Here's the thing - We can either have a wild humdinger of a party and trash the planet, or we can conserve its resources and keep the earth a 'livable' (and lovable) place for the coming generations. So, assuming we're all agreed that sustainable living is a good thing, I'm going to hit you right where it hurts - Your vacations.

You'll find thousands of articles describing how to recycle your grabage and reduce your carbon consumption, and use solar electricity and carbon credits, and stuff like that. What you won't get is how you're supposed to continue living a green lifestyle once you're out of your home. Obviously, you can't go around ordering hotels to shut down their energy gobbling central air-conditioning, and neither can you tell a restaurant chef to go find some sustainable produce and prepare some organic food for you using a solar powered microwave.

What you can do is plan a green vacation. Choose destinations which offer a complete eco-friendly holiday experience. Do some research to find, and book, green hotels which have implemented substantial eco-friendly practices. Get hold of a list of restaurants at your destination which offer pure organic food prepared using sustainable (and local) produce. Find car rentals which offer hybrids. Work out a list of local attractions which are eco-friendly.

Oh, and in case you didn't know - A green vacation ends up not only healthier for both you and the planet, but its also way cheaper than a traditional holiday outing - Cheaper for you, and more profitable for the green busineeses you visit or use. Anyway, listed below you'll find resources for planning a fully green vacation.

The photo above is of 'The Organic Grill' in the East Village in New York City, where 99.9% of the foods, drinks, pastries, and desserts are prepared using clean, sustainably raised materials. My point is not to tell you to go eat in this particular restaurant. Point is that there are bucketloads of organic restaurants like this one in most every destination you might want to visit.

Check out sites like LocalHarvest.com, where you'll find a massive database listing food outlets categorized by zip code and state. Or you can simply use the search engines to find green businesses in your destination of choice. Most states, counties, districts and cities have their own websites which have 'Green' sections, where you'll find local businesses which are certified green. As an example, consider California's Green Business program website. if you click thru to this page, you'll find lots of highly pertinent and useful information, including resturants, cafes and eateries which are classified as green businesses in San francisco.

You can find sites like this for almost every major metropolis in the United States. How difficult is it to check into a green hotel out of this list? Or eat only at the restaurants on this list? Not so hard, if you really care.

In the video above, the manager of the LEED certified Orchard Garden hotel in San Francisco discusses the eco-friendly features of the hotel's building, the green programs it has implemented and how easy it is guests to make sure that their stay at the hotel is completely harmless to the environment.

Again, my point here is not to plug this specific hotel, but to show that its as easy as that. Find a green hotel or lodging, and follow simple rules like using a dual flush toilet properly. Again, how difficult can this be?

I realize there are other considerations, like cost and location, which you have to think about when booking a hotel, but again, you have sites like the Green Hotels Association website, which has listing of its green member hotels across the nation.

Ok, so there's a difference between how you reduce your carbon footprint while you're at home and while you're on vacation. But the most important thing you can do is compensate for your air travel. Every flight you take belches out a huge amount of Co2 out into the atmosphere, and its your sworn duty as an environment conscious citizen to make up for it, if you can't avoid air travel altogether.

Some airlines like Continental offer a carbon offset progam, where they'll arrange to help you offset your share of the emssions from the flight. Yes, it costs extra money, and yes - Its not mandatory. But if you do it, its a good thing.

The bottomline is that you gotta do whatever it takes to make sure your vacation is entirely green. If, that is, you don't want your grand-kids living up on a giant spaceship looking down at what was once a green earth and is now inhabited by one cockroach and a robot named Wall-E.