Four Ways to Enjoy the Water Around Vancouver

Water is a common theme in Vancouver. It's just about everywhere you look and it's exactly where people want to be in warm weather. Here are four ways to enjoy this wonderful city in British Columbia, home to the 2010 Winter Olympic Games:

Take a guided kayaking trip up Indian Arm: Deep Cove Canoe & Kayak Centre offers a variety of guided canoe and kayaking trips. Try the "Deep Cove Explorer", a three-hour tour that runs every afternoon in the summer and sends you peacefully gliding through the water and exploring marine areas unavailable to motorized boats. Head out along Indian Arm in search of eagles, seals, salmon and other marine life while learning proper water safety and paddling techniques.

Wilderness paddle and beach BBQ: Lotus Land Tours offers an exciting six-hour wilderness paddle including a sumptuous BBQ salmon lunch on a small, uninhabited island.

Experience the First Nations with Takaya Tours: Join guides from the Coast Salish nation on a unique two-hour canoe adventure up Indian Arm. Paddle a 13-metre cedar canoe as First Nations guides sing traditional songs, tell stories and point out ancient village sites.

A trip that's for the birds: Travel along the rugged coastline en route to the George C. Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary via a Steveston Seabreeze Adventures bird-watching tour. You'll paddle through managed wetlands, natural marshes and low dikes in the heart of the Fraser River estuary. The most famous resident is the bald eagle, but keep your eyes peeled for sandpipers, red-tailed hawks, peregrine falcons, cormorants, tufted puffinsCost is $29.95 per adult.

Paddling your own kayak or canoe definitelly classifies as green travels.

Microtel Inn & Suites Offers Many Free Amenities

Sometimes, green travel means saving money along with saving the environment, and you can do both at Microtel Inn & Suites. This budget hotel chain offers an impressive selection of freebies that are helpful to any budget. And I'm not talking about the cheesy microwave-yourself packaged wrap-wich that passes -- or, rather, fails -- for breakfast at other economy chains.

Microtel gives you free internet and free Wi-Fi, something high-priced luxury hotels don't. Why they don't is something I don't understand, but that's another story.

Microtel also gives you free local and free long distance phone calls. Does any other hotel chain -- at any price -- give guests free long distance phone calls? If you know of one, let me know. Sure, sure, most of us have cellphones with L.D. included, but this way, you don't have to use up your minutes. Use theirs.

The chain is also green when it comes to the environment, with high-efficiency windows, upgraded insulation and laundry equipment. And guests are encouraged to recycle paper, glass and plastics. The chain also is a sponsor of The Society for Accessible Travel & Hospitality (SATH) and known as the preferred hotel chain for travelers with disabilities.

No wonder this growing chain ranks at the top of the list for guest satisfaction among hotels in the economy price by J.D. Power and Associates

The newest link in the chain is in Verona, New York, about half-way between Albany and Syracuse. A great location for summer travel to the Catskills, Adirondaks and Finger Lakes.
The location also is adjacent to Turning Stone Resort Casino and the Skana Spa at Turning Point, to several championship golf courses, and both Colgate University and Hamilton College are nearby.

So travel green at Microtel Inn & Suites.

Full Moon Hiking and Star Gazing in August

For a unique, green travel experience, take a hike at sunset or later, by the light of a full moon, when you can also enjoy star-gazing. There are several places in the West that offer guided sunset and full moon events, for the next full moon on August 16. You just missed July's full moon a couple of days ago.

In Denver -- that's the city's skyline pictured -- the full moon party is held at the city's only rooftop hotel pool, at the Warwick Denver Hotel, on the night of the full moon. Since August 16th is a Saturday, it should be quite a party, with live jazz, Perrier Jouet champagne, and passed hors d’oeuvres. You can just go to the rooftop party, or make the party part of a weekend package that includes accommodations.

Squaw Valley, at the north end of Lake Tahoe, offers guided Sunset Hikes on Friday and Saturday evenings all summer, and Full Moon Hikes on the evening before and the evening of the full moon in August. The hikes leave from High Camp, at the top of the Cable Car, at approximately 6 pm. High Camp, at 8,200 feet, is an ideal trailhead for exploring this mountain, with it's beautiful views of year-round snow-capped peaks, and the cobalt blue lake sparkling in the distance below. Guides share their knowledge wealth of information about the geology, flowers, trees and animals native to the region, as well as environmental projects currently underway at the resort.

No Passport? No Problem.

Are you are one of the procrastinators who still hasn't gotten around to getting your passpport? No worries -- if you are a US citizen, you do not need a valid US passport to mancation, girlfriend getaway, babymoon or simply vacation in some of the best destinations in the Caribbean.

Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands are considered -- for passport purposes -- part of the US. So, Just get on the airplane with your sunscreen and your driver's license with its photo ID. Ditto American Samoa, which isn't in the Caribbean. It's in the Pacific.

The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative passed by U.S. Congress requires that travelers, including U.S. citizens who travel via air to and from the Americas, the Caribbean and Bermuda, must travel with a valid passport in order to enter or re-enter the United States. Not so US citizens visiting the three islands of USVI -- St. Croix, St. John and St. Thomas -- Puerto Rico or American Samoa.

So what are you waiting for? Go travel. Go travel to one of these great green islands -- green palm trees, turquoise beaches.

