Travel Green List 2024: Latin America’s top sustainable sleeps
From eco-lodges to a 17th-century manor house, these are Latin America’s stand-out sustainable stays…
Bahía Bustamante, Argentina
Guests at this remote lodge on a 40,000-hectare sheep farm in Patagonia can watch thousands of Magellan penguins and noisy sea lions. A biodynamic vegetable garden provides the restaurant with fruits, olives, berries, vegetables, herbs and edible flowers. Salt and samphire are harvested by hand from the sea, natural springs provide drinking water, and solar panels are the only source of electricity.
More information: bahiabustamante.com
Blue Apple Beach, Colombia
Set on a Caribbean island near Cartagena, this boutique hotel brings joyful and luxurious poolside vibes – while saying no to single-use plastics and yes to local sourcing (85% of its budget is spent in Colombia), regenerating corals and restoring mangroves. The founder, Portia Hart, is a British-Trinidadian woman who also founded the Green Apple Foundation featured in the Travel Green List’s top projects for 2024.
More information: blueapplebeach.com
Lapa Rios Lodge, Costa Rica
An exemplar of ecotourism in a private reserve protecting 400 hectares of tropical lowland rainforest, this lodge works with local communities, establishing a primary school and teaching adults about conservation methods. Green practices include using solar energy, biomass boilers and fully biodegradable cleaning products.
More information: laparios.com
Mashpi Lodge, Ecuador
Since this lodge opened a decade ago, researchers have discovered 19 species new to science in its 2,882 hectares of rainforest. Community members have been trained and are now employed as naturalist guides, hotel staff and para-biologists. Staff are also shareholders in the enterprise, benefiting from a profit-share scheme.
More information: mashpilodge.com
Hacienda Zuleta, Ecuador
Set on a working farm in the Andes, this hotel inside a 17th-century manor has its own non-profit foundation that runs a library and an embroidery school, sponsors education, oversees a condor rehabilitation project and protects ancient burial mounds of the indigenous Caranqui people.
More information: zuleta.com
