{"id":9716,"date":"2025-06-28T16:19:43","date_gmt":"2025-06-28T16:19:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/10-ways-help-give-back-travel\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T10:12:54","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T10:12:54","slug":"10-ways-help-give-back-travel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/10-ways-help-give-back-travel\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Ways To Help Give Back When You Travel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently, we got to visit a part of the UK we\u2019ve never actually visited \u2013 the grand old city of Newcastle! The idea of visiting Newcastle comes with various connotations \u2013 a great place to party (thanks Geordie Shore), a brilliant city to visit, the Angel of the North, a city filled with lots of bridges\u2026 etc. however, the idea of going to a beach in Newcastle is definitely not one that springs to mind when you think of the city. Beaches in the U.K. in particular seems to be a lot more linked to the Southern climes of Cornwall, Brighton and even more remote islands like the Isles of Scilly.<\/p>\n

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That being said, we found ourselves Northern bound from London on a trip to Newcastle to go to the beach. This however wasn\u2019t your regular day trip to the beach \u2013 yes, there would some of that (along with some wine to make the most of the beach time) but our trip to the beach was to take part in World Beach Rescue Day organized by Barefoot Wine & Bubbly<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The idea behind it is plain and simple and that\u2019s to keep our beaches \u2018Barefoot friendly\u2019 and \u2018leaving only footprints\u2019 which quite frankly, is the point of having a beach as far as I am concerned. \ud83d\ude42 The project has actually been happening for 9 years in the UK (in partnership with Surfers Against Sewage) and 10 years internationally (it was launched in partnership with Surfrider Foundation).<\/p>\n

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To celebrate this milestone, this year is the very first time it had been formalised into a proper \u2018World Beach Rescue Day\u2019. There were over 11 countries across the globe participating \u2013 Australia, South Korea, Mexico, the United Kingdom and United States to mention but a few.<\/p>\n

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In Newcastle, we headed up to Whitley Bay which is a long stretch of sandy beaches, set against a backdrop of the city, a quaint lighthouse and mossy rocks. Upon arrival, I thought \u201cWell, this is a clean beach \u2013 surely there can\u2019t be much to clean here unless you count seaweed as trash<\/em>\u201d but despite that, we managed (as a group \u2013 not just two of us \ud83d\ude42 ) to find over 150kg of rubbish which needed to be cleared off the beach (seriously, there was a tyre, a rusty metal rod (this is an old railway sleeper if they want to mention that) and even an old lobster cage), all within the space of two hours.<\/p>\n

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We had so much fun (more fun than you\u2019d think was possible while cleaning up a beach), made some new friends and of course, to celebrate, we finished off the evening with glasses of rather refreshing and much welcome Barefoot wines (and by glasses, I mean plastic cups \u2013 which we then took away with us to recycle). I\u2019m more of a white wine\/rose kinda guy so I quickly found my favourite in the Chardonnay<\/a> \u2013 had to taste a couple of wines to make my decision of course, strictly for research purposes. \ud83d\ude09 Needless to say, a glass of wine and a day at the beach go effortlessly well together!<\/p>\n

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This whole afternoon however then led me to think of other ways we could make a difference when we travel. Doing things like this once a year is brilliant but there are so many opportunities to give back to beautiful places we visit that take up very little time and resources from us. And let\u2019s face it, even from a \u2018selfish\u2019 point of view, the longer we keep places that we love beautiful and pristine, the more we can enjoy said places. We\u2019re attracted to places we travel to because of how beautiful they are so it\u2019s plain common sense to help keep it that way\u2026 or even to help improve it when we can (and no, not in the way that lady \u2018improved\u2019 the Fresco of Jesus Christ in that church in Spain<\/a>).<\/p>\n

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To cut a long story short \u2013 here are 10 simple ways you can help give back when you travel:<\/h3>\n

1.) Be aware of your resource consumption.<\/strong> Resources in this context include things like power, water, heat\u2026etc. There are things we all need\/want when we travel but when they\u2019re not in use, it\u2019s always a good thing to be conscious of this and switch them off. Waste is absolutely unnecessary and does no one any favours.<\/p>\n

