“These wines were created to give back,” the sommelier tells our table. She’s talking about ONEHOPE, a California winery with charitable and environmental components built into the business model. It funds hunger relief efforts, tree plantings, aiding in natural disaster relief, and scores of other programs. The Terranea Resort, where I’m part of a two-day press tour to experience its farm-to-table and sustainability initiatives, is a partner with ONEHOPE, just one of its many efforts to up its eco image.

“I’ll have the veal,” says the girl sitting next to me.

I do a double-take. When the waiter asked our table if anyone has any dietary restrictions, I discover I’m the only vegan at our table of seven. The woman on my other side condescendingly taps my arm and says, “good for you,” like something you’d overhear being said to someone who’s just returned from the Peace Corps or ran a marathon after beating cancer. I’m not used to being congratulated for my dietary choice — especially by a person who will soon be chewing on octopus tentacles.

The chef is shaving white truffles onto our dishes with such vigor it feels like it’s keeping us all alive. I think it is for the woman across from me who keeps raving about the white truffles she ate in Italy. My own dinner is an off-menu bowl of “market” vegetables. I eat a few of the brussels sprouts but leave the unexpected pile of cocktail onions and melon-balled turnips for the compost pile while my dinner mates ooh and aah over their carcass-stacked plates.

I can’t help but wonder why there’s no vegan option that’s not a salad or a side — or better yet, a separate vegan menu — at a place like this. Surely Terranea’s clientele includes affluent and educated consumers who stock their fridges with nondairy milk, tofu, and veggie sausage, even if they do still eat animal products, too. Instead of being wowed by creations like I know exist at a steakhouse just 30 minutes north in Santa Monica, I  feel like I’m at a steakhouse in the midwest thirty years ago. The tablemates seem satisfied, though; not just at the arguably unsustainable foods they’ve eaten (veal contribute not only their own methane to the atmosphere but as a byproduct of the dairy industry, even more methane from their mothers), but at everything the resort representatives are telling us about how perfect the place seems to be. I’m a little annoyed with myself that I don’t feel like such a willing accomplice to such blissful ignorance.

It’s not that I find resort life offensive. Quite the opposite. Before becoming a mother, frequent jaunts to resorts were part of my DNA. I’m getting a little misty-eyed now just thinking about how infrequent those visits have become these days with weekends filled up instead with birthday parties for preschoolers rather than last-minute trips to hot springs, my favorite. No, I’m having a hard time because I’m failing to maneuver decadence and sustainability into the same field of existence in my head — something Terranea seems to have no problem with. My brain can only see them like clear plastic sheets with partial drawings laid on top of each other to make it appear like one picture. But they’re not actually part of the same page at all. The waiter scrapes away my meager pile of onion crumbs.

The Terranea Resort is located in beautiful Rancho Palos Verdes, the literal southern tip of Los Angeles County, a peninsula. It was the last approved coastal resort in the state — there won’t be any more built in a long, long time, per current coastal preservation regulations that now prevent such construction. It sits on 100 acres, with a clear and fairly stunning view of Catalina Island. The resort, which employs more than 1,500 people, is a lush seaside escape overgrowing with coral trees, bougainvillea, agave, rosemary, and all kinds of native plants. It’s a destination for weddings, business retreats, and celeb getaways (I swear I saw Adam Scott entering the restaurant as we were leaving on the second night).

Not quite a mile down the road from the resort is the Catalina View Gardens where Terranea leases a few plots to grow lettuces, cucumbers, tomatoes, kale, beets, onions, and herbs. It harvests meyer lemons from the fruit trees on the 95-acre garden property. The staff also harvest avocado, olives, and honey — which comes from the one-hundred-thousand bees that pollinate there. It has also recently acquired six chickens (the story is a resort guest gifted them to the head chef when she could no longer keep them). The hens produce about an egg each a day, and the plan is to expand the hen house and add more room and more birds. The eggs go into select dishes as does the daily produce haul.

The view from the top of the garden is stunning. It’s quiet, save for the squawks from the red tail hawks circling above the chicken coop. It’s peaceful in that way 95 acres of old growth olive trees, rows and rows of wine grapes, avocado trees, and sweeping ocean views make you feel. It’s a retreat in its own right, confusing me even further.

