61. Why Doing Service While On Vacation is a Great Idea and Simple Tips to Make it Happen

Summertime for many of us also means vacation time! In this episode I’m sharing some of my own reasons for why service on vacation is a great idea. I also have some simple tips for how you can make service happen: some of them you can do with little to no planning, and some take just a little planning. I hope after this episode you can see how easy and fun it can be to incorporate service in your travel plans.

Links mentioned in episode:
Just Serve

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Melissa: Summertime for many of us also means vacation time. In this episode, I'm sharing some of my own reasons for why service on vacation is a great idea. I also share some simple tips for how you can make service happen while you're on vacation. Some of them you can do with little to no planning, and some take just a little planning. I hope after this podcast episode, you can see how easy and fun it can be to incorporate service in your travel plans. Welcome to the Do Something more podcast, a service oriented show where we highlight the helpers who inspire us all to do something more. I'm your host, Melissa Draper. Thank you so much for being here. Hello and welcome to this episode of the podcast where I'm going to be talking to you about some ideas for doing service while you're on vacation. Summer is a time that many of us take trips, spend time with our families, and travel, so I thought this would be a great episode to share at the beginning of the summer. In case you've ever thought you might want to do some service on your own or with your family while you're on vacation. And speaking of summer, because we're heading into the summer months, for the next few weeks, I will be replaying some episodes here on the do something more podcast. So I'm going to be replaying some of the episodes that we've done over this past year that I thought were just really great or I thought they should have another chance to get out there since we've garnered some more listeners since they played. So that's what you'll be hearing on the podcast for the next few weeks, and I'm excited to replay some of those and share some of those interviews again with this audience. And also, just as a friendly reminder, if you've been enjoying some episodes of the podcast, I would really appreciate a review left on Apple Podcast. Or if you haven't yet to subscribe or follow the podcast on whatever platform you use to listen. Both of those help this podcast get in front of more people that are looking and wanting to find this kind of content. And then, of course, you can also follow the podcast on social media, Instagram, or Facebook. I leave links to both of those in the show notes. So now we're going to get into this episode. I'm excited to talk about this topic. And first, I'm going to just give you some whys of why you might want to do service on vacation. I know some people might be like, Melissa, that's something I've never thought of. Well, I'm going to give you a few reasons of why it might be something you you would want to think of. And then I'm going to share ideas in two different categories. The first are ideas of service you can do with little to no planning. This doesn't need to be a huge thing that we take hours or have to plan so much for because we're already planning a lot of things with our vacation. So I just want to give you some ideas on things you can do right in the moment that really are a good service for those around you. And the second set of ideas are things that will take a little bit of planning. So again, they're not huge. They won't take hours to plan, but they'll take a little bit of forethought before your vacation. So let's get into it. First of all, why would you want to do service while you're on vacation? Well, I'm sure anyone could think of their own list, but here's a few of my reasons. First of all, vacation time is a great time to look outside of ourselves. We're not as stressed, we're not as rushed. We don't have this huge schedule of things and to do lists hanging over us. And because of that, it can be a little easier to take advantage of those opportunities to look outside of yourself and think about how you can reach out to others. Most of us have times that that's exactly what we want to do. But maybe life's been busy and stressful and we haven't been able to lean into that feeling. Vacation time is a great time to lean into that because we're a little more relaxed and we have the opportunity to really stop and take a little more notice of what's going on around us. And I think personally, too, for myself, I've experienced it, but I've also seen it with other people that serving is so rejuvenating. Serving really lifts you up emotionally and mentally. It gives so much back to you. And that's exactly why a lot of us are on vacation, right? We need those rejuvenating experiences. We're resting, we're taking a step back, taking those mental health breaks or all of those things while we're on vacation. And so you add service into the relaxing rejuvenation you're already doing, and it's kind of like a double whammy. You get a double dose of that while you're serving and doing it on vacation. And then also, many of us vacation and travel with our families and our children. And I have always thought that vacation can be a great time to reinforce and teach your family values to your children. So again, if serving, helping, reaching out to others is something that's important to you to teach your children, and sometimes you feel in the stress and rush of everyday life, you just haven't had the time to really do that, vacation can be a great time to take advantage of the opportunity to teach that to your children. Again, we're not rushed, we're not stressed, we're not losing our patience. Sometimes we are on vacation, but we're a little more relaxed. We're just enjoying that time. And it doesn't have to be big. You can do something small with your children. You can have a discussion about it, you can point things out to them, and it really can have a lasting impact while you're on vacation. It can be something that they remember or a lesson even that they're more ready to learn or hear because, because you're out of the routine, you're out of the