5 Simple Ways to Keep Kids Engaged at a National Park
Kids love to travel as much as the rest of us! Young minds are made to be inquisitive, after all, and the chance to get outside and explore a National Park is guaranteed to get them excited. But while it’s pretty easy to build excitement for the start a new trip, maintaining that excitement over a full day or two in the park can sometimes be tough.
Whether you intend to visit a national park while passing through on a family road trip, or planning an entire weekend camping trip in a national park you’ve never visited before, keeping their interest levels high through the trip is the key to having a great time while learning about the world around them!
1. Join the Junior Rangers Program
Far and away, my number 1 tip for families looking to keep their kids engaged during a National Park trip is the Junior Rangers program!
Most US National Parks offer a junior rangers program for free, which includes park-themed educational worksheets to complete during their visit, as well as the chance to earn a junior ranger badge. If your kids manage to complete enough of the worksheets during their visit, all they have to do is bring it back to one of the ranger stations and a ranger will “swear them in” as a junior ranger and give them their badge!
Pro tip: We take our two kids’ badges from each park and hot glue them back-to-back on a ribbon to make really fun Christmas Tree ornaments. Not only do they look great, but we get to remember the fun we had in the different parks at the end of the year!
This program is a great way to get your kids engaged in your trip, and could even see your child actively begging you to take them to the next national park on your bucket list!
2. Get a Tour from a Local Guide
One of the simplest ways to take a trip from “admiring the scenery” to “exploring the park” is to hop on a tour with someone who knows the park well! Many of America’s National Parks offer free, ranger-led tours that cover a huge array of interesting topics.
For instance, there’s a ranger-led tour explaining the unique formation of spots like Badwater Basin in Death Valley National Park. In Badlands National Park, there’s a ranger-led astronomy experience where you can show the stars to your kids. And even in smaller national parks will usually have some Ranger-led experiences worth checking out! I highly recommend heading to the official park website and looking up what tours are offered for the specific park you’re visiting.
Of course, the free experiences are typically pretty short, since the rangers need to play host to all their guests throughout their day. If you’re hoping for a longer, more in-depth experience in a national park, it can also be worth looking into paid tours. For instance, this tour provide in the Lamar Valley (Yellowstone National Park) specializes in wildlife tours, and will greatly increase your chance of spotting the unique wildlife found in the park, like the wolves!
These tours can be super-engaging, but it’s worth noting that while some kids love having guides, others prefer to explore at their own pace. It’s worth a try, but always keep your kids desires in mind!
3. Have Fun With Scavenger Hunts
Whether you’re part of a group tour or just self-driving through the park, there’s probably going to be some downtime when your kids want something to do. As an adult, I use that time to keep my eyes out for anything interesting in the park, but kids often need a bit of extra guidance what exactly they should be looking for. Luckily there are places where you can get a free scavenger hunt printable that gives them exactly that!
Once you know which national park you intend to visit, simply print one off from that park, and keep them on hand in case you hear the dreaded, “I’m bored” coming from the back seat.
4. Go Geocaching
While it’s usually a bit more intensive than a simple scavenger hunt sheet, Geocaching can be a great option for a families looking to get out of the car and explore the park on foot!
Geocaching is a great activity where participants attempt to find a physical or virtual cache based on provided coordinates. While there are some restrictions on geocaching in most national parks, it is possible to include this activity during your park trip. Simply download a reliable list of approved geocaches that have been placed by national park rangers, put the coordinates into your favorite geo-caching app, and get searching!
5. If all else fails, invest in some audiobooks
Listen. I love the US National Park system, but, especially in some of the larger or more popular parks, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll be spending a fair chunk of time in the car during your trip, or, at the very least, while you’re traveling to and from the park. Audiobooks help fill that time and allow them to keep their eyes focused on what’s happening outside the car, in case something awesome pops up!
Audiobooks are also a bit of a “secret weapon” for my family for sneaking in some pre-learning on our trips, since we can almost always find books that are at least tangentially related to our family field trips!
While my family gets a ton of our audiobooks through our library program, we've found that there are often books that aren't available, or which aren't available when we want them.
So, we also pay for an annual plan with Audible!
Audible has a huge variety of books to choose from, and, once you've added them to your library, they're available to you forever, even if you later cancel your subscription.
America’s National Park System is far and away my favorite part of getting to explore America with my kids, and we try to take advantage of it during every road trip. While it can sometimes feel tricky to keep your kids engaged throughout the journey, it’s important to remember that the time spent together in the park is worthwhile, even if they don’t get as much out of it as you would like.
They aren’t going to remember everything about every trip. The moments of boredom will fade, but they will remember the ways that you made their park experience awesome, whether it was with guided hikes, audiobooks, or just hanging out at the campsite!
