Eco-Travel - Nashville (Hutton Hotel, aloft Nashville-Cool Springs)

View of Tennessee State Capitol from Nashville's Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park

Last month, I had the pleasure of taking a trip to Nashville, Tennessee. What a fun place! From its beautiful countryside and charming residents to the thriving music scene, Nashville makes an excellent, affordable vacation destination.

But how about from an eco-travel perspective? Well, I didn't have time to bike around Nashville, but I did see quite a few bike lanes and they were getting some use by the locals.

My initial assessment is that the existing bike paths will need to be expanded and connected to give Nashville a true alternative to car commuting, but the city is compact enough that a better bike infrastructure could make Nashville a wonderful biking city. Nashville does have a Strategic Plan to create an integrated bikeway network, so hopefully the system will become more comprehensive in the years ahead.

I didn't have a chance to ride public transit either, but the uncrowded buses seemed to run pretty frequently.

There is no light rail within Nashville, but a rail line (the Music City Star) recently started service from Nashville to points east. The downtown Nashville station looked spiffy and new.

(For what it's worth, I don't think it would make financial or logistical sense for a city the size of Nashville to put in light rail, but a trolley system of the sort prevalent in Vienna or Prague could work quite well here.)

Bamboo-filled lobby at Hutton Hotel (photo via hotel website)

Eco-travelers have a couple of exciting options in terms of lodging when visiting Nashville. Right near Vanderbilt University and convenient to Downtown is the Hutton Hotel, which just opened earlier this year. The Hutton has some serious eco credentials having just hosted the North American Summit of former Vice President Al Gore's Climate Project.

Built inside the completely gutted and renovated shell of a former office building, the Hutton is chock full of eco-friendly amenities. For instance, the lobby and guestrooms use bamboo flooring and furniture. Interior and exterior lighting uses energy-efficient LED and compact fluorescent fixtures. Remarkable Kone EcoDisc elevators use a low-friction, gearless design to reportedly achieve 70% energy savings over traditional elevators.

Dual flush toilets in the guestrooms (designed by a local company called Baden Bath) and waterless urinals in the public restrooms help save water. Soap dispensers in the guest rooms cut down on the use of plastic bottles.

Hutton employs the key card system prevalent in Europe where guests must insert a card into a slot when entering their guestroom in order to active the room's lights. When guests take their card on exiting the room, the lights automatically shut off 30 seconds later, saving even more energy.

Meanwhile, the hotel's restaurant 1808 Grille has gotten rave reviews in the local press. The restaurant has made a commitment to serve locally-produced wines and beers and Whole Trade coffee (from Allegro Coffee Company, which also provides organic tea bags in the Hutton's guest rooms). I believe the restaurant also places an emphasis on sustainable seafood and using organic ingredients when possible. Some of the restaurant's furnishings involve the use of reclaimed wood, saving natural resources.

While it's certainly possible to walk from the Hutton to Vanderbilt and even to Downtown Nashville, the Hutton also offers a hybrid courtesy car for use within 3 miles of the hotel. That 3 mile range easily covers trips to the convention center and nightlife in the downtown District.

Meanwhile, for Nashville visitors who prefer a bit of distance from the downtown hubbub, the Aloft-Nashville Cool Springs hotel located about 20 minutes south of the city offers another good eco-friendly option.

Owned by Starwood and associated with the W Hotel brand, Aloft Cool Springs has a number of eco-friendly touches including the use of cork building materials, sustainably-sourced wood venees and in-shower soap and shampoo dispensers (cutting down on the use of disposable plastic bottles). Various online sources indicate that Aloft hotels use biodegradable, eco-friendly cleaning products both within the rooms and on the hotels' pools.

If you do choose to stay at the Aloft Cool Springs, you'll be right nearby the town of Franklin, recently honored by the National Trust for Historic Preservation as a 2009 Distinctive Destination.

One more note for bicyclists - the area near Nashville is home to the northern terminus of the Natchez-Trace Parkway, a 444-mile road maintained by the National Park service that offers a beautiful and relatively safe bicycling option from middle Tennessee to the far Southwestern corner of Mississippi. We wanted to bike a little bit of the Parkway, but ended up only having about 30 minutes to drive a tiny piece of the road. In that time, we saw only about five cars and an equal number of bicyclists. Seems like a lovely route for long-distance cyclists.

PS - Nashville has a great zoo that helps spearhead conservation efforts for endangered animals like the clouded leopard. In addition, I was surprised and pleased to find out that zoo's cafeteria  has eschewed petroleum-based plastics in favor of renewable and biodegradable plates, cups and utensils made from such materials as sugarcane, corn and potato! Handy signs (like the one pictured in the unfortunately dark photo above) explain to zoo visitors that all plates/cups/utensils are compostable, biodegradable and designed to 'return to nature' in 45-60 days. Pretty cool.