Inventing Words to Sell Travel

Okay, I've had it with the made up words. Travel is travel. A vacation is a vacation, whether you go alone, with friends or with family, whether you travel to an environmentally friendly green destination or not.

Man-cation. What's that? A vacation only for men? Says who? Who invented this meaningless phrase? More importantly -- WHY? And why can't it be spelled the same way twice? Man-cation with a dash or mancation without?

The female version of 'man-cation' is not 'girl-cation'. It's girlfriend's getaway. Yes, I absolutely want my girlfriends to getaway. From what? From me? Or from the people making up silly travel promotions and words.

Stay-cation, or as it is spelled sometimes, staycation without the dash. Please tell me what this means so I can tell poor Noah Webster to stop spinning in his grave. Of course I stay somewhere when I go on vacation. Even if I stay at home to rearrange the furniture on my vacation, I'm staying somewhere. So what does this nonsense phrase mean? And why are there are marketing efforts to boycott the stay-cation? If we don't know what a stay-cation is, how can we boycott it?

Waiter, please bring me a mocktail. That's what the well-regarded Merrion Hotel in Dublin, Ireland, is offering as part of its summer 'family fun' package. Grown-ups get fluffy terry robes, and the kiddies get "mocktails", whatever those are. Fruit juice, you think? Maybe what makes them a 'mocktail' instead of a glass of orange juice is that they decorate the glass with a silly little paper umbrella. Or, since it's Ireland, that should be a miniature Leprechaun.

The last straw? A shape-cation. This is a package from New York City's Carlton Hotel. It's a bridal package -- including room, spa treatments, a gift yoga mat, and a private session with a bridal lingerie consultant. I understand that you need a license before you can get married -- but a 'shape-cation'?

What's next? How about a man-shape-cation? Or a girlfriend getastay-cation? It will take more than one mocktail to get me on one of those.

Omigosh, I'm starting to sound like the late, great and will be much missed George Carlin.

Best Fourth of July Celebrations

From the Atlantic to the Pacific, everything is just terrific on the Fouth of July, with parades, food festivals, concerts, backyard barbecues and fireworks. Lots and lots of fireworks. It's hard to call this green travels, because fireworks come in all colors, especially red, white and blue.

Simply, this is America’s annual birthday party, celebrating the day in 1776 when 13 scrappy colonies declared their independence from the world’s then-superpower.

Here are three of the best --

New York City -- The Macy’s Fourth of July Fireworks is the nation’s largest, with more than 120,000 bursts of shape and color and movement reaching as high as 1,000 feet into the air, all of it timed to a riveting soundtrack. There also are live performances from top Broadway show stars and pop favorites, this year including country music star Kenny Chesney. The fireworks begin at 9 p.m., launched from barges in the East River. The event is televised nationally on NBC.

Washington, D. C. -- It’s an all-day Fourth of July festival in the Nation's Capital, starting before noon with America’s National Independence Day Parade along Constitution Avenue, past national monuments including the Washington Monument. Many of the bands are in Revolutionary Era dress, marching to the beat of fifes and drums. After the parade, a National Folklife Festival on the Mall celebrates many of the cultures of the U.S. A. The party finishes in the evening at the Capitol Building, with a musical celebration by the National Symphony Orchestra, and fireworks that light up the sky. This concert and fireworks party is broadcast by PBS.

New Orleans -- This city is filled with music year-round, and a New Orleans July Fourth celebration has a touch of Mardi Gras. The music starts before noon with concerts and events at various spots around the riverfront, from the French Market and to the Riverwalk Marketplace. At 7:30, there’s a concert by the New Orleans Concert Band overlooking the Mississippi River, followed by a Dueling Barges Fireworks Display.

More Free Gas Deals from Hotels

Gas prices are higher than ever. That's not news. What is news is all the deals from hotels to give you back some green this summer travel season.

No, hotels are not lowering their rates, but they are giving guests rebates for the gas tank. Here are some more great deals --

The TradeWinds Island Grand Resort, a beachfront resort located directly on the Gulf of Mexico on St. Pete Beach, just 30 minutes from Tampa, Fla., is betting that oil prices will continue to rise. So instead of offering you a fixed $10 or $25 or whatever for 'free' gas, their rebate is pegged to the cost of a barrel.

The promotion is called "Barrel of Fun" . Cute. At check out, guests booking the package receive a room credit equal to the exact price of a barrel of crude oil on that day. Here's the catch -- there's always a catch. The promotion is for a minimum three-night stay, weekdays only -- no weekends -- and ends on August 28th, just before the big Labor Day weekend.

Lake Tahoe is one of my favorite places to get away -- winter to ski my legs off, other seasons to hike, bike, go whitewater rafting on the Truckee River, or relax on a paddlewheel cruise of the lake. The Resort at Squaw Creek is one of the most highly-rated resorts in the US, at the base of Squaw Valley USA, home to the 1960 Winter Olympics. It's an AAA Four-Diamond property.

Squaw Creek's "Affordable Highways promotion gives you a $25 free gas card, and requires only a two-night minimum stay. Be sure to mention code AFHWYRSC when you make your reservation.

Okay, so hotels aren't lowering their prices. But free gas is a great way to save green on your summer travels.