2.) Volunteer your free time \u2013 especially if it\u2019s something you enjoy doing.<\/strong> If you can have fun while giving something back, everyone wins.<\/p>\n

3.) If you find rubbish where it doesn\u2019t belong, help put it where it does belong \u2013 in the bin\/recycling.<\/strong> Yes, it\u2019s not your fault it was there in the first place and it\u2019s not even your responsibility but little acts like this done by lots of people can make such a huge impact.<\/p>\n

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4.) Leave only footprints, take only memories.<\/strong> Sounds like quite the clich\u00e9 (very much so in fact) but the essence of this quote holds very true when it comes to travel. The idea is of course to enjoy a place you visit and leave it better than you found it and that, is a good thing. (Of course you can take things away\u2026 like the salted caramel walnuts from the Dordogne Valley in France, if you do take those away, please get me some too!)<\/p>\n

5.) Try to support local businesses where you can.<\/strong> Of course this isn\u2019t saying you need to go buy yoghurt that has been sat for hours in the sun from a food vendor (typical travel common sense rules apply, of course) but supporting local businesses actively helps improve the economy of the places you visit, which in turn helps create a stronger and more prosperous community.<\/p>\n

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6.) Be respectful.<\/strong> Sounds simple but a lot of negative impacts travelers have on a destination stem from a lack of respect. No respect for coral reefs leads to people standing on (and breaking) coral which took hundreds of years to grow, lack of respect for a city leads to people visiting and throwing rubbish anywhere they can, lack of respect of the locals leads to people ignoring local customs or singing at the top of their voice when everyone else is trying to sleep\u2026 the pattern goes on and on. As long as we all respect the fact that we\u2019re visiting someone else\u2019s home \u2013 our actions generally leave a much more positive impact on the environment.<\/p>\n

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7.) Be informed.<\/strong> Information is key to helping you avoid tourist traps that are detrimental to a place you visit. Don\u2019t go picking up baby turtles and stressing them just for a photo on Instagram (their survival chances in the wild were already low before that), try to research the places you visit in advance, don\u2019t support activities that actively take advantage of less empowered people\u2026 the list goes on and on. If you do your research prior to engaging in an activity when you travel, then you leave yourself in the best position of understanding whether or not you\u2019re making a positive impact to the destination you\u2019re visiting.<\/p>\n

8.) Immerse yourself in the culture.<\/strong> The benefits of this flows both ways \u2013 for you, you get a more authentic travel experience and for the community you\u2019re visiting, you get a great appreciation of the cultures and can go ahead and be a \u2018flag-bearer\u2019 of sorts to help promote these communities and cultures.<\/p>\n

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9.) Share knowledge.<\/strong> This goes hand-in-hand with the point above. Look for ways to gain knowledge on your travels and actively look to share that knowledge. The more people know how beautiful a rarely visited destination is and how friendly its people are, the more others around you will want to visit and hence help the local economies with the influx of like-minded travellers (just like you). \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

10.) Make a donation.<\/strong> This perhaps the most obvious one of the lot but it would be silly to overlook this as this can be quite a direct way to contribute towards a place you visit. Granted some destinations don\u2019t need it as much as others do (some even come with a mandatory \u2018donation\u2019 i.e. your entry fee) and monetary donations can be quite a contentious issue but in places that do need financial help, this can be the most direct way you can create an impact and provide a helping hand.<\/p>\n

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Recently, we got to visit a part of the UK we\u2019ve never actually visited \u2013 the grand old city of Newcastle! The idea of visiting Newcastle comes with various connotations \u2013 a great place to party (thanks Geordie Shore), a brilliant city to visit, the Angel of the North, a city filled with lots of … Continue Reading<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9717,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,354],"tags":[359,355,689,361],"class_list":["post-9716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel","category-travel-advice","tag-england","tag-europe","tag-newcastle","tag-united-kingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}