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The 5 top Sustainable Travel Co. destinations to visit in 2025

Andy Eames

From destinations with new 'digital booking portals' benefitting indigenous and rural communities, to 'Green Tourism Certified' adventures....

(Credit: Laura Grier-Robert Harding/Getty Images)


1. Panama, Central America

Costa Rica has carved out a reputation as Central America's leader in sustainable tourism, and now neighbouring Panama – which in 2023 granted legal rights to turtles – is stepping into the limelight as a community-based tourism pioneer. Despite Panama's diverse array of Indigenous cultures (accounting for approximately 14% of the population) and rich biodiversity, the nation's tourism has traditionally centred on its famed canal and sultry capital Panama City.

Now, visitors can explore Panama's lush rainforests and palm-fringed islands more meaningfully with the people who know it best: Indigenous and rural communities. The recently launched SOSTUR digital portal lets visitors book local-guided adventures in regions largely untouched by tourism, from visiting the Naso (also known as Teribe) communities who have lived in the jungles of north-western Panama since before Spanish colonists arrived, to learning about the legends of the warriors and guardians of Dekö island from an Indigenous Ngöbe guide.

The portal is part of the Panamanian government's US$301m Sustainable Tourism Development Master Plan, which runs through 2025. It's main goal? To grow visitor numbers in a way that prioritises people and nature.
The portal is part of the Panamanian government's US$301m Sustainable Tourism Development Master Plan, which runs through 2025. It's main goal? To grow visitor numbers in a way that prioritises people and nature.

2. Greenland


Long overshadowed by the ground-breaking sustainable tourism initiatives of the lower Nordic nations, Greenland is increasingly also taking steps to safeguard its icy territory – and its growing tourism industry – as it navigates its future on the frontline of the climate crisis. Nuuk became the world's first capital city to be certified by EarthCheck as a sustainable tourist destination in 2020. In 2022, Visit Greenland announced the cessation of its support for conventional cruise tourism on sustainability grounds, and in 2023, Visit Greenland invited the tourism industry to support a shared pledge towards more sustainable and responsible tourism development.

The nation welcomed a new international airport in Nuuk in 2024, and operators are urged to support the pledge's five themes, spanning the support of local products to creating unique opportunities for tourists to visit throughout the seasons.

Illulissat's new visitor centre and airport will encourage tourists to venture beyond Greenland's capital (Credit: Eloi_Omella/Getty Images)
Illulissat's new visitor centre and airport will encourage tourists to venture beyond Greenland's capital (Credit: Eloi_Omella/Getty Images)

After banning future oil and gas exploration in 2021, Greenland is now focused on rolling out renewable energy, with government-run energy company Nukissiorfiit working towards producing 100% green energy by 2030. Expected to save 127 tonnes of CO2, the churches of Nuuk will be powered by green energy in 2024.

Encouraging tourism beyond the capital is the excellent Icefjord Centre in Illulissat, due to welcome a new airport of its own in the coming years. Supporting sustainable local industries can also have a big impact in this island nation: try a musk ox burger, and look for the "Authentic Nunavut" sticker certifying Nunavut Inuit-made crafts.


3. Southern Great Barrier Reef, Australia

Approximately 90% of the two million annual visitors to the Great Barrier Reef stick to the sultry northern hubs of Cairns and Townsville. Yet, some of the most rewarding and low-impact opportunities to experience this 2,300-km-long ecosystem occur in the Southern Great Barrier Reef.

Rehabilitated from a guano-mined coral cay left to feral goats, the manta ray haven of Lady Elliot Island at the reef's southern tip is now one of Australia's foremost eco-resorts, run almost entirely on renewable energy. Just 40km to north-east as the crow flies, uninhabited Lady Musgrave Island provides a wild backdrop for day trips and overnight glamping experiences with Lady Musgrave Experience, which holds Advance Ecotourism and Climate Action certifications from Ecotourism Australia. Tours operate from the region's key mainland port of Bundaberg, which received sustainable destination certification in 2023, also from Ecotourism Australia. Its state-of-the-art Mon Repos turtle education centre runs ranger-led turtle viewing tours during the nesting and hatching season (November to March), while recently launched Taribelang Bunda Tours offers opportunities to connect with ancient sustainability practices on Indigenous-guided experiences.

Few visitors make it to the Southern Great Barrier Reef, but those who do are rewarded with beautiful islands like Lady Musgrave (Credit: Rani Zerafa/Getty Images)
Few visitors make it to the Southern Great Barrier Reef, but those who do are rewarded with beautiful islands like Lady Musgrave (Credit: Rani Zerafa/Getty Images)

The relaxed agricultural region also offers a smorgasbord of farmgate and cellar door experiences including the Bundaberg Rum Visitor Experience, which in 2023 became the first tourism operator in Australia to achieve Ecotourism Australia's new Sustainable Tourism Certification.


4. Singapore

Singapore's sustainability journey is legendary, kicking off in 1967 when then-Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew mooted his "city in a garden" vision. Following more than 50 years of mindful urban development – including the creation of more than 300km of green corridors as part of the city-state's Park Connector Network – Singapore became the world's first entire nation to receive sustainable destination certification from the Global Sustainable Tourism Council, in 2023. The certification reflects the Southeast Asian nation's commitment to its Singapore Green Plan 2030 goals for sustainable development, which includes quadrupling solar energy deployment by 2025, reducing the waste sent to landfill by 20% by 2030, and limiting the registration of new cars to cleaner-energy models from 2030.

Locals and visitors continue to reap the benefits, with new and upcoming attractions including the 24km hiking-biking Rail Corridor (due to fully open in 2024) and the enhancement of 13 southern parks, along with two new trails on the Coast to Coast Trail network. Singapore is also set to welcome seven new MRT (metro) stations on the Thomson-East Coast Line in early 2024.

Opened in 2023 with cutting-edge initiatives (including a biodigester that transforms food waste into cleaning water), the Green Mark Platinum-certified Pan Pacific Orchard joins the Parkroyal Collection Pickering, a "hotel in a garden", as an innovative low-impact accommodation option for visitors.


5. Belfast, UK

The UK's tourism industry remains the strongest supporter of the Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism launched at COP25 in 2021, with 172 signatories compared to the US in second place with 73. Among the UK cities making the biggest strides towards a sustainable future is Belfast, which in 2023 jumped from 47th place in the Global Destination Sustainability Index into the top 11 within 18 months. The Northern Ireland capital is now being held up as a blueprint for excellence in a white paper published by Edinburgh-based sustainability certification organisation Green Tourism.

Since the 2021 launch of its Belfast Resilience Goal targeting an inclusive, zero-emissions, climate-resilient economy within a generation, the city has seen more than 90 hotels, attractions and restaurants committed to sustainable tourism through Visit Belfast's internationally recognised Green Tourism program (up from five in 2021), with 75% of Belfast hotel rooms now holding a sustainability certification (up from 25% in 2021).

Popular Green Tourism-certified attractions include the Titanic Belfast museum, which aims to be a zero-waste organisation by 2030, and the neighbouring Titanic Hotel Belfast, created in the former headquarters of Harland and Wolff, builders of the RMS Titanic. With more than 50 docking stations, Belfast Bikes offers an easy, green local transport option.


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