"If you give back, you'll get back."

That, in a nutshell, is the message Céline Cousteau aims to convey through her marine conservation partnership with Contiki Tours.

The international tour operator, which caters to 18- to 35-year-olds, is one of the founders of TreadRight, a not-for-profit group that oversees various sustainable tourism projects and fosters the preservation of popular tourist sites such as the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland and the Grand Canyon. You may recognize Cousteau's last name -- she's the granddaughter of legendary French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau -- but she's also an accomplished environmental activist in her own right, having founded, among other projects, CauseCentric Productions, a non-profit that aims to help other organizations communicate their messages through film.

"With the experiences I have," Cousteau, 39, explains -- visiting remote tribes in the Amazon rainforest (pictured above), diving with manatees and humpback whales, the list goes on -- "I play a role in helping Contiki tell the story they want to tell. They have the means" -- thousands of young, energetic, eco-minded customers, as well as access to funding -- "and I have the content."

I had a chance to chat with Cousteau about sustainable tourism leading up to her speaking engagement at last weekend's Green Living Show in Toronto:

So this is strange and fantastic:

A hotel in Kenya, Giraffe Manor, gets its name from the spotted looky-loos who stick their tall necks through the hotel windows when they want to chow down.

Imagine you're staying at this unique hotel and sitting in the sun room for breakfast. You're huddled over your espresso, trying to wake up after a pleasurable night of gin and tonics. You're yawning, stretching, downing your orange juice, and tucking into your breakfast croissant, when suddenly --

Want a fun mid-winter getaway?

It’s called Rowena’s Inn, you’ve never heard of it before, and you'll find it on a massive 160-acre estate (with its own air strip!) close to the tiny town of Harrison Mills, BC about 1.5 hours east of Vancouver along the tranquil Harrison River. 

The inn is both an inn and a group of cabins (more on those below). The inn itself looks like a giant ogre ripped a lovely Victorian manor out of the English countryside, carried it across the Atlantic, and then plopped it down in the deceptively-sleepy town of Cabot Cove, Maine where each Sunday night, Angela Lansbury solves a homicide in the drawing room committed by a fresh celebrity guest star. Except, instead of Maine, Rowena’s Inn is hidden by snow-gilded evergreen trees in the Fraser Valley of southwestern BC.

A few months back I posted something on a survey that polled Canadians on their celebrity travel companions of choice. Shania Twain was the top pick, followed by Oprah Winfrey, Celine Dion, Ryan Gosling, Taylor Swift...in short, a bunch of famous folks who are easy on the eyes or seem interesting in a talk-show/tabloid sort of way.

But if you view travel as an experience that can enrich your life, then I imagine David Suzuki would be a pretty great globetrotting buddy. And now, as part of a trip to Bhutan being auctioned off for charity, you can explore one of the world's least-travelled yet most-facinating nations with Suzuki at (or near) your side.

As host of CBC-TV's The Nature of Things for the past 33 years, the award-winning scientist and environmental activist has delved deep into myriad countries' cultural and natural riches, often exposing threats and suggesting solutions. In short, if I could travel with Suzuki or The Most Interesting Man in the World (you know, that Dos Equis beer guy), I would pick Suzuki in a heartbeat. 

My favourite "bit" from comedian Louis C.K. involves air travel. After describing the various complaints of passengers -- delays on the tarmac, malfunctioning Internet access -- he puts it all in perspective:

"What happened then? Did you fly through the air like a bird, incredibly? Did you soar into the clouds, impossibly? Did you partake in the miracle of human flight and then land softly on giant tires that you couldn't even conceive how they f**king put air in them?...You're sitting in a chair in the sky. You're like a Greek myth right now."

But there is a lot to complain about when it comes to air travel, mainly because we've become accustomed to having so many options: Fish or chicken? Movies, TV or music? Checked bags or carry-on? That's why the outcry was so deafening when we started having to pay for in-flight meals, and movies, and pillows and blankets, and carry-on luggage...OK, it is getting out of hand. Clearly the airlines, who have no one to blame but themselves for creating an atmosphere of entitlement, are working hard to lower our expectations.

Our in-flight option of choice, however, is fast becoming Wi-Fi access (pictured above). According to a recent survey of a thousand travellers by travel search site Skyscanner, 60 per cent would choose wireless Internet service over an in-flight entertainment system. (Thirty-seven per cent said they would go with the entertainment system, while the remaining 3 per cent would presumably read, chat or stare at the back of the seat in front of them, Puddy-style.)

Want to hang out in Cleveland this weekend?

I'm going to stare at Mick Jagger's gonch, of course, in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. Why? Because IT'S THE LAW IN OHIO. The moment you land at Cleveland's airport, burly customs agents order you to report to The Hall.

