, the air is more clear, and the lions lounge on the roads of Kruger National Park, some of us are...
What’s Next?
What's Next? Such a short question! Such an unknowable answer. All of us have been thinking about what that answer might be. What I can tell you is that the ecolodges and ecotour companies on EcoTripMatch.com have been thinking about the answer and have been preparing...
Earth Day: 50 Years!
Earth Day: 50th Anniversary The irony is not lost on me. It's Earth Day and while some of us are less hurried and we can spend more time outdoors, many of us are more cut off from the outdoors than usual. Whatever your circumstances right now, we can pause to...
Nature Heals
Are you staying close to home now? So many limitations on our ability to get out and see new places can be wearing on your soul. Most likely you can still venture outside and I promise, you will feel better when you see those subtle little changes that are occurring...
Special Video
Great news! One of the ecolodges on EcoTripMatch.com was chosen by Sir David Attenborough's team as partners and lodges to film the latest BBC natural history series: Seven Worlds, One Planet. Between December 2018 and March 2019, the Tambopata Research Center hosted...
6 Beachside Ecolodges to Warm Your Soul
As many of us are inching closer to a dark, cold winter, some are already daydreaming about escaping to a warm beach to take the sting out of it. How many more winters are you just going to daydream about it? Maybe it's time to invest in a memory (memories, unlike new...
7 Intriguing Ecotourism Destinations: One for Each Continent
Great ecotourism destinations literally span the globe. On each continent there are so many wonderful options, it’s not easy for a single ecolodge or ecotour to stand out. But, there really are some gems worthy of highlighting, either because they are visually unique,...
What You Eat Matters
As you may have figured out, I like to focus on the positive when it comes to the environment and conservation. That doesn't mean any of the problems go away, but I don't think it's particularly helpful to load people up with bad environmental news and leave them...
Ray’s Award and a Puerto Rico/Iceland Connection
The award has made it into the hands of the "Best NatureTour Guide" for 2019, Ray David Rodriguez Colon Puerto Rico al Sur! Before Ray even received the plaque recognizing him as the winner of the 2019 award, he was being recognized in Puerto Rico by none other than...
True Love for Truly Bird Friendly Coffee
Note: This is a post from my friend Marina Richie. It was so helpful, I wanted to share it. Enjoy! This is conservation made easy (and yummy)!I have a Valentine’s Day confession to make. I truly love that first sip of morning coffee –not just any java, but my new...
Panama! The Love Affair Continues
How to sum up Panama? As many of you know I have a long history with Panama's rainforests and animals, particularly the birds. I just got back from co-leading two back-to-back nature tours so I was fully immersed for nearly three weeks. It is simply the most...
5 Things to Do in Peru (other than Machu Picchu)
Peru: Land of DiversityDon’t be shocked. There are people who go to Peru for a couple weeks and never make it to Machu Picchu (ah….yeah, I'm one of them). While Peru is known for that remarkable spot in the mountains, there is so much more to explore outdoors in Peru....
Macaws!
Birds of a Feather If you have a soft spot for big, bold, charismatic birds, then you might want to think about heading for Brazil’s Pantanal region, where you can see at least three species of macaw on a single trip. How does this sound: Hyacinth Macaws, Blue and...
Survey Says
Survey Results A few weeks ago I sent out a link to a survey to see who you are and what your concerns are in terms of getting yourself out the door and onto nature trips. Curious what I found? Here are some insights (and it's not to late to take the survey, just...
Connecting you to the answers
Now THIS I’m excited about! I added a new feature to EcoTripMatch.com that I hope will grow into a global online community of people that helps each other with questions and answers having to do with nature travel. “Open Space” is the new community forum on...
A Dose of Nature
Have you ever noticed that you feel better after you’ve been outside for a while? Well it’s not just you. There are actual physical and mental shifts that happen after a bit of time in nature. It’s so universal, that there is a name for it. Well actually, several...
Is Your Vacation Photo Contributing to Poaching?
Our group was feeling euphoric after a rare sighting in Southern Africa. It was the last day and we had already been remarkably lucky, seeing all the creatures we'd come their for, but this was special. We had just watched a small family of rhinos in a beautiful...
The Last Male Northern White Rhino
I just got back from a group wildlife-watching trip I organized to California for the Audubon Naturalist Society and despite experiencing one of those ‘atmospheric rivers of rain’ for a few days, we saw over 100 species of birds and numerous mammals. What struck me...
