How to Make Nature Part of Your Summer Plans

As the school year ends and the summer season begins, it’s time to think about how to integrate nature into your summer plans. In this edition of Nature Breaking’s “Headlines & Trendlines” series, hosts Seth Larson and Hayley Lawton share personal stories and practical tips for weaving nature into your everyday life.

From backyard camping and local wildlife refuges to dream destinations like Yosemite and the Great Barrier Reef, this episode is full of ideas that are inspiring and doable—whether you’re planning a big trip or just want to make the most of your weekends.

Plus, we’d love to hear from you! What are your favorite ways to connect with nature during the summer? Drop a comment or email us at [email protected].

Listen in and get inspired to make this your most nature-filled summer yet.

TRANSCRIPT:

Seth Larson: Welcome to Nature Breaking a World Wildlife Fund podcast, focused on the news and trends affecting our natural world and the people and species who call it home. I'm Seth Larson, and today with the summer season upon us, it's a great time to pause and think about how each of us can connect with nature as we make summer vacation plans. I know for me, summer was always a time to be outdoors and exploring the natural world, either on a trip or in my own backyard. Those little moments that each of us collect when we interact with nature can be the seeds of inspiration for a deeper commitment to conserving the natural world, as we've covered before on this show each of us can make a big difference for the environment by simply being smarter about things like avoiding food waste or making more sustainable purchases. And I think we all feel a little more motivated to do that when we spend time outdoors and develop that connection. So today I asked my colleague, Hayley Lawton to join me for another episode of our Headlines and Trendlines series.

Hayley and I are gonna talk about what summer vacations mean to us and brainstorm some simple ways to incorporate nature into your summer plans. Before we get started, please like this episode on YouTube and rate us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Those likes and ratings help us with the algorithms on all those platforms and help our show reach more people.

And of course, if you're not already subscribed to Nature Breaking, please be sure to do that wherever you're catching this episode. Thank you for your time, and here's my conversation with Hayley.

Joining me once again for another edition of Headlines and Trendlines, Hayley Lawton. So good to have you back here again. How are you doing today?

Hayley Lawton: Doing good, happy to be back.

Seth Larson: Yeah and happy summer break. Summer break almost, right?

Hayley Lawton: Yes, almost summer is my favorite time of the year. Love being in the water, swimming in pools, being on beaches. It's the best. Yeah. Seth, what did your typical summer breaks look like when you were growing up and was your family big on connecting with nature?

Seth Larson: So I grew up in rural Rhode Island, which not Rhode Island is the smallest state in the union, everyone likes to talk about that. There is a small part of the sort of western part of the state that's pretty rural. I grew up in the corner of that, but only 15 minutes from the coast. So I got a lot of both sides of nature and when I think about my summers as a kid, I think about I spent a lot of time in the woods behind my house. My dad actually, he cut some nature trails through the woods behind our house.

Hayley Lawton: Oh, wow.

Seth Larson: He used like an old lawnmower and mowed through all the briars and underbrush and cleared some trails for my brother and our neighbors to be able to do nature hikes back there. He, my dad also was a boat salesman and my grandparents owned a marina, so I also spent a lot of time on the water, on boats fishing, going to the beach and body surfing and stuff like that. When I think back on it, my summers were absolutely filled with just spending time in nature. I don't think we thought of it that way deliberately. It was more just this was what was around. Yeah. And these were the things you do in the summer.

But it definitely instilled an appreciation of nature, even though I didn't realize it at the time, and it's something that I appreciate a lot more now living in DC. And I love DC for a lot of different reasons, but there's a lot more concrete and a lot less trees and a lot less coastal access.

So when I think about doing trips now with my family, we're always trying to find our way back to a body of water, whether that's the ocean, or a lake or a river. It's definitely something that I really cherished as a kid and I miss it now.

Hayley Lawton: Yeah. I think, I always love being by the water too. The closest water to me in Houston is Galveston.

Seth Larson: Yeah.

