01 Oct Take Care Tahoe
Take Care Tahoe
Protecting Lake Tahoe’s pristine beauty is as easy as laughing at a clever sign or smiling at a quirky image. That’s the idea behind Take Care Tahoe.
Destination: Lake Tahoe, Nevada and California, United States
Organization: Visit Lake Tahoe, Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority
Take Care Tahoe is Visit Lake Tahoe’s initiative to encourage responsible travel behavior among visitors and locals alike. Recognizing that the area’s natural beauty is fragile with a high volume of visitation, the program offers a series of small, memorable reminders aimed at reducing human impacts on beaches, trails, wildlife, water quality, and local ecosystems.
The campaign frames responsible actions in straightforward, accessible language. Such as:
- Your butt’s stinking up the beach: The beach is not an ashtray. Please collect your cigarette butts.
- Trash day is a bear’s buffet. Bears will eat your garbage. Lock it down with bear-proof bins.
- There’s a better hiding spot for your garbage. The trashcan.
These simple and easy statements make them hard to ignore and easy to understand.
It uses playful graphics, mascots or character-like visuals to reinforce behavior without coming across as overly lecturing. They also include a video on their website.
By combining humor, visual cues, and actionable tips, Take Care Tahoe helps visitors internalize small but meaningful behaviors. These small habits and actions collectively help to maintain Tahoe’s landscapes, trails, waterways, and overall visitor experience.
Take Care Tahoe is a good example of how a destination can make environmental stewardship part of the visitor journey through clear, simple, engaging, and visually compelling communication.