All of this is a big selling point for the resort. There are packages that allow visitors to tag along with executive chef Bernard Ibarra as he visits the gardens and harvests ingredients. But the majority of the resort’s ingredients, like most food service entities, come from distributors. And being a California-based resort means most fruits and vegetables are considered “local” by default — we grow an immense amount of fresh produce here: 99 percent of artichokes, 97 percent of kiwis, 97 percent of plums, 95 percent of celery, 95 percent of garlic, 89 percent of cauliflower, 71 percent of spinach, and 69 percent of carrots for the entire United States are grown in-state. In other words, it doesn’t take much to slap a “local” label onto your menu.

After the garden tour, we head to lunch where we’re met with the resort’s sustainability leader, Lauren Bergloff. She’s bubbly and passionate about her job. With a conservation background, she actually started at Terranea as a hostess, moving on to give the daily nature tours of the property, and then evolving that into her current role. She was just at a conference in New York with other hotel and resort staff all working to solve the sustainability issues of running such intensive operations.

She expounds on the resort’s efforts to minimize its food waste. In just the first two weeks in November it donated 500 pounds of food. At that rate, it’ll be giving away close to 12,000 pounds a year — and that’s only edible, properly stored food. She couldn’t produce the number of how much will actually be tossed out. Still, the resort is aware of the problem, turning some food waste into grey water, which is being sent right down into the sewer line. It’s trying to be creative in other ways, like with fruit peels, for example, turning them into fruit-infused drinking water.

At one point, the conversation turns toward President Trump’s reversal of the ban on elephant trophies (he’s since reversed his reverse putting the ban back into place). “I love elephants!” says Bergloff. “They’re my favorite animal.” She eats more of her tuna poke bowl. I dig into the Mediterranean falafel bowl — the only vegan-friendly menu item that isn’t a garden salad. And as I stare out at the Pacific Ocean — the restaurant has a fabulous view — I can’t help but feel like the (other) endangered fish at the table. Or, more accurately, the endangered fish out of water.

Dinner would sadly be more of the same — my tablemates discuss the texture nuances of beef tongue and duck meat. I try to stomach my edamame by gazing out at a tiki torch off in the distance like I’m on a boat trying to steady my queasiness by staring at the horizon.

After dinner, we wind down the halls to meet Pierino “Perry” Jermonti, the resort’s executive pastry chef who’s arranged a special tasting for us in the kitchen. I’m shocked to see three of the four desserts are vegan. After two days of barely a fully vegan dish on the menu without modification, this feels like the 21st century. I breathe a sigh of relief. As he talks about his process, Jermonti lights up with excitement about the need to cater to this demographic. And I find this most unusual as baking is much more a fine science than cooking is; it’s easier to improvise a bowl of noodles and veggies than to take chances with baking soda and cornstarch in place of eggs, for example. But not only does Jermonti understand the need for vegan sweets, his creativity in producing them is commendable. A cranberry chocolate cheesecake, a sweet potato mousse. He seems to be the only chef here who’s embraced plant-based food as a challenge rather than a chore. This sweet ending takes a bit of the bitter edge off.

Running a 100+ room resort is inherently the opposite of sustainable. You’ve got lights on 24 hours a day. There’s the laundry, the dishes, the elevators, the pool heaters, the constant cleaning and cooking and maintenance. Does that mean we should never vacation? Of course not.

But is picking lettuce from across the road really making a difference in all of it? And more than that, why are plant-forward menu items so absent from this place claiming to be so 21st century sustainable? The world’s leading climate scientists all agree that animal agriculture is the biggest cause of methane — a far more damaging greenhouse gas than CO2. There’s no way around it, no matter how “buttery” the filet mignon is. Despite poke being one of the hottest trends in seafood right now, it’s also sourced from one of the least sustainable fish populations on the planet (yellowfin tuna), even if suppliers insist that it’s not. Considering too there’s so much fish fraud in the world, the risks just seem to consistently outweigh those few moments of pleasure one presumably gets from scarfing down a bowl of marinated fish bits.

I know people eat animal products. More than ninety percent of the U.S. population is not vegan. But do they have to eat animals at every meal? Diet preferences are changing. Flexitarianism, not veganism, is driving the growth of plant-based foods. And I can’t help but wonder if a resort — a vacation from our ordinary lives — should also be a vacation from our presumably normally unsustainable diet habits (my meager bowl of cocktail onions the exception).

We can’t have our steak and eat it, too. Or can we? Because it really seems like we do, somehow, keep stuffing these offenders into our faces all while insisting “someone” should be doing “something” to reverse this dire climate crisis that could wipe out a resort like Terranea. And that hypocrisy, I think, is our great undoing. Even if we’re offsetting a bit of carbon by reducing food waste or funding someone’s effort to plant a tree in Uganda with every sip of sparkling wine as we watch the sun set over the Pacific.

