Barbados Among Best Ethical Destinations

Your travel dollars can be spent in ways that either harm the world or help fix it. That's the underlying philosophy of the Ethical Traveler, a non-profit advocacy group based in Berkeley, Calif.

The groups advises travelers on how to make responsible travel decisions. Its latest report recommends 13 developing countries that are both worth visiting and deserving of your tourist dollars.

Ethical Traveler compared environmental and social development indicators of various countries to make the ratings. The group studied things such as carbon dioxide emissions, percentage of land set aside for parks, infant mortality rates and human rights records.

And the winners are: Argentina, Barbados, Belize, Brazil, Costa Rica, Croatia, Ecuador, Kenya, Peru, Slovenia, Sri Lanka, South Africa and Uruguay.

If countries trying to do well by their people are rewarded with tourism, they will more likely continue on that path, said Ethical Traveler spokesman Michael McColl.

Linda, Travel 2 the Caribbean