usual day to day. And so they're really listening, they're paying attention, and you're interacting and communicating with each other in those more relaxed ways. So I think vacation's a great time to teach any of the values that we want to teach, but especially about serving, helping and reaching out to others. So those are some of my whys of why service on vacation is a great idea. So hopefully with one of those, I convinced you, if you weren't already convinced. And now I'm going to start by giving you some ideas that you can do with little to no planning. So you can do these in the spur of the moment with maybe some of the things you already have planned or you're already doing on your vacation. So number one idea is picking up garbage, picking up litter in the places that you visit. All you really need are some garbage bags or even some small grocery bags and maybe some gloves that you could buy at any store. And you can teach the value to your children or experience for yourself of beautifying one of the places that you visit. And this can apply to so many places. It can be campsites. Maybe if you're camping, maybe you're visiting a beach. Opportunities to pick up trash at the beach. Maybe it's a national park, maybe it's a city park in the middle of a big city. So many different places while we're on vacation that we can stop and pick up litter. Give each of your kids their own little grocery bag, even to fill up with trash, walk around, set the timer, say, hey, let's see how much we can do in ten minutes. And I love doing this with my kids. I've done it with them before. Sometimes I've done it when we have visited, like a football game or another game in a stadium. And as everyone has left, I've actually had my children look around and point out to them how many people have just left their trash. Because teaching my kids to clean up after themselves, no matter where they are, is a value of mine. It's something I really want them to learn. Maybe they might be still learning it, but man, I'm going to be instilling that one in as long as I can. And I have many times had them look around and taught them that we, in our family, we leave places better than we found them. And we take a few minutes to pick up trash. And it's great. We always have little grocery bags on hand. It's easy to buy some gloves at the store. They're inexpensive. And it's great to say that anyone can beautify and appreciate the places that they visit by taking the time to do that. So that's one idea. Another idea. So this one, you might need some small cards and pens, and you might need to take a moment to write down, but just leave some positive notes when you're in a parking lot. So write some simple positive notes. They don't have to be huge. Can be a simple phrase. Write it down and then just leave those on the windshields in a parking lot. So you might wanna make sure you're doing it in an okay spot. Some places, I do agree, that might look a little suspicious, or you might want to make sure that it's appropriate for you to do it there. But this can be a great service to do. And I think especially this can be a great service to do because sometimes parking lots are grumpy places when we're on vacation, right? Sometimes we are in a big city and we ended up having to pay way more for parking than we wanted to, right? Or maybe we've visited, I know I've visited many a national park, and you've been circling around and around for 20 or 30 minutes, so you could finally find a spot and you just might feel a little grumpy about that parking. And so how great can it be if someone had that grumpy experience to be able to come back to their car and get a little note that makes them smile? And it's also just a great idea to leave positive and kind messages in the world. And that's something kids can participate in even if you have littles, they could just draw a little picture, and you can take a few minutes, put those notes on cars, and give someone a little cheery smile, a little positive note for their day. A third idea is that when you're visiting a restaurant or going through a drive through, like we do many times on vacation, pay someone else's bill. So in a restaurant, you might want to look around and see someone that you could pay the bill for. Just let your waiter know and let them know you want to pay their bill. Or when you're going through a drive through line, you can pay for the people behind you. And that one's really fun, too, to get kids involved in or family members involved in and let them be part of that experience with you. And just the fun and surprise it can be to give someone that opportunity. And it doesn't have to be at a restaurant either. I know many times, sometimes in bigger cities, we're visiting things like a donut shop or a cupcake shop or a cookie shop or some place that's famous to visit, and you could even just pay for someone else's cookie. Like, it doesn't have to be a ton of money if you don't have a lot of money to spend, it could be really simple just to pay for a simple little item for someone. But that can be a fun service to do. Fourth idea isn't really necessarily service on your vacation, but the service you can do with things that you get on vacation. So this was an idea that I got from a friend who travels quite a bit, and she had the idea that you just, you take the unused things you get at hotels that you stay at. So especially if you're staying at a lot of hotels, so the things like the little shampoo and conditioners or the soap and save those, and you can bring them back home and donate to one of your local homeless or women's shelters and make little hygiene kits with them so you can use those travel size toiletries, maybe go and buy a simple washcloth to put with it and make a little kit that you can hand out and give to those shelters. Those travel size items can really be great for many people, and that doesn't cost any extra. We're already staying in the hotel. Many times, if you're like me, you've brought what you needed with you, so you don't necessarily need the items they're leaving there, but you can still pick them up, leave a little room for them in your suitcase, bring them back home, and donate them to a place that could use them. And my fifth idea, fifth and last idea in this category of simple service you can