Hayley Lawton: But Galveston is not the best, it's very dirty water. Yeah.

Seth Larson: I went to Galveston for a wedding once, for a long weekend. And, and it was in like July or August. And the water, I don't remember it being dirty necessarily, but also it was just like, it felt like the water was warmer than the air.

Hayley Lawton: Yeah. It was, it yeah, the water is really warm. A lot of people, or if people get in the water, it'll only be your toes. Yeah. That's so not, that's not the beach to go to.

Seth Larson: How about you Hayley? When you think about your summers growing up, did you have a lot of opportunities to connect with nature? Was that something your family sought out?

Hayley Lawton: Yeah, so I spent a lot of my summers growing up in California every year. I would go, I would spend all of my Julys there, then my cousin would come to Houston and spend all of her Junes there. And so we actually were connecting with nature a lot. We would go hiking on the nearby trail, or even biking or just walking. One summer we went to Yosemite National Park.

Seth Larson: Nice.

Hayley Lawton: So that was really cool and we were hiking. That was my first time hiking there and we actually saw a bear. And so that was my first time seeing a bear in its natural habitat.

Seth Larson: Wow. That's super cool.

Hayley Lawton: Yes, and it was so funny because we saw the bear, actually not a big bear, but it was a cub. We saw it, breaking into someone's car...

Seth Larson: No.

Hayley Lawton: ...to take the snacks. So that was really funny to watch.

Seth Larson: Yeah. I've never gotten to go to any of the big national parks. I've been to some sort of smaller national monuments and I went to Dry Tortugas National Park, south of Key West with my dad once. But those were like day trips, I've never gotten to go to any of, like the real major Yellowstone, Yosemite, the big ones you think about when you talk about national parks. Have you gotten to go to any other ones or just Yosemite?

Hayley Lawton: I think just Yosemite from what I can think of. Yeah.

Seth Larson: Yeah, I definitely need to get out to more of those and I've never seen a bear in the wild that I can think of right now.

Hayley Lawton: Really?

Seth Larson: Yeah, so that's pretty cool.

Hayley Lawton: A little scary, but it was cool.

Okay, enough about us, Seth. Let's get into this summer. What are some activities or destinations that people can be thinking about if they want to reconnect with nature in the next couple of months?

Seth Larson: Yeah, you just mentioned national parks. I think that's an obvious one that springs to mind for a lot of people. It's also true that a lot of us don't have an easy way to get out to a national park, whether it's just too far away or it's too expensive to book a trip like that. If you can get to a national park, that's great. I think I definitely want to do more of that eventually in my life, but I think one thing I would want to say first and foremost is think about what might be near you in your own backyard. And I'd really encourage people to look into nature parks or wildlife refuges that might be in your own community. Like I, I'll say for myself, I live in Northern Virginia now just outside DC and I've lived there for about over 10 years. And I didn't know for years and years that there are a number of parks and wildlife refuges in my city.

And it wasn't until the pandemic, when I started needing to find activities to do outdoors during those early months when people were trying to not to congregate inside. And I ended up stumbling across some really cool places that were just easy driving distance from my house that I could go to and take my son and go for a walk and see interesting things outdoors. One of my favorites I found is called Huntley Meadows Park in Alexandria. And that's a super cool place.

I also think about where I grew up in Rhode Island and there's an amazing state park in my hometown where I grew up called the Arcadia Wildlife Management Area. And it's this incredible preserve with streams flowing through that you can go fishing in, there's these trails going through the woods, you can see all sorts of wildlife.

Hayley Lawton: Nice.

Seth Larson: I think I went there three times the whole time I lived in Rhode Island over two plus decades. And I loved the times I went there, but definitely did not take as much advantage of it as I should have. And I think that there's just like those little gems of places in all of our communities, and a lot of us might not even be aware of 'em.

So my first piece of advice for this summer is like Google "nature parks near me" and just check out Google Maps and see what comes up. You might find something really cool that you didn't know about and just go check it out.

