To be honest, we’ve always thought of hostels as being fairly environmentally friendly, especially compared to their big brothers in the hotel industry. Without the massive laundering facilities, industrial-power air conditioning and unlimited shower products in wasteful little plastic bottles, hostels are already a huge improvement over hotels. Still, it’s nice to know many of them are trying to do more.

The places in TreeHugger’s listicle of 12 Hip Green Hotels in North America, for instance, feature all manner of green programs, like solar panels, green roofs (like the one on Portland’s Hawthorne Hostel, at right), CFL light bulbs, copious use of found materials, vegetable gardens, comprehensive recycling programs and energy-efficient construction materials. They’ll also make you want to take a trip, with their frequent proximity to all kinds of green activities (hiking, biking, canoeing, etc.), which just leaves the problem of the greenest way of getting there…