My mind reels. I think of my daughter. What world are we leaving our children if we eat all the tuna and octopuses and steal baby cows from their mothers and call that sustainable?  A study published just last Monday imagined what the U.S. would look like if we stopped eating animal products. Not surprisingly, we’d increase our food productions 23 percent and decrease GHG emissions nearly 30 percent.

What’s most frustrating though is this resort’s lack of understanding that vegan food is delicious food. It’s often decadent, too. And it’s most certainly the most sustainable option worthy of more than a token “falafel bowl” or curry on a menu filled with dozens of meat-based entrees.

While my media mates guzzled down animal after animal with seemingly no regard — either for the animals themselves (and the consequences) or the awkward (at this point, stereotypically angry) vegan at the table — the conversations occasionally turns to animal sentience, and not at my suggestion, either. This keeps happening perhaps as a plea to placate me or to justify their own quandary about who they’ve just eaten. Someone asks the table if they saw a video of an octopus escaping through a hole. They have. Another mentions a video where after being released into the wild, an octopus appears to thank the human releasing it by wrapping a tentacle gently around his hand. I awkwardly bring up Sy Montgomery’s book “The Soul of an Octopus.” It’s a book I have a lot of issues with, too; the author comes of as self-important and entitled. Like my dinner mates, she can marvel at the intelligence of one creature while eating another. But the book succeeds in delivering powerful anecdotes about these mysterious mollusks who use tools, make friendships, and show emotion. The table shuffles around plates of short ribs and quail eggs. I dip grilled shishito peppers into hot sauce and do my best not to run off and hug a squirrel.

Still. I get it. A place like Terranea with its undeniable immersion in nature can change someone’s perspective. Take a whale watching tour or hike up to a tide pool and that can alter you for life. Vacations do that. It’s why we take them. But can sustainability truly exist in a place like this? I’m not sure I can answer that. But I do know one thing: A few farm-to-table ingredients and efforts to reduce food waste are not enough if we’re not looking at what else, or in this case, who else, is actually on our plates in the first place.

Find Jill on Twitter and Instagram

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Just 30 miles southwest from downtown Los Angeles, Terreana Resort aims to complement its greatest natural asset – the Pacific Ocean.

Inspired by the Spanish explorers who discovered the Southern California coastline in the 1500s, Terreanea Resort in Rancho Palos Verdes, California sits on 102 acres overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The architecture and design complement the natural asset of its location by seamlessly transitioning between indoor and outdoor spaces to take full advantage of the climate and unobstructed views.

Terreanea Resort is located just 30 miles southwest from downtown LA. It’s owned by Destination Hotels & Resorts, the fourth largest independent hospitality management company in the country. Through the company’s Destination Earth program, they are committed to creating a new benchmark for each hotel and resort through a series of environmental initiatives.

While Terreanea has many eco-friendly features, the landscaping is what really makes an impression. Because the resort sits partially on restored native habitat areas, strict attention has been paid specifically to the planting of native plant species and trees. The resort’s eco friendly golf course also plays a large role in the landscaping. Irrigation water is treated in vegetated channels called Bioswales, created wetlands which “contain plant species known for their ability to remediate polluted water and soil through sedimentation, filtration, absorption, and vegetative uptake.” Not only does this mean that it enhances the water quality, but it also provides habitat for many avian and aquatic species.

It’s been said that every family member will be entertained at Terreanea, including your pooch. With tons of activities, a spa, and its several restaurants, kids and adults alike will not be disappointed.

If you go: Dolphins and whales can be spotted right from your room. Rates start at approximately $350.00USD per night.

Places & Spaces is a travel guide that will inspire you to carve out a vacation on your calendar. All of the gorgeous locations and accommodations in our guide share our concern for the environment. From tent glamping to lavish built environments, fair warning, you’ll feel compelled to pack your suitcase.

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Guests at the Hotel Sezz in St. Tropez can indulge guilt-free while taking in warm, ocean breezes.

Known for its glamor, St. Tropez is a destination where the rich and famous play. And while luxurious yachts and private jets are many times the main transportation to and from this resort town in the French Riviera, the Hotel Sezz is one hotel that is making a difference.

Hotel Sezz was built with a mission of being an elegant structure while incorporating international ecological building practices. Incorporating the hotel into its natural surroundings was an important goal of its builders, and they saved nearly every tree on the site. The restaurant and bar (that’s, the Dom Pérignon bar), are constructed from local sandstone in pale grey, embossed cement and panels of aged, stained wood. The spa at Hotel Sezz incorporates materials that are typical of Provençal style and spa products are all derived from plants so guests can indulge guilt-free.

