How to Give Back on Your Vacation

We’re just here to remind you that we DON’T have to feel bad about traveling. If done correctly and intentionally, traveling can be – and is, positive for the people of the destination that you’re traveling to and the place itself.

Don’t get us wrong – there are definitely right and wrong ways of traveling. Since you’re here, we take it you’re interested in doing it the right way!

This is excellent news. Travel can be an incredibly transformative and positive experience for us, but it shouldn’t just go one way. Whatever positives we’re getting out of the experience – the destination and its people, natural environment, and culture should be equally benefited by our visit.

We’ll walk you through the Bodhi Surf + Yoga guide on how to ensure that your next trip anywhere in the world not only benefits you, but that it also benefits where it is that you’re traveling.

There are many ways to give back

One of our goals at Bodhi Surf + Yoga is to empower our guests to make their own educated decisions, and to be independent travelers.

Our goal with this blog isn’t to outright TELL you how you should give back on your next vacation.

The goal is to provide you with all of the information you need to make your own decision on what kind of traveler you want to be and how you want to use your next trip as a force for good for that destination.

We’ve broken down ‘giving back’ into three different levels, based on level of involvement, impacts, and how active you are in improving the destination.

The Responsible Traveler

A lot of the time when we think of ‘giving back’, we imagine it as some form of donation or monetary contribution. 

At this first level of giving back and as a responsible traveler, it’s important to note that giving back is not ONLY done in this form.

Yes, this form of giving back is important and can be crucial in empowering communities to develop and integrate initiatives and programs that make it a better place. But simply ‘throwing money at the problem’ without any attempt to attack the actual root of the problem does not necessarily have positive long term impacts.

Responsible travelers give back through their intentional actions, decisions, and more.

The first step is education

Education is the necessary solid foundation for any responsible traveler. How are we supposed to DO (or not do) if we don’t KNOW?

We highly recommend learning even just a little bit about the culture of the destination before you arrive there. 

We suggest starting with the general culture of the country as a whole, and then looking a little deeper into the cultural norms of the area or community that you’re going to. This helps you gain an understanding of how people live and gives some context to what you’ll be seeing when you get there.

If you’re heading down here to Uvita, Costa Rica – we’ve got you covered! Surf on over to our blog, Costa Rica Customs and Etiquette, to educate yourself on some of the cultural norms here, as well as some Bodhi Pro Tips on the Dos and Don’ts of Costa Rica.

This type of self-education empowers you to arrive at your destination with an understanding of that culture that you can build on during your time there – we recommend taking advantage of any educational opportunities that come your way!

A smile goes a long way

This one may sound extremely simple – that’s because it is. But you’d be surprised at how far a smile can go.

We’ve lived here in the beautiful and welcoming community of Bahia Ballena for 20 years now, so you can trust that we’ve seen thousands of tourists pass through here, and we’ve seen how our local community responds to them.

It really doesn’t matter if you don’t speak the local language. That is no excuse to ignore local people. We’ve seen (and we feel it too!) just how much of a difference it makes when a traveler acknowledges a local person in the street for example, with a smile or wave.

This shows locals that, even though you might not be able to communicate with words, you see them and respect that they’ve welcomed you into their community. Remember – they didn’t ask you to be there, the least we could do as responsible travelers is acknowledge the people that call our vacation destination home.

If you’re planning on staying somewhere for a more long term period of time, then we do think it’s your responsibility to learn at least the basics of the language. But for your one or two week vacation, the universal language of a smile will suffice.

Embrace the local culture and community

We believe that embracing what’s around you with open arms is key to being a responsible traveler.

What do we mean by this? It’s all about being open to trying new things, which is one way of gratefully accepting a destination and its people’s culture.

Try food and drinks that you’ve never heard of before. This sounds really small and insignificant, but it genuinely does mean a lot to locals.

I remember when I was in Mexico City for the first time, I was walking through a local market and I came across an elderly lady selling crickets with chili on them. The lady noticed the curiosity written on my face and wandered me over to try some.

I could have of course politely declined, but the joy on her face when she saw me take my first ever bite of spicy crickets is something that I’ll never forget – and she probably won’t, either.

By trying local foods in local places, you’re also supporting local people and their businesses – which is a fantastic way of giving back. 

Again, this may sound like a no-brainer for those of us who intend on being responsible travelers – how could you NOT give back like this on your vacation? 

Well, if you’re staying in an all-inclusive resort or on a cruise ship, you’ll find that you’re very rarely able to head out and support locals. Being a responsible traveler is about recognizing the positive impact that your trip can have on a community and acting on it through who you decide to support and how you decide to do it.

Traveling with Purpose

The next level of giving back is acting on what we’ve already talked about – being a responsible traveler.

Traveling with purpose involves taking that extra step in using your visit as a force for good in that destination and giving back to it.

Dive deeper into your research

When we say to dive deeper into your research we don’t just mean Googling the best coffee spots in the neighborhood (which you should still do!). 

We mean furthering your education on the destination by researching not only culture, but what’s going on in the place itself.

This allows you to learn about what’s going on in the community and some challenges that they’re facing, allowing you to be sensitive to these things while you’re there. 

Likewise, you can also learn about all of the good and positive things that communities have going on while you’re there! You don’t want to miss out on a unique cultural event or celebration happening in your destination, just because you didn’t know it was happening.

“How can I conduct this type of research?” you may be asking yourself. Here’s a Bodhi Pro Tip: Check out the websites of recognized responsible businesses, organizations, and non profits from that community – they’re more likely to tell you the WHOLE story.

