Looking at the Holiday Economy

Being neighborly can feel like a foreign concept or something that’s no longer in supply, especially in rural areas where people can feel the most need. There are also people who might want to contribute or have a small side gig but don’t want to turn it into a flat out, must-profit business. The people within the highlands of Scotland have a concept that caters to locals and tourists that supports the rural community and less-wealthy alike: honesty boxes.

The concept of honesty boxes is fairly simple. The honesty box is an unattended, unlocked box that can be filled with food or other goods for people to take what they want and leave some money behind in a cash box as thanks. Let’s say you have an apple tree in your yard and your family cannot eat them all before they spoil or you love to knit as a hobby to pass the time and you now just have piles of mittens lying around. You can set up an honesty box somewhere along your road and fill it up with your apples/mittens to sell. There are even some farms that are so small or rural that they cannot expand to do business with grocers, so they set up honesty boxes at the end of their roads with eggs, butter, or whatever produce they grow so the community can support them at a price that seems fair to everyone.