Image at right: At Mission Wolf in Southern Colorado, the breathtaking Sangre de Cristo mountain range are your backdrop to adventure

By Lynn Braz

I’m no psychic, but I’m ready to make two predictions for travel this summer: 1) Eco-tourism 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 , unveiled earlier today by Google Maps .

The Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary stretches for 276 miles of federally protected coastline, and its waters are home to some of the most ecologically diverse forms of ocean life on earth, including fish, marine mammals, seabirds, and plants. When I learned that I could go kayaking there, I first thought-awesome! I could use the exercise and sunshine, and I've been hankering to see some harbor seals (sort of a local nature celeb) during their pupping season. So long, fanny-packed tourists trapped on the shore! I would don water-protective gear and paddle away near the seals, as well as otters, loons, cormorants, pelicans, and all the other little fish, invertebrates, and creatures that make their homes in the area's huge swaths of kelp forest.

You're planning a vacation to a remote corner of the world, to see breathtaking scenery and wildlife. You want to take in as much as possible with minimal impact. And you want your money to go toward helping local communities continue to protect their natural resources. The International Ecotourism Society (TIES), an international nonprofit, "promotes responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people." That's ecotourism in a nutshell - in a protected rainforest in Brazil, for example, or a wildlife reserve in South Africa. So what could be wrong with this? Read on.

Iraq, for many of us, is an unimaginable place. Our experience of it is through the far end of a CNN camera: a desert across which camouflaged Humvees race between crumbling and bombed-out cities. There is, unfortunately, all that. But Iraq, like everywhere else, has its own particulars of ecology: the alluvial plains of the Tigris and Euphrates, the marshlands of the south, the northern highlands and mountains near the Turkish border.

If you're planning to travel to Yellowstone this summer, enjoy the relative peace and quiet (if such a thing exists in Yellowstone in the summer) while you can. By next year, the campers in the tent next to you might be gabbing on their cell phones. Park officials, according to the AP, are "quietly preparing a plan that could expand wireless towers and antennas as well as TV and radio service in the park." Because the real reason people visit the national parks is to watch "Lost" in their tents.

There would be good reason to keep this tip to myself – to deter tourist traffic to this exquisite little gem of a vacation spot. But how can I resist? Located in a pristine archipelago on the northern coast of Panama, The Jungle Lodge, or “La Loma,” gives you access to lush mangroves, tropical wilderness, white sandy beaches that are untouched (literally), natural Jacuzzis, and fragrant groves of cacao, banana, and coconut. If that’s not romantic enough, La Loma houses a butterfly farm – nectar-filled gardens that attract droves of colorful winged creatures.