Hayley Lawton: Yeah. Surprisingly, I actually have never done that back home. I was visiting Corpus Christi, Texas one summer. And actually Googled, “wildlife preserves near me,” but I've never done that in Houston before.

Seth Larson: Oh, check it out. I bet there's some awesome ones in Houston.

Hayley Lawton: Oh, yeah, yeah.

Seth Larson: So Hayley, what's your advice for people who might be looking for ways to get out into nature this summer?

Hayley Lawton: My advice to get out into nature and just connect more, specifically people with children, nature provides a great opportunity for parents to connect with their kids. Whether it's finding what's in your garden, how they thrive or even just visiting a local park.

Seth Larson: Yeah.

Hayley Lawton: And even another fun activity could be just camping in your back yard and watching the stars.

Seth Larson: Yeah. No, I love that idea. I, that was definitely my first experience with camping was just my dad...

Hayley Lawton: Really

Seth Larson: ...setting a tent up in our backyard. And and we were 20 yards from our house, but we were sleeping outside. And it's just a different vibe and it gives you more of a connection and feeling for nature when instead of just the silence of your bedroom, you hear the crickets.

Hayley Lawton: Yeah.

Seth Larson: And like the wind kind of blowing the tent around. I love doing that. It's a great way to get started.

Hayley Lawton: Yeah.

Seth Larson: So those are like some good, easy access ways right to get into nature this summer. I did want to ask you before we wrap up this episode, like thinking a little more ambitiously, if you had a chance to go somewhere, whether it's this summer or later in your life, do you have like a bucket list place that you really want to go to see some place, or some ecosystem that you've never been to before?

Hayley Lawton: Yes, so I would love to travel to Switzerland.

Seth Larson: Switzerland.

Hayley Lawton: It's just so pretty. The landscapes are so beautiful. I would just love to just walk around or even just sit there on the grass and just view nature. My best friend actually got to travel there last summer and I was like, whoa, that looks unreal. Yeah, it looks like it looks so fake, like it looks like a picture.

Seth Larson: It looks like a picture, yeah.

Hayley Lawton: Yeah. That'd be really nice to visit. Definitely. What about you?

Seth Larson: I was thinking about this today. I don't know if I could put my finger on one place, but I lean towards going to maybe like the Great Barrier Reef off Australia. Or someplace with really thriving marine life. I'm not a licensed diver. I, I'm not qualified to go, deep in the water for long periods of time, but I'd love to go snorkeling or even if I had time to learn how to take a diving course and get certified. I'd love to explore some of those really special undersea places like the Great Barrier Reef and just see all that marine life and all the colors, the pictures from those places are just really inspiring to me.

I love the ocean since I grew up doing a lot of stuff on the water. But I've never had a chance to go anywhere like that, so I think I'd put that at the top of my list.

Hayley Lawton: Yeah, that would be really beautiful.

Seth Larson: Yeah. Hayley, thanks for having this conversation with me today. I think there's a lot of different ways people can get involved in nature and do stuff in the natural world during the summer months, and I hope our conversation maybe gives people some ideas. I also would love to hear from our listeners about what they're doing this summer and maybe they can, we'll put a contact in the text for this episode and people can email us or contact us on social media and send some ideas our way because I'm looking for stuff to do myself.

Hayley Lawton: Yeah, that'd be really nice to hear from everyone, to hear what everyone's thinking and yeah, to give us some ideas.

Seth Larson: Awesome. Hayley, thank you and have a great day.

Hayley Lawton: Thank you, Seth. You too.

Seth Larson: That's a wrap for today's episode. Thanks again to Hayley for co-hosting this episode with me. Thinking about different ways to connect with nature this summer definitely has me more motivated than ever to get outside in the next few months and see what Mother Nature has in store. I hope you'll find opportunities to do the same, and like we said in our conversation, please share your ideas with us.

You can send us an email at [email protected] or leave a comment under this episode on YouTube. We'll look for opportunities to share your ideas on a future episode. And for now, thank you for listening. Let's keep building a more sustainable future.