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Need a gift for someone who has everything? Maybe that girl (or guy) just wants ta have some (easy on the earth) fun. I think that the gifts below are green because they’re low waste and they help support ecotourism or your local economy. They’re just a few ideas I’ve been saving up, so please share your own favourites!

Music lessons. That dusty violin could use some love. Reunite your friend with her instrumental passions – or give her the confidence to try out something new, like her singing voice – and you could get a front-row seat to a budding musician! The Royal Conservatory of Music offers courses, and music stores often have information about local instructors.

Courtesy Haliburton Forest and Wildlife Reserve

Forest adventures. Just because you’re nervous about zooming through the treetops suspended from a ziplining wire doesn’t mean you shouldn’t buy a ticket for your friend to do so. Check your local ecotourism destination (or try this one in BC) for this and other fun options such as canopy tours. The tour shown above is offered by the Haliburton Forest and Wildlife Reserve. It’s half a kilometre long and 10 to 20 metres off the ground, for a beautiful birds-eye view. Or go spelunking – otherwise known as caving – an opportunity to light up a headlamp and squeeze your way through tight caverns as you explore the depths of the earth. Giving gifts that support leaving the landscape wild helps ensure we have wildlife habitat for the future.

Theatre or orchestra tickets. Give an entertaining, feel-good gift that lasts all year with season’s tickets for local productions. Support a community’s efforts to create music, build sets, make costumes and generally share the joy.
Make it ecological: Look for venues near your friend, so she doesn’t have to drive.

Cycling or padding tours. Athletic friends looking to get away from it all – and see a beautiful landscape up close – might love a summer adventure  such as these paddling trips offered in Newfoundland and Labrador or these Eastern Ontario cycling trips.
Make it ecological: Look for itineraries that include lodging and dining options near the route.

Dinner for two. Give your friend a delicious, bill-free night out and support a restaurant that features local food. You’ll support local agricultural producers, from cheese mongers to meat producers to veggie growers and more.
Make it ecological: Ask the restaurant if they offer local wine and beer selections.

Spa appointments. Nothing says friendship (among women, at least) like giving some total pampering time for both of you, so you can share the fun and pampering of pedicures, massages and facials. Where else but at the spa is it really, totally all about you?
Make it ecological: Ask about organic ingredients and check that nail polishes are free of nasty chemicals such as formaldehyde and toluene. Why? See my earlier post on the subject.

Bird-watching or hiking kits. Bring out the nature lover in your friend with a field guide - to the birds, the trees, the flowers, the frogs and toads, even the mushrooms of your area. (Ontario residents can use the Royal Ontario Museum’s digital field guides here. Those in Western Canada might enjoy this book. ) Add trail maps and trail mix and an insulated flask for hot drinks, and perhaps a membership to your local conservation area or park, and you have the makings of a beautiful experience with nature.
Go the next step: send your friend on a birding tour, such as this one to Canada’s Point Pelee National Park.

Is there a great experience in your area that Eco Logic readers should know about?

What experiential gift would you love to receive?

On Friday I took in a presentation by someone from the National Geographic Center for Sustainable Destinations. The Center is trying to promote geotourism, which they define as “tourism that sustains or enhances the geographical character of place.” They see geotourism as having benefit to the environment, heritage, culture, aesthetics and the well-being of local residents. This is in contrast to increasing pressure on popular destinations — the deluge of people can degrade the very places people seek to see.

The representative from National Geographic noted that cruise ship travellers have a major impact on destinations, because they tend to require a lot of resources while putting very little back into the local economy, primarily because they don’t spend a lot of time on land. In contrast, geotourism is low-impact, sustainable travel that involves enjoying a landscape without using undue resources, and contributing to local elements of the economy, such as small-scale adventure travel companies, food producers, artisans and more.

I enjoy sailing in the Thousand Islands, and I’d say that’s a geotourim activity. My annual week-long voyage involves buying provisions from local food producers (as well as some at the regular grocery store), visiting local restaurants, and using very few resources in general since my partner and I rely mainly on wind power to go tack to and fro.

However I think I can do better. Whether I’m traveling for business or pleasure, I’m going to try to stay at small inns and B&Bs instead of big hotels, seek out restaurants that serve local food, look for artisan markets to visit, and try to take in a cultural event, whether it’s live music or theatre. After all, I can see a Hollywood movie anywhere — I have to learn to track down and enjoy the things that makes communities unique.

What’s important to you when you travel?

A lot of books come in for review here at Homemakers magazine. I recently received a copy of “Clean Breaks: 500 new ways to see the world.” Penned by Rough Guides Richard Hammond and Jeremy Smith, the travel book featuring international destinations promises to share “…unusual holidays and alternative ways to travel that make a real difference to the lives of local people and the planet.”

The book offers a nice mix of volunteer opportunities (help monitor whale and dolphin behaviour in the eastern Mediterranean), unusual accommodation (dome homes in Patagonia) and hundreds of ways to see interesting global communities (follow an arts and crafts route in South Africa) and natural spaces (the Tarkine region of Australia).

The first person to comment with an idea for traveling more sustainably wins the book!