There are many reasons why taking a trip with your athletic team is a great opportunity. Besides it being a dream come true to be able to experience wondrous new places as a team, there are also incredible opportunities to play in new places and against new teams. Regardless of the sport that you and your team play, you gain the opportunity to connect with other teams and individuals from around the world that are as in to and as in love with the same sport as you. This common ground allows for a lot of team growth and is a very positive aspect of team travel! Aside from the team building and teammate bonding that are likely to take place when teams travel together, there are a number of things that can directly and positively impact the community in which you are immersed. In the last little while, we have worked to look further than the team relationships that can be strengthened and have compiled a list of some other areas where positive impacts can be left while on athletic team travel.
Individual Community Member Support
The first area that we were able to come up with where positive impacts can be left while on athletic team trips, is on individuals within a community. This impact can be made by providing support to the individuals that are working and are a part of the communities that your team is visiting when traveling together. Support for the individuals can come in many different forms, but one big one is taking classes and buying goods from local artisans who are particularly skilled in a trade or craft. Whether you are taking a class in cooking from a professional chef, partaking in some form of art by interacting with a local artist, or buying hand-made goods from someone who put their time and energy into them, you are giving money and lending support to local workers who are trying to make a living. Supporting artisans within a community not only helps the individuals and the families that you are buying and learning from, but by supporting them, you are also creating the potential for other individuals to get help as the money is spent and reinvested on other goods and services within the community.
Encouraging and Educating Youth
The next positive impact area is one that can be left on the children living in the areas that are visited on athletic team trips. Youths are a group that is highly responsive and get engaged in opportunities when given them. A few of the ways that teams can have a positive impact on the youth around them when traveling are to teach sports camps to groups of children that may not have had access to them otherwise, organize a children’s sports match and participate (as a player or as a referee), put on children’s sports clinics where boys and girls of all ages are encouraged to participate and play, or even volunteer to teach English at a local school in the area. Taking the time to encourage and educate the youth in the location that you travel with your team can have a lasting positive impact on both you and the children that you spend time with. As the youth learn from you and participate in events, they will be learning skills and having opportunities that they may not have had without the help of teams like yours. This is a wonderful way to get involved and have an extremely positive impact on a group of people while taking part in an athletic team trip!
Community and Environmental Growth
The final area of positive impacts is an area that has an effect on masses more than the individuals and can have lasting results on the community as a whole. A few examples of the types of activities and projects that would have a positive impact on the community and environmental growth are to help with reforestation efforts by assisting in planting trees in forest areas that need it most; support and help communities that are unable to do everything themselves in areas such as gardening or recycling; or even giving time and energy to help build a house for a family, a school for the youth, or on any other local project that may be taking place and needing willing participants. There are bigger commitments and may involve more physical involvement than other areas would, but by participating in them you are able to have a positive impact on an entire community!
While any positive impact is a great one to have, these are some of the wonderful examples of what can be done while completing an athletic team trip. There are many other ways that team travel can positively impact those traveling and those living in the places being visited and you can experience them firsthand by booking an Athletic Tour with Acanela!
(If you are still on the fence about whether or not a team trip is right for you and your team, trips and experiences similar to these have been discussed and shared first hand as we had the opportunity to sit down with several coaches from across the country. Be sure to tune in to our 35,000 Feet Podcast to get more information on the incredible reasons to take a team trip!)
Post written by Jaide Matson