Mandy Moore will speak today at Conde Nast Traveler magazine's third annual World Savers Congress. So will Ken Burns, Wyclef Jean, Edward Norton, and other celebs who are helping to save the planet.

by Wendy Perrin

Want to learn what it takes to be a responsible traveler? Find out which travel companies are the most responsible--meaning, which are greenest and do the most good when it comes to helping the local communities in which they operate?  Eavesdrop on conversations among the most forward-thinking travel industry C.E.O.s who have gathered to share their hard-earned wisdom regarding how to operate sustainably?  Suggest ideas of your own for how travelers and travel companies can make a difference?

Then tune in to today's World Savers Congress at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City, starting at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time. I told you all about it a few days ago, and here's the program of scheduled presentations and panels.

You'll find live coverage of the event on this brand-new blog, where we'll be posting reports and insights from the Congress throughout the day, as well as Twitter updates from Congress attendees. We hope you enjoy following along!

In this video address at our World Savers Congress last year, actor/activist Matt Damon told travel industry leaders just how much power they hold to improve our planet. 

by Wendy Perrin

Not sure how you can help save the world when you travel? Then tune in to Conde Nast Traveler's 3rd annual World Savers Congress a week from today. Leaders of the travel industry will convene in New York City, at the Morgan Library & Museum, to discuss how we all can limit environmental impact and improve the health, education, and economic well-being of the communities worldwide in which we leave our footprints.

We'll be honoring the 2009 World Savers award winners and hearing from speakers and panelists including Ken Burns, filmmaker and director of The National Parks: America's Best Idea, a six-part documentary airing on PBS this fall; Wyclef Jean, musican and philanthropist, on how tourism can help Haiti; Mandy Moore, actor and ambassador for Five & Alive, on the Conde Nast Traveler Five & Alive Fund, administered in partnership with Population Services International; Nicholas Kristof, op-ed columnist for The New York Times, who will moderate a panel on "The Economics of Doing Good"; and Abby Joseph Cohen, president of Goldman Sachs' Global Markets Institute.

Me, I'll be moderating a panel called "The Committed Consumer: Engaging Your Guests Now."  We'll focus on how companies that are committed to sustainable travel can best articulate their message to travelers. The panelists? Carmen Baker, VP for Responsible Business, Carlson Hotels; Richard Edelman, CEO, Edelman Public Relations; Niki Leondakis, COO, Kimpton Hotels; Gregg Michel, President, Crystal Cruises; and Bruce Poon Tip, CEO, Gap Adventures. (As you can tell from the photo above, I had fun moderating last year's consumer panel. That's Adam Stewart, CEO, Sandals Resorts and the Sandals Foundation, at right.) Anything you want me to ask the panelists? Just click on "Comments" below and let me know your questions.

For scenes from last year's World Savers Congress (where we heard from Queen Rania of Jordan and actor/activitist Ashley Judd, pictured at right) as well as a wrap-up of the remarks and highlights, see our 2008 World Savers Congress page.

Can't join us at the Morgan Library? Then join us on Twitter. From 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time, next Monday, September 21, you can follow live coverage of the World Savers Congress both on Twitter and on a brand-new Conde Nast Traveler blog. I'll be back later this week to tell you how and where.

Speaking of blogging . . . we've got a limited number of seats left at the Congress for NYC-based travel bloggers.  Interested?  If so, please email Megan Montenaro at megan_montenaro@condenast.com.

A veritable U.N. of international hand gestures.
Photo: Jeremy Liebman, Conde Nast Traveler

by Brook Wilkinson

One element of being a responsible traveler that I don't talk about much in this column is, well, having good manners. No, I don't mean keeping your elbows off the table or opening the car door for your guide. But there are a lot of gestures that we Americans use which are major faux pas in other parts of the world. Take the guy wearing the tie at the top of this photo. Looks like he's beckoning for his friend to come over. But in Indonesia that gesture is a signal for soliciting a prostitute. Oops.

There's an entire section on hand gesture dos and don'ts in the April issue of Conde Nast Traveler -- and it's not available online, only in our print version. So go out and buy your copy today to find out how to say "Good luck" in Germany, "I'm sorry" in India, and much more.

by Brook Wilkinson

You'll find my Iconic Itinerary of Napa Valley, California, in Conde Nast Traveler's April issue. I've laid out five days of touring that include the county's best wineries, restaurants, and hotels. What you won't find in the article are expressly "green" options for your wine country vacation (though it was a relatively green trip for me, since I live just a short drive away in San Francisco).

Where to go if you want to see the sustainable side of Napa Valley? One must-see is Ubuntu, a new restaurant in the town of Napa. Here you'll find organic vegetarian cuisine, with ingredients sourced largely from the restaurant's own biodynamic garden. One dish you absolutely must order is the signature cauliflower in a cast-iron pot -- so savory you'll wonder where they hid the meat. If you're feeling cramped from the car ride, drop in on a yoga class at the upstairs studio.

