T+L’s 2025 World Imaginative and prescient Awards

Yearly, Journey + Leisure presents its World Imaginative and prescient Awards, the place we acknowledge people, merchandise, locations, and organizations pioneering sustainable and eco-friendly journey. These visionaries are centered on the way forward for journey—and are devoted to making sure that we, as people, can proceed to discover the world with out damaging it as we go alongside.  

This yr, our panel of consultants—their experience various all through the journey sector—nominated firms, locations, and people they consider are creating significant change. After a lot consideration, we narrowed down the checklist to 25 winners, every making a tangible impression on how we expertise the world. We hope their work conjures up others to embrace extra sustainable and accountable journey.

Winners by Class

The Full Listing of 2025 Winners

Locations and Lodges

Little St. Simons Island

Summer season-camp vibes meet critical local weather science at Georgia’s Little St. Simons Island, about two hours south of Savannah by automobile. Dwelling to the century-old Looking Lodge and 5 cozy cottages, the 11,000-acre island is surrounded by rigorously managed tidal estuaries the place naturalists information kayak outings, bird-watching rambles, and seaside walks alongside seven miles of undeveloped shoreline. Stays on the island assist assist the Middle for Coastal Conservation, the group that oversees ongoing preservation of the ecosystem. Typically, in collaboration with the lodge, it hosts researchers and volunteers who come for actions akin to becoming monitoring bands on songbirds and monitoring the loggerhead sea turtles that nest within the space. “We assist with conservation by getting individuals out right here and reminding them why it’s so essential to deal with the planet,” common supervisor Jamie Pazur says. “We additionally present them time.” ​—Elaine Glusac

Main Lodges of the World

Based in 1928, Main Lodges of the World has grown to a consortium of greater than 400 luxurious properties, all nonetheless independently owned, in additional than 80 international locations. Certainly one of its most up-to-date improvements is placing its greenest resorts entrance and heart, with the launch of the Sustainable Leaders assortment. These 109 pace-setters have gone above and past in lowering water use, bettering power effectivity, thoughtfully integrating native cultural heritage into programming, and investing in honest hiring practices. Simply as importantly, probably the most forward-thinking hoteliers are a supply of optimistic peer strain, incentivizing the remainder of the group to match these achievements, says Lauren Alba, a vice chairman at Main Lodges. “It’s already doubled in dimension since 2023.” ​—Hannah Selinger

Marie Selby Botanical Gardens

Orchids dangle from the ceiling of the welcome heart on the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Sarasota, Florida. Opened in 2024, it’s one aspect of a redesign that’s turning the Selby into some of the cutting-edge establishments of its form. The $57 million first section has already helped rework this waterfront attraction right into a test-bed for sustainable structure. Simply 10 months after the debut of its new guests’ heart, solar-powered restaurant, and analysis services, the Selby confronted Hurricane Milton, the highly effective storm that lashed southwestern Florida in October. Although the gardens did endure some injury, a brand new underground stormwater filtration system meant to wash and return rainwater to Sarasota Bay carried out precisely as designed. “We’ve got the flexibility to teach the general public about sustainability and actually exhibit it to a broad viewers,” says Jennifer O. Rominiecki, the Selby’s president and CEO.​​​ —E.G.

Leela Palaces, Lodges, & Resorts

A favourite model of T+L readers, the Mumbai-based Leela Palaces, Lodges, & Resorts is thought for its over-the-top lodging and superlative service together with, famously, the bathe of rose petals that greets visitors as they arrive on the Leela Palace Udaipur. But it surely’s what turns into of these flowers—in addition to preparations within the lobbies and rooms—that demonstrates the resort group’s dedication to waste discount. Since 2023, Leela has collaborated with the Indian firm Phool to upcycle blooms utilized in its resorts into richly scented incense sticks which are often gifted to visitors. The hassle has to date reworked greater than 10 tons of flowers from would-be garbage into aromatic souvenirs. ​—Paul Brady

Cabiner

In partnership with the Dutch forestry service, Cabiner builds smooth constructions in much less visited stretches of nature protect throughout the northern Netherlands. These off-the-grid hideaways are constructed sustainably from supplies akin to cardboard and wooden, but characteristic hotel-caliber beds, kitchens, bogs, and plant-based meal kits equipped by native markets. To date, Cabiner has two dozen hike-in cabins, which can be found for out-and-back overnights or as a part of a hut-to-hut circuit, with lodging spaced from two to 12 miles aside. “The true luxurious,” says cofounder Sander Ejlenberg, “is having the forest to your self.”​ —E.G.

