Our monthly post to highlight the best writing and most useful tips written by Outdoor Parents over the past month.
You won’t typically find gear reviews or travel guides here – on this site we focus on the skills and inspiration to help you get outside and stay outside with your kids. We also believe that everyone should feel welcome in the outdoors, so we share articles by parents and outdoors-people of color to make sure everyone is learning each other’s perspectives.
Hopefully, this encourages you to plan your next outdoor adventures, reflect on what you were able to accomplish over the past month, or what you learned and would do differently. Enjoy!
Upper Kinney Lake, on the Pacific Crest trail, Humbolt-Toiyabe National Forest
Washoe Land
Washoe Land
Activities to try with kids:
- The Beginner’s Guide to Foraging | Backpacker
- A Crowd of Campers Trashed Max Patch | Backpacker As more people are going outdoors due to the pandemic, there is a lot more trash being left behind. As someone who thru-hiked the AT and has fond memories of hiking across Max Patch, this was upsetting to see. Let’s get our kids in the habit of packing a trash bag on hikes and making the trail cleaner than when we started.
- Teach our kids about the native people of where you live or travel to with this website.
- Wildflower Hike and Homemade Bookmarks | Run Wild My Child Make sure you do this in places where you’re allowed to pick the plants. We just did this with fall mountain plants in our yard and it was a lot of fun.
Books to Read:
- 20+ Amazing Books for Outdoor Kids | Born to Be Adventurous
- The Best Books Featuring Black Children in the Outdoors | Outside Online
Note: we will be making a big update to our Books page soon and start adding reviews, so be on the lookout for that!
General:
- How a Jogging Stroller Saved My Outdoor Life | Backpacker
- Ways to Reconnect with Nature as a Family | Run Wild My Child
- Inheriting a Tradition: Embracing My Dad’s Love of the Outdoors | Latino Outdoors This story is a good reminder that even if our kids say they don’t like playing in the outdoors when they’re in high school or college, they can often have renewed appreciation when they get older and it can be a way to reconnect with them.
Inclusion:
- Gaining Experience | Latino Outdoors
- Why Route Names Matter | Access Fund As I mentioned in a previous Outdoor Inspiration, we shouldn’t accept route names that we wouldn’t feel comfortable with our kids saying. Let’s support Mountain Project and the Access Fund to get rid of offensive route names.
- 5 Ways to Build a More Racially Inclusive Hiking Community | Melanin Basecamp An excellent summary of ways we can support each other.
- Out There, Nobody Can Hear You Scream | Outside Online If you have ever said or heard someone say that Black people just don’t like to do outdoor activities, please read this to understand the barriers that have to be overcome to spend time in the outdoors. As a woman hiking alone I have definitely felt the fear of being attacked, but I never felt the need to look up lynching maps or hate-group maps to see if I was safe to hike somewhere and that is a huge privilege.
School/Education:
- Introduction to Outdoor Schools | Run Wild My Child
- Intro to Federal Public Lands in the US | NOLS Blog A short summary that can be used to teach your kids the history of the public lands we play in.
Travel:
- Everything You Need to Know to Pick and Awesome Family RV | Crazy Family Adventure A really comprehensive list of the pros and cons of different sizes of RVs for traveling with kids of different ages, from a family that travels full-time.
