Recently in the Eco-Tourism Category

In the Wall Street Journal, Alexandra Alter writes about veteran travel writer Tim Cahill, focusing on his chosen escape — a cabin near Gallatin National Forest in Montana.

“‘It’s often hilarious to me that I’m writing about Tonga or some tropical place and there’s a blizzard outside and the cows are on their backs with their hooves in the air,’ said Mr. Cahill, a founding editor of Outside magazine and author of nine books, including ‘A Wolverine Is Eating My Leg’ and ‘Jaguars Ripped My Flesh.’ Mr. Cahill, whose wife died in a traffic accident last year, often stays at the cabin for week-long stretches, and all told spends a couple of months out of the year there.”

In The New York Times, Alex Frew McMillan talks about the best hiking escapes from the concrete of Hong Kong, including those in the New Territories, north of the Kowloon hills. “They are home to most of Hong Kong’s country parks — the equivalent of national parks for the territory — which became a special administrative region of China in 1997. There are 23 country parks in all, covering about 38 percent of the entire territory.”

“Fog drifted off green hills bristling with cholla cactus and spiced with the scent of sage. The loudest sounds were the songs of meadowlarks. About 600 feet below, the ocean crashed on the boulder-strewn base of steep mountains riven by wind and water. The view lies at the 20-mile mark of the new Trans-Catalina Island Trail.” In the Los Angeles Times, Louis Sahagun describes the brand new 37.2-mile hiking route that traverses Santa Catalina island off of California’s southwest coast.

On Canada.com, Gary May travels to a rainforest lodge on Golfo Dulce on Costa Rica’s south west coast and finds himself literally living among the animals on the border of Piedras Blancas National Park. “No longer are the distinctive, ghostly roars of the howler monkeys coming from deep in the rainforest, they are right outside our cabin. We lie in bed, beneath our bug net, grateful we’d decided to pull the louvred doors closed the night before, after awakening that day to small animal droppings strewn across our floor.”

Golfo Dulce Map | Wikipedia

In The New York Times, Jennifer Conlin writes about the growing availability of earth-friendly vacation rentals and organic hotels, including ones in the Sierra peaks, England's Yorkshire Dales National Park, and British Columbia.  "One simple but stunning property on her Web site is Ravens Havens in Paradise Valley, British Columbia (www.ravenshavens.com), a 40-minute drive from Whistler in what is called the Sea to Sky Corridor, an area that includes two historic routes, the Pemberton Trail and the Gold Rush Heritage Trail."