HBD Principe

Don’t let São Tomé and Príncipe’s compact dimension idiot you. These Gulf of Guinea islands, which make up Africa’s second-smallest nation, comprise one of many world’s largest concentrations of endemism—and ecotourism performs a vital function in preserving it, significantly on less-populated Príncipe.

Nature dominated these volcanic strips of land till the Portuguese Empire arrived within the 1400s and trafficked slaves from West and Central Africa to develop sugar and cacao. The nation gained independence in 1975, however a long time of unemployment adopted.

In 2010, South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth proposed a sustainable financial enhance: accountable journey and agriculture firm HBD Principe. It’s now Príncipe’s largest personal employer, with 4 boutique resorts. Sundy Praia, located the place the traditional rain forest meets the gold-sand coast, is probably the most luxurious. Inland Roça Sundy pairs previous and current; visitors in a single day in former plantation properties whereas residents equitably preserve an natural and Chook-Pleasant licensed cacao operation. Different stays embody palm-fringed Bom Bom, which reopened in fall 2024 following years of renovations, and São Tomé-based Omali.

HBD Príncipe’s nonprofit, Príncipe Basis, safeguards biodiversity, together with nesting sea turtles and migrating cetaceans, and its new Pure Dividend group will compensate residents for shielding pure assets. —Stephanie Vermillion

Firms

Journey Mexico

Based in 2003, Journey Mexico is a B-Corp Licensed luxury-travel agency that’s going out of its option to demand vacationers do extra for the nation. Final yr, the corporate launched what it calls a “accountable journey payment” of $100 per individual, which is tacked onto each reserving. The funds are distributed to tasks such because the Haciendas del Mundo Maya Basis, which helps community-led financial growth, and to the Xochimilco Agroecological Initiative, which goals to advertise regenerative farming in Mexico Metropolis and past. “The thought was to attach vacationers to those hot-spot points,” says Zachary Rabinor, the founder and CEO of Journey Mexico and a member of the T+L A-Listing. He notes that whereas the payment could be waived on request, most visitors are more than pleased to contribute—and lots of ask to hyperlink up with supported organizations throughout their visits. “We’re at a key inflection level,” Rabinor says. “I see individuals, for the primary time, actually asking for this.” —H.S.

Icy Strait Level

Thirty years in the past, the Huna Tlingit neighborhood on Alaska’s Inside Passage confronted a crossroads: The way forward for extractive industries akin to logging and fishing was doubtful, and the financial outlook, significantly for younger job-seekers, was grim. Tourism, some neighborhood leaders proposed, provided a means ahead. After years of groundwork, Icy Strait Level debuted in 2004 as the primary privately owned cruise vacation spot in Alaska. Managed by the Native-owned Huna Totem Company, the vacation spot has develop into some of the well-liked within the state, with each considerate applications and thrill rides. Together with elevating Native tradition within the eyes of holiday makers, the event has revived curiosity in Indigenous language and conventional dance among the many Tlingit neighborhood, says Russell Dick, president and CEO of Huna Totem. “We’ve constructed one thing that’s allowed future generations to precise their pleasure in who they’re and the place they arrive from,” he notes. Up subsequent? Partnering with different Indigenous teams in Alaska and the Caribbean. “If different individuals can construct off us, we’ve executed our job,” Dick says. —E.G.

Giving Bag

“We’re making an attempt to create a connection between the traveler, the resort, and the neighborhood,” says Quinn Cox, cofounder and CEO of Giving Bag, an organization born of the will to assist cut back waste in resorts. In 2013, Cox and Lilia Karimi, each veterans of the hospitality trade, got here up with a deceptively easy thought: Visitors can depart undesirable footwear, articles of clothes, books, or no matter else they now not want in reusable luggage or receptacles supplied of their rooms. Objects are then donated to native assist organizations, fairly than languishing in lost-and-found closets earlier than being discarded. “A whole lot of these gadgets have a helpful life,” Cox says. Little marvel, then, that the thought has taken off, with Giving Luggage now provided in 26 resorts throughout 12 international locations. —H.S.

