About Us

Organization by type of venue runs the risk of muddling, say, an upscale
restaurant with a drive-thru, just because both are technically restaurants.
Instead, shouldn’t guides be organized by what kind of experience you are
looking for?

GrassRoutes guides employ a new system of organization that makes
searching for activities, restaurants, and venues easy. This guide is organized
by situation, with chapters such as ‘Up Early,’ ‘Do Lunch,’ and ‘Hang Out’
that pay attention to your state of being.

Our Criteria

Urban eco-travel is defined by businesses and activities that give back to their
local communities through environmental, social, or economic means. To
appear in a GrassRoutes guide, a business or activity must have a local presence
or be locally owned. In addition, if we can answer yes to at least one of
the following questions, the destination passes our test:

• Does it bank locally?
• Does it hire locals?
• Does it use energy-efficient appliances?
• Does it sell fair trade merchandise?
• Does it have a positive community benefit (for example, bringing people
  together or providing community outreach)?
• Does it use fair trade, organic, or locally grown products?
• Is its location environmentally sound (for example, the building is not on
  a landfill, or the building is made with green materials)?
• Does it participate in reuse/garbage reduction?
• Does it care about the environment, community, and economy around it?
• And last, but certainly not least, do we love the place? Does something
  make it special? Does it blow our minds?

With these considerations in mind, we’ve created a series of icons to accompany
our reviews. These icons indicate which
of the criteria above are particularly noteworthy at a particular business or
organization.