treehugger looks at survey presented to the International Tourism Convention in Berlin and asks  What Will Consumers Pay for a Green Vacation.

Planet Ark reports that the Maldives Vows to be first carbon-neutral nation.

Timesonline looks at a British company that’s  developed an air-breathing hydrogen engine which could possibily  radically cut the environmental footprint of air and space travel.

Planeta writes that  Ireland Releases Ecotourism Handbook for Tourism Professionals.

Travel Daily News reports that Monaco wants to be Europe’s green tourism model.

Find out about the 7 Greenest Spring Break Trips around.

MNN‘s green destination of the week: Dominica.

Be eco-friendly in Spain with these articles about about a greener way to enjoy Barcelona and Santander, Spain: An eco-friendly way to enjoy the genteel Cantabria city.

Check out Ecosalon.com to read about  Rapa Nui’s Eco Tourism, how Disney Pledges to Be Greener, and Greening the Great American Road Trip.

If you can’t travel due to work commitments or lack of time or money, the next best thing is to follow someone else’s travels. Used to be that was only possible by reading books or magazine articles about trips that had occurred in the past. But these days, thanks to the internet and social media networks, it’s possible to read about real time trips such as the one being undertaken by Paul Smith, aka  ‘twitchhiker‘.

In fact, it was Paul’s fascination with social media networks, and in particular twitter,  that resulted in him being on the road at the moment.  A freelance writer, Paul started wondering whether it was possible to travel around the world in 30 days relying solely on the generosity, goodwill, and assistance of  fellow tweeters around the world. So he’s set himself a goal of reaching Campbell Island of the coast of New Zealand by end of March and it’s starting to look like he might make it.

He left England on the 1st of March and has been travelling ever since, first across the channel to Europe by ferry boat and then on to North America by plane (through the generosity of a fellow twitter’s air miles). Along the way, Paul has been in contact and meet up with numerous tweets who have provided lodging and transportation.

Right now,  he’s in Austin, Texas which, as many of you know,  is hometown to Perceptive Travel blogger Sheila. Wonder if she will have a chance to meet up with him?

So if you’re looking for travel inspiration, adventure, and entertainment, head on over to the Twitchhiker blog and find out where Paul is today. Better still, find the beginning of the blog and travel the whole journey. It won’t take you long to catch up.

And of course, you can also find Paul over at twitter.  Stop in and say hi. Who knows, you might even be able to help him out.

Sophia Dembling’s column this week in World Hum’s Speaker’s Corner, Confessions of an Introverted Traveler, has so far gathered a nice bouquet of comments, as pieces about introversion by introverts often do. Being a quiet crowd, by definition non-extroverted, introverts rejoice online when one of their own stands up and proclaims herself introverted and proud.

I should say “we” because I am an admitted introvert, too.

Dembling’s funny and honest essay addresses the problems, pitfalls, and advantages of introversion while traveling, like the chatty people you meet at B&Bs (they always seem to be the same couple, no matter where you are in the world). And it got me thinking about a problem I constantly face in travel writing — the need to engage in conversation with complete strangers. After all, dialogue is an essential component of good travel writing. Some of the most memorable passages of the best books involve dialogue and interaction.

It’s important to understand that introversion is in no way a condition of shyness (for the best description of introverts ever penned, read Jonathan Rauch’s 2003 essay from The Atlantic Monthly). When I am strolling through a frozen village in the Russian countryside, or sitting in a pub in rural Scotland, it is not shyness that keeps me from talking to people. I simply prefer quiet. Most introverts do, most of the time. I love you, now shush, as Jonathan Rauch says.

I realized some years ago that, although dialogue is necessary for travel writing, it is certainly not sufficient. There are advantages to being an introverted traveler. You pay more attention to your surroundings. You notice things other people don’t. You’re willing to pause more often, and contemplate where you are and what it means. I find that a great number of great travel writers are in fact introverts — sometimes travel-lust and introversion go hand-in-hand. You don’t get lonely. You don’t get bored. You take in your surroundings with more senses: what the air smells like, how a stone feels, the exact texture of silence or noise. And a few high-quality exchanges can give you all the dialogue you need. A flash of gold tooth, a comment on the government, a question about children, you’ve got your experience distilled.

So I cheer on all the introvert travelers out there. As Sophia Dembling says at the end of her piece, “It’s good to know that I might be a loner, but I’m not alone.” Cheers, Sophia.

This time of year puts me in the mood to get outdoors, do a bit of hiking, paddle in the water … or at least thinking of those summertime activities. Warm weather gets me particularly itching to go camping. Raised as I was in pre-Hollywood Montana, when you could still taste a bit of frontier tang on the air, camping was my definition of “family vacation” until I was about 25. People might go to Disneyland or the Caribbean on TV, but in real life families went camping.

Living about an hour from Yellowstone National Park, and with an abundance of Rocky Mountain wilderness all around us, we never had a shortage of places to camp within easy driving distance. But for some reason — probably that wanderlust in my family’s blood — once a year or so we got a hankering to travel a bit further, to head north. With kids packed precariously in the back of a beat-up Suburban (seat belts scavenged from even older cars), my parents drove up to one of their favorite places on earth, Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada.

With mountains wilder and far craggier than their slightly southern cousins, the Rockies of the Canadian West are manna for the escapist soul. The hikes are steep, the summer evenings cold, the lakes stupendously blue. Lake Louise, pictured above in its usual turquoise shade, attracts between one and two million people a year, despite its seemingly remote location. In high summer, or during peak travel in August, even the semi-strenuous 5-hour hike up around the lake and over the other side of a mountain is a pretty busy thoroughfare.

But that doesn’t affect its heart-stopping beauty, nor does the partway point marked by a tea house. Something akin to beer-and-sausage huts maintained for hardy hikers in the upper reaches of the Alps, Lake Louise’s tea house has got to be one of the cooler things I’ve seen in a lifetime of hiking. Been slogging and sweating for three hours? Cool your feet in a lake — we have plenty — and restore yourself with jasmine tea and a piece of cake before the journey down.

Here in my Hudson Valley home, it’s time to think about gardening and possible summer trips overseas. But in this mountain girl’s heart, the thoughts that preoccupy are of the open road, of chilly mountains, startling glacier-fed lakes, campfires, and waking up at dawn, in a cold tent, the Canadian Rockies brooding overhead.

Audubon magazine features an article on Honduras, Central America’s new up-and-coming eco-destinations.

tripso looks at Two-wheeling along Germany’s riverside bike paths.

beach connections writes how an Oregon Coast BnB Goes Seriously Green.

green traveler guides discusses the Greening of Dehli.

Environmentalist  David de Rothschild is planning to sail 12,000 nautical miles across the Pacific Ocean from San Francisco to Sydney in a boat made entirely out of plastic bottles and recycled waste products. Find out more about the Plastiki Expedition at greenUPGRADER.

And finally, this week’s green city guides: Oakland, California and Boulder, Colorado.