This Incredible Hotel Platform Helps You Give Back To The Community When You Travel

You may think about travel as going to as many places as you can and collecting as many stamps (even virtual ones) in your passport as possible, simply checking places off a bucket list of cool destinations around the world. Or you might think of it with a bit more nuance, and try to more meaningfully connect with the communities that you're visiting and work to make that place a little bit better because you've visited. It can sometimes be hard to know the best way to do that, but there are a few different ways. You could look at booking eco-friendly hotels or volunteering while you travel. Another way to take the guesswork out of how to travel responsibly is with Kind Traveler.

Kind Traveler is a "responsible travel platform that empowers travelers to positively impact the communities they visit by supporting local environmental, community, and animal welfare initiatives with every trip," per the Kind Traveler website. Booking with one of their property partners means that your visit helps support that community.

The organization first started in 2016, and with the Every Stay Gives Back Program that they launched in 2023, Kind Traveler connects travelers with hotels, vacation rentals, and destinations where they're helping to give money back to the local community just by staying there. It includes hotels and destinations across the world, from the beach towns of Los Cabos, Mexico to Sonoma County's Russian River Valley full of bold wines and breathtaking picnic spots to beautiful Tuscan retreats.

Here's how the Every Stay Gives Back program with Kind Traveler works. For each night at a Kind Traveler partner property, the hotel donates at least $1 to a local charity or community organization of their choosing. The program has already raised over $600,000 — and these organizations are nearly as varied as the destinations themselves. The money could be used to help buy school supplies for kids in Costa Rica, to plant breadfruit trees in Hawaii, or to combat food insecurity in Palm Springs.

The donations get vetted by a third party organization to help ensure maximum transparency and to give travelers peace of mind that they are actually helping the communities they're visiting. You can track the impact of the partnerships on the Kind Traveler website.

"It's clear that travel can be a powerful catalyst for change," Jessica Blotter, CEO and co-founder of Kind Traveler, told Global Heroes. "Through Every Stay Gives Back, we're reimagining hospitality to uplift communities and protect the planet."