Exodus Journey Travels

A good variety of high-end outfitters can pull off a dog-sledding journey in Finland or a pulse-quickening hike by way of the Dolomites. However Exodus Journey Travels takes journeys like these to a different stage by inviting its visitors to be not simply thrill-seekers but in addition citizen scientists. Since 2022, the corporate has been outfitting its clientele with water-sampling kits that may reveal the DNA of animal species dwelling in a given space—information that’s fed into the worldwide biodiversity database eBioAtlas. “Clients genuinely care in regards to the optimistic impression of their travels in the event that they see it in lockstep with improbable experiences,” says Kasia Morgan, the corporate’s head of sustainability. In one other laudable effort, Exodus has since 2020 run the Mountain Lioness Undertaking, in Tanzania, which has to date educated 30 ladies porters to work as guides on Mount Kilimanjaro. —E.G.

700’000 Heures Affect

Hotelier Thierry Teyssier thinks each one of many 700,000 hours of the common human lifespan ought to rely—therefore the title of his “regenerative tourism” firm. The thought behind 700’000 Heures Affect is to create what Teyssier calls “microhospitality” tasks that welcome not more than six vacationers at a time, whether or not it’s a group of rainforest tree homes within the Peruvian Amazon or a sequence of rustic-chic homestays in Oaxaca, Mexico. “It’s important to begin small as a result of small doesn’t break something,” he says. That was the strategy for his challenge in Morocco, dubbed Reminiscence Highway, which helped entrepreneurs within the Berber village of Tizkmoudine diversify their tourism-dependent economic system; at this time cash from visitor stays funds agricultural growth, handicrafts workshops, a kindergarten, and after-school programming for teenagers. “We use hospitality because the engine to additional a neighborhood’s targets,” says Teyssier, who’s at present at work on a challenge in Rwanda. —E.G.

White Desert

Antarctica has seen a record-setting variety of guests in recent times. However for Patrick and Robyn Woodhead, the husband and spouse who launched the journey clothes shop White Desert in 2005, the ultimate frontier is a well-known, if more and more fragile, place. “From the early days, we understood that we have been working in a pristine wilderness, so it was at all times essential to do it in a really sustainable means,” Robyn says. White Desert’s three small camps—every accommodates a most of 12 visitors—are a part of its low-impact strategy, as is a dedication to utilizing sustainable biofuel within the ski-equipped planes the corporate makes use of on its flights across the continent. In 2024, the Woodheads introduced the White Desert Basis, a U.Ok.-registered charity that may assist scientific research that may solely be performed in Antarctica. “We’re hoping to fast-track tasks that don’t but have funding,” Robyn says, akin to an investigation involving the hundreds of meteorites that dot the ice—and are liable to sinking due to local weather change. —P.B.

Folks

Teara Fraser

A Métis girl from Canada’s Northwest Territories, Teara Fraser by no means deliberate to develop into a pilot. However on an aerial tour of Botswana’s Okavango Delta in 2001, she had a revelation: She needed to fly. “It was some of the pivotal moments of my life,” Fraser remembers. “I returned to Canada and began flight coaching. A yr later I had my pilot’s license.”

Fraser was working for an aerial-survey firm when the 2010 Vancouver Olympics introduced international consideration to Canada’s First Nations peoples. She acknowledged that whereas guests from all over the world have been desirous to study extra about these communities, transportation to these locations was restricted—a big barrier to rising tourism. “Culturally, we’re taught to do good with the data and expertise we’ve been blessed with,” Fraser says. So she launched into a mission to attach vacationers to the distant communities of northern and coastal British Columbia.

 Her answer was Iskwew Air, Canada’s first Indigenous-owned and woman-owned airline. Launched in 2019, Iskwew operates day by day service between Vancouver Worldwide Airport and Qualicum Seashore, on the northeastern coast of Vancouver Island. The airline additionally runs personal charters to different hard-to-reach locations in British Columbia. The title (pronounced iss-kway-yo) means “girl” in Cree, a language spoken by some Métis individuals; Fraser selected it to represent matriarchal management, a touchstone of Métis tradition.