do with little to no planning is offer to take pictures of others in touristy or picture worthy locations. So just look around you. Be on the lookout for people that could use your help and assistance. And I think most of us that have visited maybe a bucket list location or we visited a grand area, we all know that feeling of wanting to get the perfect picture in an iconic spot or a bucket list spot. We all know what that feels like. Or wanting to get that great family picture that kind of showcases our vacation. And it can be so nice to have someone that volunteers. And I've had that experience many times. I know one time, many years ago, I was in Hawaii traveling with my husband. He was there for work, and so I did some touristy things on my own. And one of the things I did was hike diamond head on Oahu. And I got to the top and it's just an amazing view. And I wanted a picture, and I felt like everyone up there had selfie sticks and was just taking care of it themselves. But these two gentlemen, these european gentlemen, saw me there trying to get a picture, and he offered to take my picture. And then he continued to do a fabulous job. He was obviously very good at taking those pictures, and he got a great picture for me. And I was just so happy that he just offered to do that because I hadn't seen anyone that could take my picture. And I thought that was so nice. And another one was last year, my family, we went to Arches National park in Utah, where I live, and we were at the delicate arch, and that's a beautiful view. And I wanted that perfect picture with my family. And this one woman saw us there kind of talking about wanting our picture, and she just offered and she even joked and said, kay, this is going to be your Christmas card picture. She knew as a mother how much that meant to me to have a nice picture of my family there at that beautiful spot. And again, it was just so nice to have someone just volunteer, and I've tried to do that myself at places. So make yourself available. Offer to take a picture. You are performing a huge service for someone when you do that. So those are a few of my ideas that take little to no planning. You can really honestly do them on the spot with your vacation and get a little service in with the fun things that you're already doing. But now I want to share a few ideas that might require just a little planning. So there don't take a huge amount of planning, but in order for you to do them on vacation, you might need to think ahead just a little bit and do a little bit of planning. So my first idea is, many times when we travel, we're visiting family, we're visiting relatives, we're visiting friends, people we know that live far from us, right? So if you're visiting a relative, you're visiting a friend, and you're staying at their home or using another shared spot as a family, ask them beforehand to think of any service projects or things that you could do for them while you're there. So I've done this many times. My in laws live up in Idaho, several hours away from us, and so we've asked them a few times when we visited them to have a project ready for me and the kids and my husband to do. One time we moved a wood pile. We've done organizing, cleaning, all sorts of stuff. So that can be one idea. I know some relatives might push back and be like, no, no, you don't need to do anything. But it can be great way to get your family involved and to tell them, thank you for letting you stay at their place, because many times they're saving us a lot of money, too, and family, let us stay with them. I've done this, too. My parents have a cabin in Wyoming, and many times when we visited there, I've done the same thing. I've asked my mom what needs to be done or what little project we can do while we're there as a family. And we've stained logs, we've cleared paths, cleaned windows, done all sorts of things. But I love my kids to be invested and to show some real appreciation for this beautiful gift that their grandparents have sacrificed for our family to have. And I don't want them to take advantage of that. And I want them to appreciate it. And doing a project and some service there is a great way to help them be invested in it and appreciate it and want to take care of it. So that's just one idea. Ask the people you're staying with, if you're staying with them, something you could do to give them a little service. My second idea is if you're traveling somewhere, leave room in your luggage and pack things that you could hand out in various areas. These don't need to be huge things, but some ideas are to have maybe little bags with granola bars or other snacks. If you're visiting a large city, you could hand out to the homeless or other people you see there that would appreciate a little bag of snacks. Another idea is to get some small gift cards and give those to the hospitality workers that you meet on your trip. So flight attendants or hotel workers or your Uber driver, obviously in some of those situations, like, I think flight attendants, they can accept money, but many of them can accept gift cards. And so giving them a small gift card is just a fun, cheery way to serve those people. And it's an unexpected thing most of them aren't expecting. So you can bring another positive light to their day just by giving them that small gift card. Or also you could think of maybe school supplies or simple supplies to give to organizations that need them in the areas that you're visiting. So again, that would take a little research beforehand to know what kind of supplies or what places would need those kinds of things. But that's definitely something you could do. You'd have to leave a little room for it in your car or with your luggage. But it's something that's doable and can be done while you're there on vacation. My third idea that takes a little bit of planning is every community has places that they need volunteers, right? Either it's community centers or food banks, thrift stores, Ronald McDonald houses, veterans homes, lots of different places. And maybe one of those is with something that has affected your family that you feel passionate about helping. So you could plan ahead, find one of those places beforehand, see what they have available for volunteers, or talk to them and plan a time when you're going to