Built of “light and air,” the Hotel Sezz is said to be a unique yet most luxurious addition to St. Tropez, where guests can “smell and feel salt water and warm breezes from their beds and baths.”

If you go: St. Tropez is an amazing city so guests are encouraged to borrow bikes from the hotel to pedal to the beach and around town. Rates start at approximately $650.00 per night USD.

Places & Spaces is a travel guide that will inspire you to carve out a vacation on your calendar. All of the gorgeous locations and accommodations in our guide share our concern for the environment. From tent glamping to lavish built environments, fair warning, you’ll feel compelled to pack your suitcase.

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Fields of carpet, a sea of leather: It’s becoming as endangered as the polar bear as we embrace less is more (less indulgent, more power to you).

Forward green design is radically shifting the kind of statements we are making in our dwellings. How do you know you have arrived? Once it was a clear site line from the entryway to the Olympic-sized pool, or finding yourself diminished by a great room the size of a hotel lobby, that you figured you could squeeze your entire house inside.

Scaling down has produced a new kind of house envy. We covet sleek, modern utility. In this era of the understatement, these luxury spots are being subtracted:

The Wrapping Room

Candy Spelling and the housewives of Beverly Hills and Menlo Park were all taken in by this “bonus room” suggested by Martha Stewart as a place for wrapping all of those holiday gifts. Sorry ladies. Stick em in reusable bags or boxes and call it a day.

The Powder Room

No need to impress with a fancy shmancy bath just for visitors. In a prefab or other low energy dwelling, guests use the main floor bathroom like everyone else. Just keep it pretty with flowers and clean towels when you entertain.

Three Car Garage

Even two car garages might suffice for families using public transit. This McMansion feature is as tacky as it gets and usually includes plenty of cabinets for box store bulk and other evidence of affluenza.

Au Pair Room

Who can afford live-in nannies anymore?

The Guest Room

This is not a necessity as it once was. Anyone willing to stay at your house rather than a hotel is willing to sleep on a sofa bed. Grandmas can crawl in with the kiddies and good old air mattresses do just fine for sleepovers.

The Dressing Room

As we continue to clean out our closets and espouse the notion quality over quantity, there is little need for massive closets or spare rooms for getting dressed.

Fitness Center/Gym

Most efficient spaces might see an elliptical in the bedroom or multi purpose room rather than an entire space devoted to machines. Ride your bike to the gym. What a concept.

Walk-in Pantry

If you are endorsing fresh, local, organic and slow, then you aren’t stocking up on processed foods, and a few good shelves should do the trick.

Home Theater

Okay, we all like having friends over to watch the Oscars or favorite films, but only suits in the biz and the tenacious nouveau riche are building screening suites in their cribs with the works: Ridiculous sound systems; mohair chairs and massive screens, popcorn machines and bars. It’s the epitome of 80s gross. Come on, plug in the crockpot and gather round the LG in the den. It’s so much warmer.

Cabana

Keep the cabana boy but ditch the pool house, unless you are renting it out to buy groceries during the recession (which really isn’t over). Pools suck energy and this resort inspired space is practically extinct.

Images: gsloan, Candacerose; Elan Interiors; largerich; Patriotweb; HFB; Oak Hampton Park; HTN

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According to the 2007 WWF Deeper Luxury Report, the luxury industry lagged behind other brands of consumer products when it came to sustainability. They claimed the cause to be lack of consumer awareness and public demand.

The report ranked a number of companies that included Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Hermes on a sustainability scale, and no companies were given a score higher than a C+. Many brands even failed to get a passing grade.

Three years ago, this report was thought to be the tipping point of the industry. After all, many luxury consumers are increasingly well-educated and concerned about social and environmental issues. Yet the luxury brands were missing out on opportunities to become sustainable leaders.

So where do luxury brands rank today? Particularly the luxury fashion brands?

The answer is not an obvious one. In fact, it is very difficult to uncover the luxury fashion companies who are demonstrating ethical excellence. Given the increase in multinationals who report on their corporate social responsibility (CSR) behavior, it would seem that either luxury brands are slow to engage, or they are doing a poor job at communicating what steps they have taken toward sustainability.

Is it accurate to say that consumer awareness and public demand is still at fault? Or is it that executives have simply become complacent? There are likely a number of reasons why this sector has a poor track record.