Ubuntu does have a wide selection of biodynamic labels on its wine list, but I didn't visit any such wineries during my trip. Can any of you recommend some biodynamic and/or organic wineries in Napa Valley?

The Inn at Little Washington has been rated No. 1 in Zagat's Washington, D.C., survey for the past 14 years.
Photo courtesy of the Inn at Little Washington

by Wendy Perrin

Attention, readers who live in Washington, D.C., or are traveling there next week: Bookmark your calendars for a worthy cause--and amazing food. The gourmet sanctuary known as the Inn at Little Washington is celebrating its 30th anniversary on April 9 with a special dinner and auction hosted by some of the country's top chefs. 

All of the proceeds for the event will benefit the Conde Nast Traveler Five & Alive Fund, a program created in partnership with Population Services International (PSI) that helps children age five and under access the education, products, and services they need to live a healthy life. 

This is a fantastic opportunity to honor a pioneer in American cuisine AND help kids worldwide. To find out more about the black-tie gala dinner, which will be held at the Mellon Auditorium and attended by an assortment of America's culinary geniuses of the past 30 years, click here.

Stewart International Airport, 60 miles north of New York City, wants to be the world's first carbon-negative airport.
Photo: Wikipedia.org

by Brook Wilkinson

An airport that actually removes greenhouse gases from the environment? Is that really possible? That's the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey's goal for Stewart International Airport, which may one day be the fourth major airport of the New York metropolitan area. But it's as unlikely a goal as it sounds (contrary to what you'll read over at The Daily Green).

I grew up 15 minutes from Stewart, where my father kept a plane for many years. I'm all for a careful, thoughtful expansion of the airport -- including local businesses in the process, maintaining a good deal of the buffer zone around the airport that's currently available to bikers and hikers -- but not with this slap of greenwashing over it.

First of all, the carbon-negative goal is a bit misleading, because it includes only the activities on the ground, not the fuel used in flights to or from the airport. Second, the Port Authority plans to install some energy-efficiency measures in the airport, but much of the greenhouse gas savings will come from carbon offsets -- credits the airport can purchase to allow for trees to be planted or renewable energy projects funded, for instance, while still using fossil fuels to run the airport's daily operations.

By using a catchphrase like "carbon-negative," the Port Authority has hidden the real story: that Stewart will become a testing ground for new emissions-reducing technologies to be developed by students and faculty from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. If you're listening, Richard Branson, I'm sure they'd be happy to spend some of the $3 billion you've pledged to renewable energy research over the next decade.

Woe to those planning to climb Mount Everest this year.
Photo: wikipedia.org

by Brook Wilkinson

The Chinese government has shut down Mount Everest until May 10, throwing a wrench into the plans of thousands of climbers hoping to scale the world's highest peak this spring. The nominal reason: "increasing environmental pressures," according to a notice from the China Tibet Mountaineering Association. But given that country's track record on environmental issues, the assumed reason is to forestall protests when the Olympic flame is carried up Everest in early May.

Britain's Independent is reporting that Nepal has also agreed to shut down the south face routes that run through that country; Nepal receives a hefty amount of financial support from China, and recognizes Tibet as a part of China. Last week's protests in Lhasa were the largest in 20 years and spread to sympathetic cities around the world.

If the ban holds, the Olympic flame carriers may be the only people to top Everest this year. Prime summiting time runs for just a few weeks in May, before the monsoon season arrives.

by Brook Wilkinson

Don't you hate it when you print out an itinerary or driving directions and the last page has nothing but a two-line URL on it? Now GreenPrint helps you avoid printing useless pages, saving both ink and paper.

Once you download the free World edition of GreenPrint, it will become your default printer setting. Then, each time you click on Print in your web browser, Word document, or other application, you'll get a preview with the pages that GreenPrint doesn't think you need highlighted in red. You can still print these pages or discard them, and you can also choose to remove images and banner ads from the pages, which will make your color ink cartridge last a little longer.

GreenPrint keeps track of how much ink, paper, and money you're saving -- and in addition to the trees that won't be harvested, you'll be saving energy and water that would otherwise be used in paper production and shipping.

Full disclosure: I haven't been able to actually test out GreenPrint, because they don't yet have a version for Macs (but one should be available by the end of the year). The free version includes an ad before every print preview, but the $35 Home Premium version doesn't. Any other downsides? If you Windows users decide to download the software, I'd love to hear what you think in a comment below!

by Brook Wilkinson

I blogged a few months ago about Lonely Planet's new Buy by Chapter program, which lets you purchase just the sections of a guidebook that are relevant to your trip. Back then, the service was available only for the Latin America series, but it's now been expanded to include the books for North America, Africa, the Caribbean, and the South Pacific -- almost 100 guides in all.

Let me take this opportunity to say it again: This is a great deal, both financially and environmentally. Many's the time that I've lugged a multi-country guidebook on a single-destination trip, simply because it was the most up-to-date source of information I could find. Now, if I want to take a weekend trip to San Diego, I can buy just that city's chapter for $3, instead of the entire California guide for $23. When you purchase a chapter, you'll receive it in PDF form, so you can save it on your computer and print out only what you'll need on your trip. If you buy three or four chapters, you'll save an additional 20 percent; buy five or more and you'll save 35 percent. A good deal for you, and for the earth.

