What an Ecovillage Actually Is — and Why You Should Visit One

I was 18 the first time I heard about an ecovillage. My environmental studies professor brought up this time he lived at Arcosanti, an experimental town in the Arizona desert focused on innovating sustainable living. Intrigued, I dug deeper, eventually coming across The Ecovillage at Ithaca, which was just a few hours away from my school. We had to give a presentation on a creative solution to the looming environmental crisis, so I used it as an excuse to head upstate and take one of its free tours. I was immediately hooked. They had hay-bale-insulated houses, an organic farm, composting, and a large common house with a kitchen where they ate community dinners. They were actively figuring out how to live in a way that was better for the planet.

An ecovillage is an intentional community (meaning that people are choosing to live with each other, as opposed to an apartment complex, for example, where you don't get to pick your neighbors) that aims to achieve environmental and social sustainability. Ecovillages exist all around the world. Some have 10 members, some have thousands. They all self-govern in some way — consensus decision-making and a core group of governing members seem to be popular structures. Ecovillages aren't an isolated phenomenon — they make up a global movement toward sustainable living.

Ten thousand ecovillages are registered with an organization called the Global Ecovillage Network. Something that distinguishes these communities from a run-of-the-mill commune is that they have a mission to share their methods of sustainable living with those who live outside of the community. Because of this, many ecovillages have tours or allow visitors to stay at the community for various periods of time.

When I was 20, I took off my Spring semester and booked a one-way ticked to Chennai, India. I took a short bus ride to Pondicherri and then a rickshaw to the town of Auroville, where I stayed at what was pretty much the equivalent of a youth hostel. The Ecovillage at Ithaca was made up of an impressive group of families who built a community on a hill above the city — in some ways, a progressive and more sustainable version of a gated community. Auroville is a town unto itself. It has a city center with a dining hall and cafe and shops. Long, dusty roads connect houses, farms, schools, and manufacturing centers through land that was reforested by Aurovillians. Most people have motorbikes or bicycles to get around. Its denizens come from 49 nations, but one third of the population is Indian.

At Auroville, I made friends, I lounged on an amazing beach, I hung out with the teenagers who had grown up there, and I immersed myself in a different way of living. For the first week, I woke up at 5 a.m. to pull weeds at an organic farm a 10-minute bike ride away from where I was staying. In exchange, I was given free breakfast. I spent a lot of time at the cafe in the town center, reading and writing. Other travelers lived in small huts on the farm, working more than I did but staying there for free — they'd found Auroville through an organization called Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF). There's nothing better than traveling to afford us the opportunity to experience something other than what we think the world is. More than ever now, we need to be looking for creative ways to approach sustainable living, and what better way to do that than through visiting people who are actively trying to live in a way that's good for the planet and for themselves?

Intrigued? I thought you might be. I've compiled a list and brief descriptions of some notable ecovillages around the world, focusing on communities that have good accommodations for visitors. You can plan your trip around staying there, like I did when I visited India, or make a point of just stopping in for the day. If you're already considering something like WWOOFing, this could be another to direction to look into. You have a lot of options, so you can find something that works for you!