Businesses and tour operators will mostly show you specifically what it is that they want you to see. That’s fair – at the end of the day, they’re just trying to sell you their service.

We as a responsible business try to always share the full story. Again, our mission is to equip our guests with the information they need to be empowered to make decisions as independent travelers. 

We make it our responsibility to share with you all the WHOLE story, which we do through blogs like these, our newsletter, and our social media.

Here, we’ll help you take the first step on your journey to traveling with purpose. Subscribe to our newsletter – each month we send out a ‘community newsletter’ with some news and info about what’s been going on in our local community.

This news includes information about what’s been going on around here, what we’ve got coming up, and more! You can also subscribe to the SOMOS Foundation’s newsletter, to stay up to date on what community initiatives and projects are on at the moment, as well as learn some of our current community needs.

This type of information empowers you to arrive at your destination equipped with the knowledge of how to respect the community and its locals – another great way of giving back and traveling with purpose.

Mindful consumption

You can give back by being mindful and intentional about the businesses that you choose to support while traveling.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell if a business is responsible, or if it’s as responsible as it claims to be. You determine what the company does to give back to its community and natural environment by looking into its CSR reports. 

Another way of telling how responsible and sustainable a business is, is whether or not it has received any recognized certifications or partnerships, including:

• B Corp certification
• 1% For The Planet membership
• Center for Responsible Travel (CREST)

By supporting a business that does good and SHOWS that they do good, you’re already giving back and using your trip as a force for good.

We here at Bodhi Surf + Yoga pride ourselves on our commitment to giving back and using each and every single one of our visitors as a means to do this. 

We achieve this through our Travelers Philanthropy program – whereby we donate USD $20 on behalf of every paying guest to a local non-profit organization. This ensures that each guest that visits us here plays a role in leaving our community a little bit better than it was before they got here.

This is an example of empowering yourself to be mindful of what kind of business you support while traveling. By choosing us, you’re giving back to our local community and natural environment right off the bat!

Here’s another Bodhi Pro Tip for our responsible travelers out there that are looking to travel with purpose:

Many responsible businesses (not just tourism businesses) across the world donate their goods and services to online auctions that support non-profit organizations and their projects. We donate our week-long vacation packages yearly to a few of these auctions, including:

• Leave no Trace
• 1% For The Planet
• Adventure Travel Conservation Fund

We recommend to stay in the loop with organizations like these so you can see when their auctions are. They are a great way to purchase something of value while supporting the incredible work done by these organizations.

The Destination Steward

We believe that being a destination steward is the highest level of giving back.

A destination steward actively contributes to the preservation and well-being of a place’s natural, cultural, social, and economic resources. It’s about a continuous pursuit of a “net positive” tourism ecosystem that benefits both visitors, residents, and place.

This can include promoting tourism that contributes to biodiversity conservation, engaging in ecosystem restoration, and driving business to local communities that don’t typically benefit from tourism.

Your impact doesn’t end when you leave

The positive impacts of a true destination steward continue long after you’ve left the destination to return home.

You’re actively engaged in staying on top of what is going on in the destination and how their community projects and initiatives are going. One way that, as a destination steward, you can take this to the next level is by contributing to these very projects.

Let’s say that the community you just traveled to is coming together to fundraise for a youth leadership program, for example. A destination steward recognizes that this is an opportunity to fulfil their responsibility as a responsible traveler and give back to the community that had welcomed them into it.

We have guests here that have monthly standing payments to our local non-profit organization (the SOMOS Foundation) allowing them to give back financially to our community’s local projects on a regular basis.

Again, we’re not saying that in order to be a destination steward you must contribute financially – that’s not the point. The point is to use your love for the destination and the community to inspire ways in which you can give back to them.

It also shouldn’t be just the responsibility of the traveler to figure out how to give back, whether financially or not. As a responsible business, we empower our guests to give back to various organizations and initiatives here in our community.

Aside from supporting the SOMOS Foundation, our guests have the opportunity to support Costa Rica’s one and only coral reef restoration lab by visiting it and donating. It’s our responsibility as a business hosting responsible travelers that want to be active in creating positive impact to empower them to do so.

We have created a relationship and partnership with them – Costa Rica Coral Restoration, allowing our guests to take an education visit to their lab, with the option to make a donation.

Destination stewards think outside the box

You can be creative in terms of how you give back. 

Think outside the box. What actions can you take back home that indirectly support your travel destination? 

Here’s an example of how our guests here take action back home that allows their visit to continue to benefit our community and natural environment, long after they’ve left us.

We inspire and empower our guests to be what we call ‘Ocean Guardians’. By taking our guests to the ocean every day and having them build their connection with it through surfing, they have the opportunity to fall in love with the ocean.

We believe that by falling in love with the ocean, we then feel compelled to protect it. As humans, we innately feel the need to look after and protect what we love.

Having fallen in love with the ocean and Mother Nature, our guests can go back home with this desire to protect and stand up for the ocean and take action.

How can they take action? There are many ways. We’ve had guests that have gone home and taken part in monthly beach (or any natural space) cleanups, joined marine conservation organizations, and volunteer their time and knowledge when and where they can.

These active efforts – even after your vacation, are what make you a destination steward and the MOST responsible kind of traveler. You have mastered using your trip as a means of giving back!

Your impact goes a long way

We have a phrase here at Bodhi Surf + Yoga…

“The waves of impact created by our guests break far beyond our shores” – and it’s true.

Even the seemingly smallest decisions that you make while traveling can create BIG and long lasting impacts.

It’s important that we remember this. We as travelers are empowered to use this privilege as something that’s good for the world – something that not only benefits us, but all stakeholders.