The test pilot takes questions after landing the partially biofuel-powered Virgin Atlantic 747 seen behind him.
Photo: Virgin Atlantic

by Brook Wilkinson

Last Sunday, Virgin Atlantic became the world's first airline to fly using biofuel. Sir Richard Branson would like you to think that this is a great leap toward sustainable air travel. However, it's just not that simple.

I applaud Branson's recent commitment to spend $3 billion on environmentally friendly technologies, but Sunday's test flight from London to Amsterdam didn't prove much. Two studies published just a few weeks ago in the journal Science found that most biofuels actually cause MORE greenhouse gas emissions than fossil fuels. Interested? Read on.

Vancouver's parkland helps the city rank as one of the world's greenest.
Photo: Taylor S. Kennedy, National Geographic Image Collection

by Brook Wilkinson

Think ecotourism means traveling deep into the Amazon jungle or the African savannah? Not necessarily. More and more cities are upping their sustainability factor, making them great destinations for the green-minded traveler.

Grist, the go-to guys for any environmental question, published the following list of 15 green cities. Follow the links below for advice from the travel experts at Conde Nast Traveler about what to do on your next urban eco-vacation. It's the perfect pairing -- environmental advice from the Grist greenies, and travel tips from the people who take vacations for a living.

Grist's 15 Green Cities:
Reykjavik, Iceland
Portland, Oregon
Curitiba, Brazil
Malmo, Sweden
Vancouver, Canada

Click below for the rest of the list...

by Brook Wilkinson

Yesterday, Enterprise Rent-A-Car debuted a new car sharing system in the St. Louis area. Zipcar has long been the leader in the car sharing business, with dozens of locations across the country, but now that the rental agencies are diving in (Hertz may well start its own program soon), rates could get even more competitive.

What's a car share? If you're not familiar with Zipcar, here's how it works: Members typically pay a one-time application fee to have access to a fleet of cars spread around an urban area, which they can then borrow by the hour or the day. Gas and insurance is included. Car sharing is an environmentally friendly plan because (1) it reduces the number of cars on the road, and (2) members think twice before hopping in the car to run a nonessential errand.

Enterprise's program, called WeCar, is starting with a fleet of Prius hybrids in downtown St. Louis. The Web site is sparse, to say the least, but you can send an e-mail to WeCarSTL@erac.com to join the program.

Read on to hear about U-Haul's car sharing program.

That's me, helping teach an English class in Siem Reap, Cambodia, last December.

by Brook Wilkinson

Conde Nast Traveler wants to know: Are you a voluntourist? Have you ever volunteered during your travels, perhaps building homes or schools, or working in a medical clinic? Have you thought about volunteering but haven't yet found the right organization to devote your time to? Or do you think volunteer vacations are a waste of time? Please answer the questions in our short survey on voluntourism; it'll only take about five minutes. The results will be published in the May issue of Conde Nast Traveler.

A child crouches by the charred remants of his house in Cambodia, January 24, 2008.
All photos: Journeys Within Our Community

by Brook Wilkinson

As I've mentioned on the blog, I took a trip to Cambodia last December. I was there to volunteer with Journeys Within Our Community, the nonprofit branch of the tour operator Journeys Within, whom Wendy and I recommend for planning travel to Southeast Asia. You'll get to read about my experiences in the May issue of Conde Nast Traveler, but right now JWOC needs your help.

Last Wednesday, there was a fire in a nearby village. It quickly destroyed 36 homes, leaving hundreds of people with only the clothes on their backs. JWOC was on the scene the next day, talking to the villagers about the tragedy. What can you do to help? Read on to find out.

Sigg sells safe-to-use
metal water bottles
in a variety of designs.
Photo: Sigg

by Brook Wilkinson

With disposable water bottles clogging landfills and plastic refillable bottles standing accused of leaching toxic chemicals, what's a green traveler to do? I've long ignored the reports questioning the safety of the disposable plastic bottle that I refill and refrigerate every day, and the Nalgene bottle that I occasionally take on hikes.

But while attending the Yoga Journal Conference here in San Francisco last weekend, I found myself entranced by the display of Sigg bottles. The jury's still out on just how much bisphenol A is leached from a hard plastic bottle, or how much bacteria you might ingest when reusing a disposable bottle, but after seeing the beautiful designs that the folks at Sigg have come up with, I'm convinced it's time for a change.

If you're like me and you travel with water -- at least once you step off the plane -- consider buying a reusable, non-leaching bottle from either Sigg or Klean Kanteen. The Sigg bottles are made out of aluminum with an inner coating that doesn't react with acidic fruit juices. Klean Kanteen's bottles are made from stainless steel, which is itself inert. Klean Kanteens, however, only come in straight metal, without any of Sigg's jazzy designs.