The list was compiled by Jeff Greenwald and Christy Hoover at EthicalTraveler.org, a nonprofit organization (part of the Earth Island Institute) that urges travelers to spend their travel dollars in ways that protect human rights and minimize impacts on the environment. They acknowledge that no country on the list is perfect (what country off the list is?) but they found lots of hope and inspiration in many places.

Some countries that made the top 10 may surprise you, others may make complete sense to you. Alphabetically they are:

Argentina
Belize
Chile
Ghana
Lithuania
Namibia
Poland
Seychelles
South Africa
Suriname

The Ethical Traveler report discusses the attributes and endeavors that allowed these countries to rise to the top. The next step for us is to see which of these places are on our travel wish lists and start planning.

There are lots of places on the planet that qualify as the back of beyond, but the tropical South American nation of Suriname can certainly lay claim to the title, as Andy Isaacson reveals in his Dec. 7 story in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Once upon a time, long before Costa Rica became a prime eco-tourism destination for North American travelers, Suriname was a haven for birdwatchers, but political troubles in the 1980s shut down the country’s small tourism industry. Just when the country was about to sell off big chunks of forestland to timber interests, Conservation International stepped in and helped convince the government to stake its future on conservation and eco-tourism development rather than strip out its natural resources.

Jungle lodges have sprung up, or rather, been built over time, and it’s possible to explore deep into the heart of the rain forest and stay in a lodge owned and operated by the indigenous people of the region. Tourism numbers are likely to remain small, and with 90 percent of the country covered in rain forest, the opportunities for exploring a world largely unchanged from its primordial state are excellent.

Paramaribo, the capital city, also has its appeal. Its main core is a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of the Dutch colonial architecture, despite being in the back of beyond.