I’m no psychic, but I’m ready to make two predictions for travel this summer: 1) Eco-tourism [1] will be super-simplified; and 2) Travelers will toss out their chunky guidebooks in favor of the new eco-friendly travel resource called Summer of Green [2] , unveiled earlier today by Google Maps [3] .

The site, which is far more stylized than your average Google experience, features complete city guides that focus on green travel options, as recommended by the Earth Day Network [4]. The guides are available for New York, Orlando, Las Vegas, L.A. and San Francisco.

Each guide offers virtual tours and directs travelers to organic [4] spas and restaurants, green hotels and eco-friendly car rentals and activities, like parks and nature museums through Google Maps’ amazing mash-up [5] technology.

To test drive the site, I popped onto to the New York guide and found an impressive number of virtual walking tours [6], from Ground Zero [7] to the Central Park Reservoir [8].

I opted for SoHo [9], and suddenly found myself on a pretty cool virtual stroll via Google’s satellite images [10]. The tour included a bit of local history, and directions to the nearest sushi spot and vitamin emporium. The site also directed me to the city’s bike maps [11], vegan restaurants, [12] and parks [13].

My next test was a search for organic restaurants in Santa Fe [14], a travel hotspot that I visit often. Google turned up a list of some great places, many of which are off-the-beaten-path and that I’d recommend to a friend. Next I tried environmentally-friendly hotels in Santa Fe [15] and found some fairly famous local institutions, as well as few oddball hits, like Advanced Janitor Supply and Carpet Care.

Nonetheless, I plan to bookmark Summer of Green and savor whatever good stuff it turns up.

Summer of Green [16]