Panama’s La Prensa Newspaper Highlights 2018 Winner of Best Nature Tour Guide Award
The Panamanian Newspaper, La Prensa, features Carlos Bethancourt, winner of the 2018 EcoTripMatch.com Best Nature Tour Guide Award! https://impresa.prensa.com/vivir/mejor-guia-natural_0_4966753333.html I am thrilled that Carlos is getting the accolades he deserves....
2018 Winner of the EcoTripMatch.com “Best Nature Tour Guide” award!
This year's global vote has truly been amazing. The day before voting ended, it was a tie for first place!! But, in the end, after hundreds of people from 422 cities around the world voted, we have the 2018 EcoTripMatch.com "Best Nature Tour Guide". Carlos...
Terry Lawson Dunn Interview with Ideamensch
"There will be times when you feel like your path is zigging and zagging through a diversity of experiences, but they will all come together to make you uniquely equipped for what you’re doing now.” An uncommon history leads to uncommon ideas. Terry Lawson Dunn is a...
Doing Kenya the Right Way
Interview From Basecamp Explorer KenyaA few weeks ago, I had the honor of speaking with someone by phone from Basecamp Explorer Kenya. I've admired what they are doing from a great distance and was quite excited to hear more directly from them. If you are still trying...
A Picnic in Mongolia: Random Acts of Hospitality Series
Mongolia, 1998 A dozen people on a tour across the dry, almost flat landscape on a rutted, dirt “road”. We were looking for an open space away from family settlements in order to have a picnic lunch. We pulled away from the rutted dirt road, found a grassy area to...
Journey to Scotland: Random Acts of Hospitality Series
(This story is from a dear friend...one who delivered a huge random act of hospitality to me by giving me a room for months when I was a young biologist living in Boise, Idaho. He now has a book and this is one of the chapters from his book. You can find his book...
Basketball in Mongolia: Random Acts of Hospitality Series
Mongolia, 1998 A dozen people were on our tour across the dry, almost flat landscape on a rutted, dirt “road”. We were approaching a family settlement: a few “gers”, small animal herds, and a basketball hoop. As we drove closer we saw a couple of young men throwing...
Yucatan, Mexico: Random Acts of Hospitality Series
In 1982 my wife and I were traveling in the Yucatan in a rented VW bug that we picked up in Merida to drive to Coba. Lots of dirt roads, no cell phones, no Spanish on our part. Somewhere a couple hours out of Merida we had a flat tire near a small collection of...
The Scoop from Bhutan
Interview with Karma Bajaj, Owner of Bhutan Mahayana ToursBhutan is perhaps one of the most unusual, intriguing travel destinations in the world. Since Bhutan was first opened to tourists, the country has approached tourism on their own terms, maintaining what is...
Ireland: Eco-retreat, Interview Series
Interview with Noeleen Tyrrell, Founder and Director of Ard Nahoo Eco Retreat, Ireland So far in this interview series, we've spanned the globe from Cambodia to Bhutan to the Ecuadorian Amazon. Now for something different-- Ireland -- and a different model of...
A Natural Disaster on Your Vacation: Would You Know What To Do?
Mother Nature Is Not Always Nice The great thing about travel is that it comes with serendipitous surprises and unfamiliar experiences. But what if those unfamiliar experiences include natural disasters, ones that you are clueless about because you don’t live in...
What Do Nature Travelers Want?
Perhaps the first thing that crosses your mind when you see that question is, ‘Am I typical’? Well, I'm not sure there is such a thing. Last month I did a series of rather comprehensive interviews with nature travelers. Nature travel is a kind of a broad umbrella that...
7 Clever and Inspiring Things For Your Next Outdoor Adventure
Nature travel is mostly about being in nature, but there are some things that can make the time out there easier and more inspired. In recent months I've encountered a few things that are so clever, or inspiring, that I wanted to share them with you. SUITCASE SCOOTER:...
Interview with Randy Borman, Executive Director Fundacion Sobrevivencia Cofan
Interview with Randy Borman Executive Director Fundacion Sobrevivencia Cofan Randy Borman has a way with words. It was obvious from our first communication. His commitment, enthusiasm, vivid descriptions and willingness to encourage EcoTripMatch.com's...
EcoTripMatch.com Mentioned in the Washington Post
Great news! EcoTripMatch.com was recently mentioned in an insightful article about green travel in the Washington Post. The title? " With eco-friendly travel more popular than ever, approach green claims with skepticism Click on the button to read the article!...