Slow Living Activities for Summer

Sharing my favorite ways to continue to embrace an intentional way of life in this season.

I know, I know. Summer doesn’t technically start until June 21st. But when you live in Florida, once June hits you are IN IT.

I was on a podcast a while back talking about slow living. The host asked me, how do you practice hygge in the summer? And I completely blanked. I still think about that moment because I have a million things to say about being cozy and slow in the summer, but in that moment I had never thought of how to articulate it. Essentially, hygge is a feeling for me as much as an act of being cozy. So, I’m writing this in a response to what I would have said to that question if I actually sat down and thought about it. All the things that make summer magical, and magically mundane.

Here is my list of slow living activities for summer. Some of these overlap or go with my spring activities list, but these are the quintessential things I love to do for the simple & slow summer months.

• Make sun tea

I’ve been really into learning about herbalism lately. I’m definitely just scratching the surface but it seems like such a fun world to explore. Sun tea is a way of brewing herbs with water by placing it, you guessed it, directly in the sun for a few hours to steep. This is a great starter post and this recipe sounds yummy!

• Start a garden

These early summer weeks are the best time to get a garden going, especially if you live in a cooler climate! I can’t wait for us to have our own place to grow loads of veggies and flowers, I’m manifesting a beautiful backyard for our future home. Gardening is a way of meditation to me, so I think it’s the perfect slow living activity for the summer months.

• Take a day trip to the water

On days when the heat takes over, the only thing that will really help is getting in the water. Whether it’s a lake, the ocean, or a river, loading up the kids in the car with snacks and sandwiches makes for a great day trip during the summer. We have some natural springs near us which are great when we’re wanting to switch it up from the salty gulf.

• Stargaze

There’s not much I love more than a late night out on the lawn chair with a blanket, cup of tea, and a friend or loved one chatting into the night and watching the stars up above. The summer is the only time when it’s really nice to sit out at night for hours and see everything up in the sky. Makes me feel insignificant, and incredibly important all at once.

• Open the windows when it rains

Ahh I love this. The one thing I missed about Florida when living in England was the intense summer storms. I love how we can be at the beach in the morning, and then by afternoon there’s lightning and an endless stream of rain. There’s nothing I love more than cracking open the windows and listening to the rain while reading a good book.

• Make s’mores

We recently had dinner with a friend whose boyfriend is Italian, and he was asking what s’mores were. It blows my mind that this seems to be an American thing? My English husband had never tried s’mores before either, so it seemed like a quintessential summer activity to include. Whenever my sister is in town, we’ll sit around the fire for hours eating marshmallows and catching up.

• Walk barefoot

Shoes are optional during the summer months. It always makes me feel like a kid again walking around barefoot everywhere, plus it’s super nice to practice earthing this way and reconnect to my body. I’ve been looking into barefoot sandals too, just to enhance the experience even when I need to be wearing shoes.

• Change your bedsheets

Obviously, we should change our bedsheets all year round, but I think a wonderful kick-off to the summer is changing out our warm cotton and jersey sheets to light linen. I loveee having linen sheets in the summer months, and they feel so luxurious too. These are my favorites and these.

• Try canning/preserving

The strawberries are in season where we live, and I love seeing how ripe and big they are. Plus they taste incredible. During these months, I’ll typically make some jelly with them and preserves for the winter months.

• Wear flowy clothes

When humidity strikes, I cannot handle wearing anything other than long flowy dresses and skirts. I used to wear jeans all year round but as I’m getting older, I just can’t do it anymore. Christy Dawn is my tried and true flowy dress shop, I’ll often purchase dresses secondhand too.

• Go foraging for herbs

As I said before, herbalism is my newest research project, and foraging for herbs is such a fun activity to do with little ones in the summer. Here’s a list of 9 herbs to forage for over the next few months.

• Draw in the park

When we were kids and traveling during the summer, my mom used to always give us sketchbooks and paint or colored pencils and we’d walk to a park in whatever city we were in, and sit and draw for hours. Sometimes, I would get ‘bored’ but usually it was a highlight of our time together and really enhanced my creativity. Now, I look back on those times so fondly and I can’t wait to share that experience with my own daughter as she grows.

I hope these activity ideas inspired you to have a wonderful summer season and to find the magic in the mundane amidst it all. I’d love to know what’s on your to-do list for summer, and how you’re embracing a slower season of life.