Regarding Whole Travel

What is Whole Travel?
Whole Travel is a portal for people to discover sustainable travel options. We’ve searched the globe to bring together thousands of unique, undiscovered and, most importantly, sustainable hotels, activities and adventures.

What can I do at Whole Travel that I can’t do at any other online travel site?
You can search without parameters to research your next sustainable adventure. You are no longer confined by dates or locations. Tell us the experience you’re seeking by entering it into the search box and away you go!

Whole Travel also allows you to assess a hotel or tour’s level of social and environmental sustainability using Whole Ranking ®. Whole Ranking ® breaks down a supplier’s sustainability into specific components to allow you to get a better understanding of what they are doing to minimize their impact on the planet and maximize benefits to local communities. More about that below…

Who is Whole Travel for?
Whole Travel is for travelers that care about the places they visit and their impact on those places. Whole Travel is also for anyone looking for a unique destination to visit. Our travel suppliers are not only sustainable - they represent some of the most authentic and highest quality destinations worldwide.

What’s that thing in your logo?
Whole Travel’s logo is the “fleather” (half leaf, half feather), a combination of a Peregrine Falcon feather and a bamboo leaf. The bamboo leaf represents the green movement, as a renewable material that embodies many important features of sustainability. The Peregrine Falcon is one of the world’s most intriguing animals - it is the fastest animal on the planet, it is rare, it is majestic. Its existence was once threatened, but has fortunately graduated from the list of endangered species. The Peregrine represents the idea that if we act to protect something, we can save it.

How does Whole Travel choose hotels to include on the website?
Whole Travel does extensive research when deciding which hotels and resorts to list. Many have been recommended to us by word of mouth: by our friends, our customers, as well as our partner non-profit organizations, like Rainforest Alliance. We’ve even had many of our listed suppliers recommend their neighboring hotels and resorts to us - their desire to act responsibly overrides any concerns about competition, which makes for a great community within the Whole Travel world.

Can you use Whole Travel internationally?
Yes, Whole Travel can be used anywhere in the world. While it’s currently only available in English, we’re hard at work on making translations happen worldwide.

Sustainability and Whole Ranking ®

What is sustainable travel?
First and foremost, sustainable travel is always an amazing experience in an unbelievable destination. It is travel that preserves the environment while respecting and benefiting local communities – both today and into the future. It can include fly fishing in pristine rivers, cultural treks through mountain communities and even stays in urban centers. We want you to visit incredible places, meet great people and create memorable experiences. We believe that when you travel and truly experience a place and its people, you will leave it better than when you arrived. This is the essence of sustainable travel. Whole Travel promotes this type of travel by bringing you destinations that maximize your enjoyment while minimizing adverse impacts of travel.

What is Whole Ranking ® and how does it determine the sustainability of travel supplier?
Whole Ranking ® is a methodology we developed to provide consumers with an consistent comparison metric for sustainability around the world . Each hotel or resort is assess on their: (1) environmental practices, (2) economic management, (3) social and cultural support, and (4) customer interaction. Using this information, we give them a Whole Ranking ® score between 0 and 5 so that you can easily compare alternatives and decide who deserves your business. It’s entirely transparent - just click on a supplier’s Whole Ranking ® and you’ll see what they’re doing in each category to earn their score.

Please visit Whole Travel Foundation to learn more about how Whole Ranking ® works.

Who ranks the hotels on your site?
We do, using Whole Ranking ®. It is actually a 3-tiered process. First, we identify a hotel or resort that’s making a legitimate effort towards being sustainable (often thanks to your referral - thank you!). Then, we reach out to them and ask them to complete a sustainability self-assessment, which gives them a preliminary Whole Ranking ® score. Finally, we audit their site first-hand to validate the information they’ve provided and help them learn where they can improve their sustainability.

I am a property owner, how do I get my property a Whole Ranking ®?
If you are a hotel owner or operator, we encourage you to take our Whole Ranking ® questionnaire. This is the first and most important step in getting your hotel on our website and to find out how sustainable you are. After you submit your answers you will be given a Whole Ranking ® score. The questionnaire is simple and it should only take about 20 minutes to do.

What are you waiting for?! Click here to get a Whole Ranking ®!

If you have any questions please send email to suppliers@wholetravel.com.

Finding and Booking a Hotel

How can I find a hotel?
We want to help you find a hotel that best fits your ideal travel experiences, and in doing so, change the way you search for travel. Instead of being constrained by specific locations or dates, try to think about the experience you’re really after. Try typing “fly fishing” or “once in a lifetime experience” into our search engine and we bet you’ll find appealing destinations that would have been hard to find otherwise. Of course, if you already know where you want to go, you can search for that destination and we’ll bring you relevant opportunities.

How many sustainable hotels are searchable through Whole Travel?
A: Thousands. We have the most comprehensive list of sustainable hotels found anywhere on the internet.