As a tourist, you love to see new sights, but as an eco-friendly citizen of the world, you wince at the thought of polluting the Earth as you do it. For green-minded globetrotters, here are an array of tips for staying green as you travel. That way, you can see the world with a clean conscience.

Buy Local

Wherever you go, be sure to buy local, whether that includes food, souvenirs, or anything else. There are a lot of places that try to trick tourists with souvenirs that were produced far away at low cost and shipped to the destination- make sure everything you buy is a local item. Find crafts and other things that you know came from local artisans.

Leave Nothing

Littering and leaving trash around poses a real ecological threat to local environments. Do your part by picking up after yourself just as you would if you were at home. If you are feeling so inclined, you can go the extra mile and help clean up after other people as well. It's not easy for some destinations to keep up with the flow of tourists, so many choice locations have problems with trash.

Plan Carefully

One of the best ways to minimize the impact of your stay is to plan it out in advance so that you reduce the amount of transportation you need, cut down on resource use, and so on. If you take cabs for the convenience instead of planning a ride on public transportation, that's not sustainable. A little bit of planning can do a lot of good, and it doesn't take long to think of ways to act in a sustainable way while in the destination.

Transportation

The first thing to note is that transportation is one of the biggest sources of pollution out there. Whenever you can, take a low-impact form of transport. If you’re flying, opt for nonstop flights whenever you can. The steps involved in landing and takeoff add significantly more emissions to a trip, so you’ll be reducing your carbon footprint (and saving time) when you book a nonstop flight. While nonstop options can occasionally be more expensive, you can save on these with Expedia coupons from discountrue.com. It's all about the footprint, so make reducing yours a priority.

Through all of these points, the key underlying idea is respect for the place you are visiting. That's really the guiding principle of sustainable tourism. As long as you have the respect for the people and places in question, you will have an instinct for how to help preserve them and act sustainably.