Summertime is also vacation season in America, and it’s a good time to reach family caregivers who need care for a senior while they’re taking a break from caregiving. It’s also an opportunity to provide information and support to those who need tips for traveling with seniors, or who need ideas for making the most of a “staycation” when they just can’t get out of town for a traditional vacation.

Content Tips for Any Senior Care Company

• Help family caregivers get through the emotional and practical challenges of taking a vacation. Create content that hones in a related topic — such as the guilt of leaving mom/dad with others while they take a vacation — and offer specific tips, either via your organization’s experts or those you interview from other organizations.

• Demonstrate your senior care expertise by sharing tips for family caregivers who are taking an older adult along on the vacation. Traveling can be very stressful — whether taking the journey by car, plane, or boat — and you can help ease that experience by providing expert guidance on how to care for seniors while traveling and how to plan ahead to make the trip that much more successful. Consider interviewing a local travel agent or geriatric care manager if you don’t already have an expert on staff who can help you with this.

• Use stories and photos: Interview seniors and/or family caregivers about their best (or worst) vacation and travel experiences. What tips would they offer others considering their vacation (or staycation) options? What did they find was the biggest challenge of ‘traveling while older’ and how did they overcome that to have a fantastic time?

Content Tips for Senior Living Communities

• Does your community offer respite stays and/or adult day care services, like Five Star Senior Living does? Use summertime as an opportunity to remind families in your area about these services, whether through content on your website and social media profiles, or via a guest post on others’ sites, such as your local newspaper or nonprofits serving families.

• Are there places near your community that residents’ family members can take their loved one to enjoy a day out and about, such as museums, botanical gardens or special events? For example, in San Francisco every summer there is the Stern Grove Festival that offers free concerts every Sunday, and that’s wheelchair/walker accessible with seating and a shuttle for seniors as well. How about in your area? Create a blog post with a list of those local opportunities for family fun time, with tips for the resident and family (e.g., admission deals, whether or not the location offers food and drink, bathroom locations, etc.).

Content Tips for Home Care Agencies

• Can your home care agency play a positive role in either helping a family caregiver get a vacation or supporting the family or older adult in enjoying a staycation? Talk about the ways you do that in your content this summer, and include real stories and photos if you can.

Caring Resources to Support this Spark

• How to Go on Vacation When Mom Needs You

• Dementia Caregivers Deserve Summer Vacation, Too

• Save Money and Strengthen Family Ties with a Multi-Generational Vacation

• Do Good Daughters Park Their Parents with Dementia in Respite Care Overnight?

• 8 Tips for Safe and Comfortable Airplane Travel with Seniors

• Travel for Alzheimer’s Patients

• 5 Ways to Make Travel Less Stressful for Someone with Memory Loss

• 8 Senior-Friendly Day Trips for Assisted Living Residents

Additional Resources to Support this Spark

• About.com Senior Travel portal

• HomeAway: Relaxing getaways for retirees

• Research if your city’s Parks & Recreation department has a senior “trips and excursions” program, such as the City of El Cerrito in California does.