But let’s start with the sustainable luxury consumer. Who are they? Let’s face it, they are not you and I. Rather, they are a small percentage of the population who, by definition, can afford indulgence. They are not driven to consumption by necessity, but rather out of pleasure.

I’m not convinced that the reason for this sluggish shift is entirely due to a lack of consumer awareness. It could be that the luxury consumer has simply become accustomed to a lifestyle of waste, and can’t be bothered to make any changes in their shopping habits. Given the resources available to them, awareness is at their fingertips. So if they are truly hungry for sustainable luxury brands, they should know where to find them.

But maybe they are truly concerned consumers, keen to indulge in products that have a lighter environmental footprint. The only obstacle they face, however, is the lack of options available to them. Certain sectors are undoubtedly leading the way in the world of sustainable luxury. There are many options for the home, the car, and even travel. It appears however, that it is the luxury fashion industry that is digging in its heels.

So if its not about a lack of consumer awareness, it may have something to do with the complacency of companies – particularly those where there is a generational gap in decision-making. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it right?

Wrong. Clearly it is broken. The reality is that we cannot continue to deplete our earth’s resources at the rate of those before us.

We must all come together in this crucial paradigm shift, and luxury brands have the ability to take a leadership role.

According to Graydon Carter, editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair: “For the new generation, luxury brands that will not take environmental issues into consideration will lose most of their appeal. Modern brands must address these questions. Ignoring them would be old-fashioned and would equal a return to the previous century.”

If we all aspire for luxury, then the same could be said of sustainable luxury. Will our younger generations flip through Vanity Fair and Vogue magazines, ogling ads for sustainably made Chanel bags, or hemp silk gowns by Versace? Possibly. One can only hope.

Images: chad davis, dr_vaibhavahuja, Sarah McD

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When Irish eyes are smiling, it’s possibly because they’re looking at trinkets from Macha Jewelry.

Named after the town in Northern Ireland where she grew up, Macha Jewelry is designer Bernice Kelly’s line of smile-worthy rings, earrings, bracelets, necklaces and cufflinks.

When we first spotted these beauties on Planet Mag, we fell hard for the Rockwell Ring and matching stud earrings. That’s not to say we don’t also love Kelly’s more fanciful items like the Snake Bone Necklace, Pirate Tooth Necklace and Crab Claw Cufflinks.

At first glance, the rough nuggets and weathered metals seen throughout Kelly’s collection may come off as raw and unfinished. But as you examine her work, you notice a unified chicness that can only be achieved through thoughtful and deliberate design.

Because Kelly finds inspiration in imperfection, she rarely wastes materials and instead turns mistakes into beautiful, tiny treasures.

Consider each one your own pot of gold. Or silver. Or platinum.

Image: Macha Jewelry

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You’ve got a closet full of vintage frocks from the thrift store, a house full of energy-efficient appliances, organic sheets on your bed and a Prius in your driveway. It’s not exactly “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,” but these choices aren’t about status – or are they? A new study on the evolutionary psychology of status and environmentalism finds that many people go green for appearances, not real altruism.

After all, the image-conscious needn’t tote teacup Chihuahuas in Chanel purses and drive gas-guzzling sports cars to be like celebrities when hip stars like Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz are cruising around in hybrids and carrying reusable bags.

In the recently published paper, “Going Green to Be Seen: Status, Reputation, and Conspicuous Conservation,” (PDF) University of Minnesota professor Vladas Griskevicius asserts that people will give up luxury in favor of sustainability – but only when other people are watching.

“Many green purchases are rooted in the evolutionary idea of competitive altruism, the notion that people compete for status by trying to appear more altruistic,” notes Griskevicius.

Griskevicius and his colleagues performed three experiments in which participants were asked to choose between luxury items and greener options when shopping for a car, household cleaner and a dishwasher.

Some of the subjects were told to imagine that they were about to start a new high-powered job where they’d need to impress their boss and co-workers in order to move up. These people – with status in mind – chose the green products.

Of course, this study doesn’t mean we’re all strutting around like organic peacocks hoping our neighbors will notice our sustainable superiority. But thinking about this from another point of view, what is wrong with environmentally friendly choices being the cool thing to do? In a perfect world, motivation would extend beyond the surface for everyone. Some of our fellow environmentalists will disagree, but whatever compels status-conscious consumers to make green choices is worth applauding – for a perfect world it’s not.

Image: Notions Capital

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They’re a potent symbol of excess: bloated floating mansions that stir up the calm waters of the ocean, pump out CO2 and suck up fuel like there’s no tomorrow. But those poor beleaguered billionaires who seek refuge on the high seas aren’t about to give up their luxury yachts.