For the reason that launch, Fraser has continued to champion a extra numerous, inclusive, and sustainable aviation trade: Her nonprofit, Give Them Wings, encourages Indigenous youth to discover careers in aviation, whereas Iskwew Air offsets its emissions by buying credit from the Nice Bear Forest Carbon Undertaking. In 2023, she based Elibird Aero, a “clear aerotech” firm centered on improvements akin to totally electrical planes. Most just lately, Fraser ventured into hospitality with the opening of Liberty Wilderness Lodge, a distant sanctuary in northern B.C. that she co-owns together with her husband, Trevin. 

“I at all times say that getting my wings gave me wings for all the things else in my life,” Fraser says. “It gave me braveness and inspiration, and taught me the worth of exhausting work.” —Gina DeCaprio Vercesi

Sarah Dusek

“Can we construct a enterprise that helps save the planet?” That’s the query Sarah Dusek is asking together with her newest hospitality endeavor, the six-suite Few & Far Luvhondo, in South Africa. It’s the primary safari lodge for her new firm, Few & Far, nevertheless it’s not Dusek’s first rodeo: She’s the founder, alongside together with her husband, Jacob, of the glamping operator Below Canvas, which the couple offered for $100 million in 2018. Her new enterprise sits amid the Soutpansberg Mountains, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve that’s residence to wildlife together with giraffes, leopards, and the endangered pangolin. An natural farm provides the kitchen and, by way of the replanting of endemic flora, the challenge goals to ultimately sequester greater than 100,000 tons of carbon a yr. “It is a place to immerse your self within the wilderness and let it converse to you,” she says.​ —E.G.

Vikas Khanna

Celebrated Indian chef Vikas Khanna has written cookbooks, received Michelin accolades, and, in 2024, opened the buzzy restaurant Bungalow in New York Metropolis. However considered one of his best achievements had nothing to do with high-end eating. Quickly after the pandemic started—whereas “issues have been falling aside,” as he places it—Khanna set his thoughts to getting meals to households in want throughout his residence nation, a challenge he dubbed Feed India. “It began so small,” says Khanna, who was directing deliveries and fund-raising remotely from New York. “By the point I needed to decelerate to open Bungalow, which was my sister Radhika’s dream challenge, we’d delivered 84 million meals.” Although his sister died after a protracted sickness in 2022, he opened the restaurant on the day that will have been her fiftieth birthday. “The best artistic endeavors have at all times come from damaged hearts.”​ — H.S.

Merchandise

Exped

Final yr, Swiss out of doors model Exped set an bold goal to rid its merchandise of PFAS, the human-made “perpetually chemical substances” generally used to make supplies stain- and water-repellent. However leaders on the firm decided that objective was unachievable due to how ubiquitous these substances have develop into. So as a substitute, they opted for radical transparency: New Exped gear comes with a disclaimer stating that “it can’t be fully dominated out {that a} product could comprise traces of those chemical substances.” On the similar time, the model’s up-for-anything backpacks, sleeping luggage, and tenting gear do include inexperienced cred: The materials, buckles, and zippers are licensed by both Bluesign or Oeko-Tex, which set environmental-impact requirements. Then there’s the corporate’s personal ethos, which is all about encouraging customers to purchase much less, says Ted Steudel, president of Exped USA. “Our objective is to place out a product that lasts a very long time,” he explains. “We’re not quick vogue.” —E.G.

Oway USA

“A post-plastic world is what we’re after,” says Sharon Nykaza, managing director of Oway USA. Launched in 2000, the stylish magnificence model is a part of a family-owned firm that dates again to 1948; it nonetheless sources many elements from its personal biodynamic farm close to Bologna, Italy. To chop out difficult-to-recycle waste, Oway started packaging its merchandise in aluminum and glass in 2013. They’ll now be discovered in additional than 450 areas within the U.S., together with salons and spas. “Generally you need to do issues that aren’t straightforward,” Nykaza says. “Hopefully, a pair a long time from now, extra firms can be doing this.” —H.S.