visit and see the kind of volunteering and the help that they might need. And then you just schedule that visit into your trip just like you would schedule going to any other spot or event. So many times. We kind of do have these simple schedules on our vacations of when we're visiting this amusement park or when we're going into this part of the city or going to this beach. And so you're going to put your little service project for one of these areas in there like you would for anything else on vacation. And again, I love doing stuff like this on vacation because you're in that relaxed environment sometimes. We've just been so busy with day to day life, we haven't been able to do those types of things even though we've really wanted to. And vacation can be a great time to finally make it a priority and put it in the schedule. And that kind of leads me to number four. So if you're trying to think of projects you can do or an area that you can serve, we've mentioned on this podcast before about justserve.org dot so JustServe is a website that anyone can log on to. It's a great website to use to find organizations in any area in the United States that have ongoing or specific service projects. So you could type in the zip code for where you're going specifically to see some of the organizations and things that are in your area. And if you're traveling internationally, there are even some areas internationally that are unjustserv. It just depends really on where you go. So that can be my fourth tip is to use justserve.org to, to find service opportunities in the various areas that you may be traveling. And again, plan that service, project that activity into your schedule just like you would anything else you're wanting to do on your vacation. And my last idea in this category of things that require just a little planning is to do service within your own family. And I love this idea. Again, you're wanting to instill those values in your children of that love and kindness and serving each other and the world around them. And it's great to do it within your own family. So one idea is you can draw names to do secret service for the name that you draw on the trip. And me and my family have even done this when we've had kind of like staycations, when we've had times where the kids are out of school and I know we're staying home. And I've had them draw names of who their secret service buddy is. What we've called them is. And I love seeing them do that. I remember one time my youngest son drew his oldest brother's, my oldest son's name, and he got his name. He was his secret service buddy. And my youngest had this little candy bar, this little thing of Starbursts that he'd gotten at a party and he hadn't opened it yet. And he came to me and he knew his older brother loves Starbursts. And so he was like, mommy, I want to give him my starbursts. And my first reaction was to be like, oh, no, buddy, you've been saving those. You don't need to do that. But he was so excited, and I loved that he was so invested in loving and serving his brother that way. So I just went ahead with his idea, and I thought, oh, that was beautiful. He wanted to serve and lift in that way and helped him write a little note, and he loved secretly leaving that service on his brother's bed. And then, of course, you know, with little sometimes it's hard for them to keep those secrets. And so they'll be telling the older kid, you should go look on your bed, right. And pretty soon that older kid knows who their secret service buddy is. But then again, that's so sweet, too. So it's just sweet. I've done this with my family, and this is one. And again, like I said, you could do it if you're kind of home for a while with a school break. And you need a way for your kids to be enjoying their interactions instead of getting on each other's nerves. Right? We've all seen that happen at home and on vacation. And this can be a great way to help your kids to think of serving and being kind to each other. And you can encourage ways that your family could serve each other. You could come up with ideas, too. Sometimes kids needs a little help coming up with ideas on how to do it, but you could give them a whole list of ideas and say, hey, here are some ways that you can serve people in our family. And I want to encourage everyone to pick two or three of these and do them before our trip is over. Do three of these things for three different people in the family and then come and tell me about it. So you can do that, too. Sometimes kids just need ideas, and it just, it's so fun. It can bring the family together. And then, like I said, we all know we've all been there. Kids get on their nerves sometimes when we're on vacation, we're all crammed in a car together or we're crammed in a hotel room together or whatever. And this can be a great way to take some of that energy and focus it on good, positive things and focus it on serving and helping each other. And it takes, I put it in the little planning category because it does take a little planning, a little forethought to kind of prep your family and get them ready for thinking about doing some service for each other while you're on vacation. But I think it's well worth it. So those are some of my simple ideas. I first started off with the whys of why I think you might want to do service while you're on vacation and gave you some tips that you could do with little to no planning, and then some tips that you could do that require just a little bit of planning. And I just want to end that. I really do think service can be incorporated in every part of our life, including when we're on vacation. And of course, my list is not all inclusive, so if you have some ideas and you want to share them on our social media platforms. I would love to hear any of your ideas or your experiences of some of the fun things that you've done with your own families to serve, to help, and to give back while you're on vacation together. So feel free to take any of my ideas as well and enjoy that opportunity to look outside of yourself, look outside of ourselves, and reach out and help those around us, even while we're on vacation. Thank you so much for being here. I just want to encourage you this week to find a way to do something more to lift, help, inspire, or make a difference.