Over the past few years, we’ve become increasingly aware of a need to change the way we travel.
Our desire to make changes has been fuelled by a number of issues. We are all affected by climate change and the travel industry does have an impact on this global emergency. Within the tourism industry itself, issues such as overtourism, animal exploitation and social and cultural erosion are also on our minds.
In response to our growing concern over all these issues, we’ve not just wanted to reduce the negative impact of our travels, we’ve wanted to positively contribute to the people and places we visit.
In other words, we’ve wanted to Give Back.
Whenever we were planning a trip to somewhere new, we would always spend time searching for social enterprises, environmental organisations, charitable tours, community cleanups and animal sanctuaries in our chosen destination. This was always a very frustrating process. We would often stumble upon projects that had long since been abandoned or we’d find something, only to struggle to find out how or if we could get involved.
Above all, there wasn’t one single repository to find such projects, especially one aimed solely at tourists.
That is, until now.
What is Give Back?
Give Back is a growing database of 🐘 animal sanctuaries, 🏝️ beach cleans, 🤝 cultural exchanges, 👩👩👦👦 social impact projects, 🚏 tours, 🌳 tree planting, 🧘 wellbeing experiences and so much more.
We built it to address all of the issues mentioned above. We’re still doing all the meticulous research we were doing for our own travels, but we’re now sharing the results of our research with travellers just like you.
Best of all, we’re sharing it for free!
Each listing contains all the details you need to get involved, including locations, URLs, photos and descriptions. Many of the projects are free to get involved with, with others requiring a donation of fixed fee (we’ve included this info too).
All of the listings are run by passionate people who want their projects to have a positive impact on their communities and their local ecosystems.
By engaging with the projects listed in the Give Back database on your future travels, you can bring about positive change to the people and places you visit.
Making a positive difference can be as easy as choosing to have a coffee at a social enterprise cafe (there are lots already listed in the database). Whether you only have an hour or two or a day or two to spare, there’s plenty to get stuck into.
How do I get access to Give Back?
Access to Give Back is an exclusive perk for Here To Travel Plus members. Becoming a member is completely free!
All you need to become a member is to provide your email address on our Give Back page. Don’t worry, we’ll never share your email address with anyone else and you can unsubscribe at any time.
You’ll then receive an email with a direct link to the Give Back database inside.
Becoming a member is the best way to show your support for our work. It means we can send you our newsletter (twice a month), keeping you in the loop with our latest travel guides and resources, exclusive stories and photos from our travels and early access to future travel tools that we’re currently working on.
If you really want to show your love for our work, you can also become a ‘Supporter’ for £3 a month or £25 a year.
We’d love for you to help out
You can support Give Back in a number of ways.
- Sign-up: This is the best and easiest way to show you support. Head over to Give Back and give us your email address. We’ll then send you details on how to access the Give Back database.
- Verify: We personally verify many of the listings in the database, but we can’t verify everything. If you see a project that you’ve recently been involved with, let us know and we’ll mark it as ‘Community Verified’. Conversely, if you see an error or a project that you know to be no longer in operation, let us know about that too.
- Contribute: We know there’s literally thousands of projects that we haven’t been able to list yet. If you know about a project that you think deserves a spot in the database, tell us. Additionally, if you run or help out at a project, tell us and we’ll mark your listing as ‘Self-Verified’.
What’s Next?
It’s our intention to keep adding to our database. The bigger it is, the greater the positivity that we can collectively bring to the planet.
Further to Give Back, we have a number of other tools that we’re working on to transform your future travels for the better of yourself and the people and places you visit. Make sure you’re a Here To Travel Plus member to ensure you’re the first to hear about it.