BioLite

Gear maker BioLite makes a speciality of whiz-bang tenting stoves, together with one mannequin that may harness fireplace to generate electrical energy, in addition to string lamps and lanterns constructed for the outside. That leisure gear helps assist the corporate’s larger mission: to distribute low-cost, fuel-efficient stoves and solar-and-battery energy techniques to individuals throughout Africa who may not in any other case be capable to afford them. “We’ve constructed an organization round fixing problems with power entry,” says Jonathan Cedar, cofounder and CEO. He’s fast to level out that BioLite isn’t a charity, however fairly a social enterprise. “Our recreation market provides us the steadiness to unravel these longer-term issues.” —E.G.

Citizen

As the primary mainstream watches to be powered solely by mild, Eco-Drive timepieces from Citizen have been one thing of a revolution after they launched in 1976. The model took one other leap ahead within the Nineteen Nineties, when improvements in photo voltaic expertise allowed for Eco-Drive watches with a smooth, high-end look. Right this moment, round 85 p.c of the corporate’s lineup is photo voltaic powered, together with signature items like the brand new 37mm Promaster Dive. That’s helped remove the necessity for disposable button-cell batteries, says Susan Chandler, a Citizen government. “We aren’t placing batteries in landfills, and that is a crucial cornerstone of our model,” she notes. One other means Citizen is investing in renewables? As a member of the philanthropic group 1% for the Planet, the model funds the work of Everyone Photo voltaic, a corporation that helps nonprofits set up clear power techniques. —H.S. 

Port Ellen

Scotch has seen its recognition rise and fall, and in 1983, throughout one significantly fallow interval, Port Ellen, a distillery on Scotland’s Isle of Islay, closed its doorways. The model had been primarily utilized in blends, and whisky lovers didn’t take into account its single malts to be worthy of getting older. But a small quantity of the whisky survived, says Ewan Gunn, an government at Diageo, the worldwide beverage firm that now owns Port Ellen, in addition to manufacturers akin to Johnnie Walker and Lagavulin. “What we found is that, as soon as it’s 30 and even 40 years previous, it evolves into one thing actually spectacular,” Gunn says. That realization led the corporate to reimagine Port Ellen as a high-end, small-batch model. 

Diageo additionally noticed a chance to reboot distillery operations, together with the set up of super-efficient cooling techniques powered by inexperienced power. And whereas water is important with regards to making scotch, the usage of that useful resource is scrupulously monitored. “We’re always how we will push the boundaries,” Gunn says of the power, which reopened to the general public in 2024. “Diageo is the most important participant within the trade, so it’s proper that we needs to be main the best way at any time when we will.” As for the way these cutting-edge strategies improve the whisky, solely time will inform. —H.S. 

Nonprofits

Sandals Basis

The Sandals Basis has been working throughout the Caribbean since 2009 however, in recent times, has stepped up its impression. The brainchild of the resort model’s government chairman, Adam Stewart, the inspiration has funded philanthropic tasks on 9 islands. These vary from coral restoration in Jamaica to water catchments for faculties in Grenada and marine conservation training in

Antigua—and even seemingly small gestures that may have a huge impact, like supplying expertise to an elementary faculty within the Bahamas. “We have a look at the place there are gaps,” says Heidi Clarke, the inspiration’s government director. Visitors of each Sandals and Seashores resorts can go to lots of the tasks. Actually, Clarke says, “our visitors are our largest donors, and we’re tremendous grateful to them.” —H.S.

Tour Operators for Tigers

Since 2006, the quantity of Bengal tigers in India has greater than doubled, from 1,411 to 3,167, in line with the nonprofit Tour Operators for Tigers. Amplifying the work of India’s Nationwide Tiger Conservation Authority, this group works to certify eco-conscious lodging, educate guides, and interact with native communities to assist conservation in greater than two dozen areas, together with some nationwide parks, to assist these charismatic animals thrive. The group, which along with tour operators counts lodges and journey advisors amongst its members, additionally units sustainability requirements that are supposed to encourage water conservation, waste discount, and power effectivity. “The tiger is on the prime of the ecosystem,” says Ritu Makhija, the group’s director of sustainability. “If the tiger is taken care of, then your entire forest regenerates.” —E.G.