But the main reason I'm flying to Cleveland is infinitely stranger. I'm flying in to see 'Canterlot Gardens' which bills itself as "the premiere Ohio fan convention" that's "built by pony fans, for pony fans" of the animated TV series 'My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic'.

Fans at a My Little Pony convention in New Jersey. AP Photo/Mel Evans

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is a kids show, created by Hasbro, that's designed to entertain/sell toys to impressionable girls aged 2 and up. Now in its third season, the show is about a unicorn pony named Twilight Sparkle who lives in Ponyville where she learns about friendship from five other ponies named Applejack, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie.

Where I grew up, farm kids dropped acid and watched their horses change colours, so My Little Pony is practically a documentary to me.

If you only fly first class, I have alarming news for you: it's much safer to sit in the back of a plane. You first class passengers are literally paying more for a front row seat TO YOUR OWN DEATH.

That's according to a recent crash study done in a remote and unpopulated corner of Mexico's Baja California. On Friday, a team of experts (I presume) deliberately crashed a 170-passenger jet, nose-first, into the Sonoran Desert. The test was filmed by a UK production company, Dragonfly Film and Television Productions, and will be broadcast later this year as a feature-length doc on Channel 4 in the UK and Discovery Channel in the USA.

Artist's rendering of crashing jet. The artist was hovering in mid-air, like a bird or a god.

A spokesperson for Dragonfly said there were "300 people on location, including the production team, pilots, experts, risk management, plus local crew, military, fire teams and police."

The goal of this $1.5 million project was to test safety equipment by recreating a survivable commercial jet crash to see who would live -- and who would die. Oh, and if you're wondering, they didn't use actual passengers. Yes, they may be cynical TV types but they're not MONSTERS. Instead, the plane was filled with crash test dummies, video cameras, and lots of scientific machines that go "Ping!" They also shot footage from the ejecting pilot’s helmet. Here's a short ABC News segment on the unusual crash.

Good luck trying to dine and dash at this underground restaurant.

A Finnish restaurant just opened 80 metres down a working limestone mine called Tytyri. It's located in the southern Finnish town of Lohja, about 49 kilometres west of Helsinki.

The restaurant, 'Muru Pops Down in Tytyri', is truly embracing a 'back to the earth' approach to cooking. It's the spinoff brainchild of a popular Helsini bistro called Muru ("crumb" in Finnish). Muru, by the way, won this year's gourmet title in Finland, just two years after opening. Not too shabby.

These Spanish miners wish they were dining at an underground Finnish restaurant. Photo: AP/Juan Manuel Serrano

Muru's team noticed the trend of 'pop up' restaurants. It's where rising chefs find empty/under-used/unusual spaces to experiment and practice their craft.

So Muru went the other way and came up with a 'pop down' idea. A 64-seat restaurant with cool air and an earthen floor, it offers fine food at long, wooden, candle-lit tables. Muru Pops Down in Tytyri opened this week for a 10-night experiment.

It runs Monday through Saturdays (the employees pop up to sleep on Sundays) and then closes September 29th [And by closes, I mean the restaurant shuts down. Far as I know, they're not planning to blow up the mine shaft so that other restaurants can't move in.]

Canadians have a worldwide reputation for being agreeable travellers, and according to a new poll by Travelocity.ca this applies to the boldface crowd, too.

The trip-booking behemoth's first-ever "Travel Companion Survey" revealed that 62 per cent of Canadians polled would prefer to travel with domestic celebrities than with some of Hollywood's biggest names. Shania Twain (pictured at left), for example, was the fantasy travel buddy of choice for 17 per cent of Canadians -- the highest percentage in the survey -- followed by American Oprah Winfrey (9 per cent) and then a slew of Canucks including Celine Dion (8 per cent), Ryan Gosling (7 per cent) and George Stroumboulopoulos (5 per cent). 

What about the Bieb, you ask? Justin Bieber nabbed just 1 per cent of the vote, with other A-listers like Lady Gaga (4 per cent), Taylor Swift (5 per cent) and Jay-Z (1 per cent) faring poorly as well.

Photo credit: Alex Urosevic/iPhotoLive.com

So I don't really care who Aubrey O'Day is.

According to the Internets, she's an American singer, actress, fashion designer, and former member of the girl group Danity Kane. Plus Donald Trump fired her from his reality show Celebrity Apprentice.

I only mention O'Day, 28, because this week she Tweeted a pic of her chilling out with her dogs. On an airplane, and in first class, no less. Here's the photo:

Look how happy her dogs make the passenger behind them.     Photo via Instagram/Aubrey O'Day 

You might be wondering 'How did O'Day sneak her dogs on the plane? Did she hypnotize the airline staff into believing her pooches were members of the cabin crew?'

Nope. According to TMZ (so it must be true), a rep for Virgin Airlines said she was cleared to bring her dogs aboard their plane because they are registered as "Emotional Support Animals."