The Top 5 Destinations Where You Can Be the Change
Welcome to 2025!
Have you made any resolutions?
If so, do any involve being a better person? No doubt. How about making a difference in the world? ChatGPT says that the most popular resolutions for 2025 relate to being healthier and fitter, career growth, achieving financial goals, becoming more organized, strengthening our relationships, reducing screen time, living more sustainably, and giving back.
Of course, these are awesome goals. What would you think if you knew that you could fulfill some of your New Year’s Resolutions on a luxury trip with Hands Up Holidays? Well, you can, especially those around living more sustainably, strengthening our relationships, and giving back.
Here are your Top 5 destinations where you can be the change in 2025:
5. Build a disabled-accessible bathroom for a paraplegic in Bali
In Bali, a predominantly Hindu island, individuals born with disabilities are often seen as having incurred “bad karma.” As a result, paraplegics, particularly those in more remote parts of Bali, are frequently kept out of sight, leading lives of isolation and loneliness, with minimal interaction outside their immediate families.
By rolling up your sleeves and helping build an accessible bathroom, your family offers these individuals a newfound sense of dignity and independence—experiences they may have never known before. This simple yet significant improvement in such a private aspect of life has a deeply transformative impact on their lives.
You can be the change. Our family did this last year; it was hard work, but so worth it.
Recommended sustainable eco-luxury accommodation: Amankila
4. Install an eco-friendly stove for a Mayan family in Belize
You can be the change and give back in Belize on a luxury family vacation by installing an eco-friendly stove in the home of a Mayan family.
These stoves are remarkable in that they offer several benefits:
a. Their enclosed design prevents burns from open flames.
b. Equipped with a chimney, they effectively expel smoke, significantly reducing respiratory issues like asthma.
c. They are more fuel-efficient, making them a more environmentally friendly option.
Giving back in this way combines perfectly with a host of other activities that you might typically expect on a luxury family vacation in Belize, such as:
- A helicopter flight to the Blue Hole, and snorkeling the Belize Barrier Reef
- Zip lining and rappelling
- Beach relaxation
- Bean to Bar Chocolate making
- Kayaking and SUP
Recommended sustainable eco-luxury lodging: It’zana Resort
3. Build a home for a family in Zambia
You can be the change by helping build a home for a widow and her children. In Zambia, HIV continues to take a heavy toll, leaving many families without one or both parents. When both parents pass away, it often falls on grandparents to care for the children, with some even raising up to 15 grandchildren. This responsibility places a tremendous burden on them, as you can imagine. For these families, having a decent home that withstands the heavy rains is often financially out of reach.
How can you help?
By providing a home that is leak-free and better-insulated, you improve the health of the children, as they are sick less often and miss fewer days of school. This leads to better educational outcomes, increasing their chances of securing well-paying jobs and breaking the cycle of poverty.
Blend this uplifting experience with activities such as whitewater rafting, safari, kayaking and make your luxury family vacation complete.
Recommended sustainable eco-luxury lodging: Tongabezi Lodge
2. Conserve Turtles in Mexico
Pssst! I’ll let you in on a secret: this trip isn’t actually live yet – I’m in Mexico right now with my family, exploring Baja California, and we are about to conserve turtles, in Todos Santos, just north of Cabo.
We’ll be monitoring turtle nests, assisting in excavations,
recording data on nest contents, measuring and caring for hatchlings, and help managing hatchling releases.
We are so excited!
Baja is extraordinary for nature lovers, with stunning scenery, and so much wildlife, from dolphins, to marlin to all sorts of whales, to whale sharks, sea lions, and oh, the food! We keep thinking we have found the best tacos in Mexico, and then another one comes along to top it…
Recommended eco-luxury accommodation: Esperanza Resort
1. Conserve wildlife in Costa Rica
Environmental conservation is becoming an urgent issue, with beloved species declining at alarming rates. Why not make a commitment in 2025 to be the change and help protect them on a luxury family vacation in Costa Rica?
In Costa Rica, you can help at a wildlife rescue center. You’ll assist with preparing meals for monkeys, parrots and more, keep their enclosures clean, create enrichment activities to stimulate their natural behaviors, and gain invaluable insights into these fascinating creatures.
Complement your giving back experience with a host of activities, from zip lining, to coffee farm visits, to flights over volcanoes, to exploring the depths in a submarine, to wildlife spotting, and dolphin megapods, and much more.
Recommended sustainable eco-luxury accommodation: Nayara Tented Camp
Discover more about Costa Rica
Be the change
2025 can be the year that your resolutions get fulfilled whilst traveling… and you will find that you are more fulfilled in the process.
Feeling Inspired?
Write to me or complete the Contact Form, and I promise to answer you personally!
Wishing you a meaningful 2025, where you achieve all your resolutions,
Christopher Hill
Founder
Hands Up Holidays