Ikigai

“When individuals stroll in to a restaurant, they need to know the chef, to know there are good individuals concerned and good issues occurring,” says Dan Soha, proprietor of the 12-seat Ikigai, which opened in Brooklyn final July. Chef Rafal Maslankiewicz creates avant-garde kaiseki dinners; the 12- or 15-course menus characteristic dishes akin to Hokkaido sea-urchin toast with husk-cherry jam and a quail egg. But it surely’s the enterprise mannequin of Ikigai that’s most spectacular: After accounting for employees wages and operational prices, Soha, who doesn’t take a wage, diverts earnings to Rescuing Leftover Delicacies, a nationwide nonprofit that works to distribute ready meals and groceries to these in want. What’s extra, Soha owns the constructing during which the restaurant is positioned, which means Ikigai is probably going there to remain. “This restaurant provides me a objective each morning,” Soha says. —H.S. 

Tompkins Conservation

Kristine McDivitt Tompkins has been centered on the work of conservation since she retired from the model Patagonia in 1993—the identical yr rewilding was added to the dictionary. Collectively together with her late husband, Doug Tompkins, she cofounded the influential group Tompkins Conservation, which has over the a long time helped develop a community of huge nationwide parks in Chile and Argentina—and spurred comparable efforts all over the world. “We’ve got all these tasks going now, and I’m actually the godmother of them,” Tompkins says. “I don’t have to vary the oil within the vans anymore.” 

That work took a serious leap ahead in 2017, when Tompkins and Chile’s then-president Michelle Bachelet negotiated a deal to broaden, by 10 million acres, the quantity of land protected against growth in that nation. Right this moment, the group’s regionally led nonprofits, Rewilding Argentina and Rewilding Chile, are safeguarding much more territory. The previous is at work on a coastal safety challenge, Patagonia Azul, on the shores of Chubut Province, Argentina, the place dolphins, seals, and whales congregate. Meanwhle, Rewilding Chile is creating the primary nationwide park on the very backside of the continent. Cape Froward, as it’s identified, is located alongside the Strait of Magellan, southwest of Punta Arenas, and is a vital habitat for pumas and endangered huemul deer. Says Tompkins: “That’s a giant one, and it’s all fingers on deck.” —P.B.

Lengthy Run

In 2009, Jochen Zeitz, then-CEO of the sportswear model Puma and the creator of the Kenyan safari camp Segera, introduced collectively 9 like-minded lodges to create what he known as the Lengthy Run. The objective was to share not solely greatest practices but in addition, critically, well-intentioned failures, in order that the group might study collectively. Right this moment the collective has greater than 70 members who’re working to advance what they name the 4 Cs: conservation, neighborhood, tradition, and commerce. One latest achievement is the creation of the Fund for Feminine Guides, by the tour operator Steppes Journey, which goals to enhance gender parity within the occupation. One other is the event of a permaculture farm by the Indonesian resort Nikoi Non-public Island, which was impressed by the work of Grootbos Non-public Nature Reserve (a previous World Imaginative and prescient Award winner). In whole, members are lively throughout greater than 21 million acres of biodiverse landscapes, within the African bush, on the coast of New Zealand, and within the mountains of northwestern Argentina, to call only a few. “Sustainability is a journey, not a dash,” says Anne-Kathrin Zschiegner, the group’s government director. “It’s not about what we do in a yr or three however within the subsequent 20 or 50.” —E.G.

The 2025 World Imaginative and prescient Awards Panel

The next consultants assisted within the compilation of this yr’s checklist. Panelists have been prohibited from submitting their very own tasks. The editors of Journey + Leisure made the ultimate willpower of winners.

Susmita Baral, Senior Editor, T+L 

Paul Brady, Information Director, T+L

Elizabeth Cantrell, Senior Editor, T+L

Nina Caplan, Contributor, T+L

Gina DeCaprio Vercesi, Contributor, T+L

Elaine Glusac, Contributor, T+L

Sean Ingles, Common Supervisor, Grootbos Non-public Nature Reserve

Ray Isle, Government Wine Editor, Meals & Wine

Denny Lee, Articles Editor, T+L

Venetia Martin, Managing Director, Journeys with Objective

Beks Ndlovu, Founder & CEO, African Bush Camps

Jen Salerno Yong, Contributor, T+L

Skye Senterfeit, Deputy Picture Editor, T+L

Flora Stubbs, Government Editor, T+L

Nardia Sullivan, Head of Sustainable Journey, Wild Frontiers