Still, in an increasingly eco-conscious world, many yacht owners are realizing that they’d better shape up or ship out – at least, on the surface. Enter Ecoyachts, a web-based consulting and service company for yachters who want to go green”¦ish.

Ecoyachts posits itself as a one-stop shop for eco-friendly yachting supplies, services and information.

“Whether you are building, own, operate or manage a luxury sailing or power yacht, Ecoyachts will help you discover innovative products and services to compliment your yachting experience and at the same time contribute to improving our environment,” reads the site’s mission statement.

But is it good enough for luxury yacht owners to load up on recycling bins, homeopathic first aid kits, filtered tap water and organic upholstery? What about sustainable wood decks, waste water recycling systems and non-toxic finishes? Do all of these things add up to a real step forward, or are they just lipstick on a pig? After all, the oceans are in bad enough shape without the harm that gigantic pleasure crafts can do.

Sure, going green doesn’t have to mean giving up all the pleasures of life, and Ecoyachts’ aim to help the industry reduce its environmental impact is a noble one. But if yachters really wanted to go green, they’d at least downsize – or switch to sailboats, which do everything that fancy hybrid/solar/biodiesel yachts can do, but with the original renewable resource: wind.

Image: Ecoyachts

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Porcelained out? Carve your niche with an alternative sink for soaking up greener materials like certified teak, bamboo, recycled metal and glass and friendly painted ceramics. You can even experiment with poured concrete with 50% recycled fly ash, as seen in the striking orange basin by Jeremy Levine Design.

Here is a handful of other options we rounded up:

From William Garvey’s Fusion Line of handmade sinks from certified teak grown in the mixed deciduous forests of South Asia.

Spotted at the Story Hotel in Stockholm, these decorative ceramic bowls make brilliant bathroom basins.

Recycled aluminum and brass vessel sinks from ECO round out the eco bath and are paired well with a bamboo plywood or stone tile counter top.

Handblown recycled glass emerges as sensuous craft for the bath with the clear tortoise trim Classic design (above) and Ocean shell (below) from Bear Creek Glass.

Main Image: Jeremy Levine Design

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Getting back to nature – same thing as roughing it? If you find yourself loathe to ditch your oh-so-self-indulgent rituals like “warmth”, “being clean” or “eating actual food” you’ll be delighted to pitch in with a hot new approach to the great outdoors – glamping. Luxury without ostentation, eco-tourism without eco-terrorism – and everything catered for so you can enjoy your surroundings without worrying if you’ll survive the night in them.

Solar-powered lighting, rainwater reuse and an organic menu make Canvas Chic an eco-friendly lodging, while antique décor, four-poster beds and oriental rugs make it luxurious. Located along the Ardeche River gorge in the Rhone-Alps region, the scenery is awe-inspiring.

At Ecocamp Patagonia in Chile, you can stay in domes that resemble the ancient dwellings of the native Kaweskar and soak in the stunning landscape of Torres del Paine National Park with activities like hiking, horseback riding and kayaking.

Looking for something a little closer to home? Just an hour outside San Francisco, Costanoa is set in the heart of nature among 30,000 acres of protected wilderness. Their spacious canvas bungalows seem more like cabins than tents with queen beds, windows and hardwood floors. (Image via Jazz Violin)

Built above the ground to catch the breeze off Jervis Bay, the safari style tents at Paperbark Camp in Australia are extravagant and eco-friendly, with spacious verandas, solar-powered lighting, insect screening and hardwood floors. Plus, guests can explore the bay and surrounding forest with complimentary canoes and bikes.

At Clayoquot Wilderness Resort, tents are equipped with their own fireplace, cozy bed, antique dresser and composting toilet. This stunning destination on Vancouver Island provides plenty of activities for its guests with library, lounge, spa, dining and games tents.

The Resort at Paws Up is nestled along the beautiful Blackfoot River in Montana. Lavish tents with king beds, stylish wall art and a personal butler make for a pampered stay, while activities like horseback riding and mountain biking cater to your adventurous side.

Not exotic enough for your seasoned taste? Take a journey into the Gobi Desert and stay at the Three Camel Lodge. Their deluxe gers feature wood stoves, hand-painted furniture and a king bed. Plus, they come stocked with Mongolian-style bathrobes, felt slippers and locally produced toiletries.

Main image: notsogoodphotography

Unless otherwise noted, images are the property of the corresponding, respective facilities.

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