As we become more aware of our effects on the environment, it’s natural to seek out more eco-friendly activities we can enjoy.
Here are just a few eco-friendly activities for your family that are not only fun but help to protect the environment, too.
1. Go Camping for Your Family Vacation
There’s a lot to love about visiting a fancy beachside resort for a relaxing vacation. We’re not saying that you should never do this, but if you want a more eco-friendly trip, you may consider camping for your next vacation.
Rather than staying in a hotel using power, water, and other resources, you can sleep in tents relying on a cozy fire for warmth and cooking.
And if you’re not a camping pro, there are plenty of great camping gadgets to make your vacation in the wilderness as comfortable as possible.
For example, if you absolutely must have electricity on your trip, bring a solar panel. The GoalZero Boulder 100 Brief Case is a 100 Watt portable solar panel that can provide power for a range of items to make your camping trip more comfortable. It can power items like your:
- Laptop
- Cell phone
- Tablet
- Small coffee maker
2. Pick Your Own Fruits & Veggies
If you don’t have the time to tend to your own garden, there’s another eco-friendly way to get fresh fruits and vegetables. Many farms across the country are open for the public to pick crops like:
- Apples
- Berries
- Squash
- Beans
The time of year may vary slightly depending on your location, but harvest time is typically right at the end of summer or the beginning of fall.
If you pick food at a farm, not only will you have access to fresh fruits and vegetables, you’re also helping to reduce the farm’s carbon footprint. After all, if people didn’t come to pick the crops they would all be harvested with heavy machinery instead.
3. Switch Your Grill to Wood Pellets
Barbecues are a lot of fun. But to make your barbecue even more eco-friendly, make your next grill a wood pellet-fueled model.
Not only do wood pellets burn cleaner than charcoal and propane, they’re composed of pieces of scrap wood that would have otherwise gone to waste. Your barbecued food will be even more delicious and eco-friendly if you switch to wood pellet fuel instead of propane or charcoal.
One option is a combination smoker and grill like the Pit Boss 700FB. This model (and others like it) offers tons of flexibility in how you barbecue because you can cook your food eight ways:
- Smoke
- Bake
- Braise
- Grill
- Roast
- Barbecue
- Char-grill
- Sear
4. Grow Your Own Vegetables
As long as you’re not using any harmful pesticides, gardening is one of the most eco-friendly activities around. And you don’t need tons of space to plant a beautiful garden. If you live in a city, you can use small raised garden beds for planting. Or, you could even use pots for growing your plants if your space is extremely limited.
You may think that gardening wastes water, but there are ways not to. For example, you can connect a smart watering timer to your hose. With the Orbit B-hyve Smart Hose Watering Timer, you can set your hose to turn off after a set amount of time automatically. It’s also Wi-Fi enabled so you can control your watering right from your smartphone.
Another way to make your garden even more eco-friendly is to make your own compost. Not only does compost provide the nutrients your garden needs, but it also reduces the amount of food waste in your trash can.
All you really need is a large container with plenty of ventilation to throw organic waste products into such as:
- Fruit and vegetable scraps
- Eggshells
- Dead leaves
This can be any large container, or you can opt for a specially designed compost bin. The Ejwox Dual-Chamber Compost Bin is a great option as it allows you to easily rotate your compost to keep everything decomposing evenly.
As you continue to add material to the compost bin, just be sure to periodically mix your compost so that all of it gets air.
5. Build Your Own Bird Feeder
It’s a lot of fun to see what types of birds you can attract with a bird feeder. But rather than just buying a bird feeder, make this into one of your eco-friendly activities.
You can easily make an upcycled bird feeder out of common items around your home such as:
- Empty bottles
- Milk cartons
- Any other type of disposable container
Then, all you need is a hole to dispense seed from, a perch, and some string to hang the feeder.
The Bottom Line: Eco-Friendly Activities Are All Around Us
It isn’t complicated to find fun eco-friendly activities. Even as we become more conditioned to rely on technology and modern comforts, there are options to enjoy life in an eco-friendly way. As long as you aren’t using man-made sources of energy or creating unnecessary waste, then that activity could be considered eco-friendly.
So, unplug, get outside, and enjoy the world in its natural state.
