Nature and budget conscious fall travel

Travel + Leisure magazine via CNN reports on nature-loving fall travel on a budget.

Trips include kayaking among whales in the Pacific Northwest (picture left), biking through the Northeast autumn colors, and hiking amongst the natural scenery of Utah.

Read the full story: Best affordable fall adventures

Picture from Pacific Northwest Adventures.

Volunteer on your next vacation

Travel & Leisure via MSNBC.com reports on voluteer vacations that get travelers involved in conservation and species salvation.

"'Despite the economy, we’re doing really well,' said Calie Yousha, a spokesperson for Global Vision International, which runs programs for conserving the Amazon Rainforest and studying dolphins in the Ligurian Sea, among others. 'We’ve actually seen a pretty significant increase in volunteering.'"

Read the full story: Best save-the-earth tips

Appalachian Trail 40th anniversay

Travel and Leisure magazine reports on the 40-year history of the iconic Appalachian Trail.

Throughout the years hikers have enjoyed traversing the entire trail from Georgia to Maine, or just parts of it.

"In the A.T.’s early years, just a handful of people took advantage of it (by 1969, only 61 people had hiked every mile). 'The end of World War II was putting pressure on the trail,' said Brian King, spokesman for The Appalachian Trail Conservancy. 'New roads were being built, and second homes, so the trail was running through private property.' But in the 1960s people took notice; it took volunteers nearly four years of working with local landowners, buying their property or finding ways around it, to ensure that the public would always have access to a continuous trail. 'This was easily the most complex public land acquisition land process ever,' said King."

Read the full story: 40 years hiking the Appalachian Trail

T & L magazine's responsible travel section

Travel and Leisure magazine is taking eco-friendly travel to heart by publishing a responsible travel section on its website. Among the many ecotourism articles and ways to leave less of a carbon footprint was Joe Wise's article on Greenland.

Melting glaciers and icecaps are some of the best places to really see the impact of global warming. And since this topic is gaining popularity, places such as Greenland, with rising temperatures and melting ice are attracting many more tourists recently. Perhaps people want to see upclose big chunks of ice breaking off into the water so they can then brag to their friends back home that they saw some of the last of the polar ice.

Mr. Wise found out that along with the cons of warmer temps also came some pros:

"Greenland has become indisputably warmer over the last decade or so. This has made it difficult to reach traditional ice-fishing sites by dogsled. On the other hand, it’s now possible to take boats out fishing year-round, and the reindeer herds, with more to feed on, are growing."

Read the full story: The melting point

What makes a green hotel?

Last year, Travel and Leisure explored the question about what constitutes green hotels.

Surprisingly writer David Propson found that even the most eco of the ecoproperties which could claim such inspiring aspects such as solar panels, recycling rainwater etc. could never truly be "carbon-neutral." But awareness of the environment and creating efforts in greening hotels, no matter how small, was a step in the right direction.

Read the full story: The Ultimate Green Hotel