Traveler's guide. Event: festival. Stage: hotels.
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Do your part to conserve energy.
- Request to reuse your towels and sheets for the duration of your stay -- our experience is you may unfortunately have to ask twice.
- Turn off lights and cooling/heating when not necessary or doors are open.
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Look for a Green Hotel!
Search Environmentally Friendly Hotels to find hotels where you are going.
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Speak up
Ceres' Green Hotel Initiative offers two printable green guides to give to hotels during your visit: simple or more detailed. See many more ideas at our campaign to green hotels and the hotel star system. Ask for the green world you'd like to see!
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Avoid the mini bar and free toiletries.
Instead, bring your own or buy in bulk to cut down on wasteful packaging. PS -- if the hotel hasn't already jointed, tell them about soap recycling at Clean the World.
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Alternatives to Hotels
Airbed and Breakfast is an online marketplace for booking rooms (or mere couches and airbeds) with locals as an alternative to hotels, or look for a hostel.
Many communities provide non-commercial lodging. These are not merely cheap alternatives to hotels and shouldn't be treated as such: often they are real communities, asking less of your money and more of you -- hopefully including your reciprocation -- and providing more than a room. Often they are focused on cultural exchanges and friendships. Explore:
couchsurfing.org -- the most famous of the web 2.0 couch surfing sites, bewelcome.org, belodged.com, hospitalityclub.org, globalfreeloaders.com, place2stay.net, or Servas international cultural exchange.