Prepare for your destination

Whether you are traveling with children, or traveling alone, it is always a good idea to familiarize yourself with the place you are planning on traveling to. For example: a few years ago we were going to be stopping by Devils Tower in Wyoming, so we found Close Encounters of the Third Kind and showed it to our children. (Thank goodness they thought it was kind of an interesting movie.) This year we were passing through Hannibal, Missouri, so we watched the Tom Sawyer musical with Johnny Whittaker. Our family was also planning on being around many different early pioneer sites, so as parents we decided that on our scheduled Family Nights we would talk about the significance of the different places that we would be visiting. We engaged in this from January until June of this year. Our children were actually very much aware of the history when we arrived at the different locations and they were interested because we had already discussed them. As something fun, we had the Wizard of Oz playing while we drove through Kansas...they were tired of looking at the cornfields anyway.

Junior Ranger Program

We discovered a great thing to do with the kids on road trips. Plan to visit any National Park or Monument on your way to your final destination, unless the park is your destination. You can visit the Park Rangers at a desk inside any Visitors Center and pick up a Junior Ranger Kit. Each location is a little different and the ages that they allow may vary, but usually from ages 3-14 or so. This brochure has different activities that the children need to do, and pages they need to fill in. It is actually very informative and we learn quite a bit about each place. At the end of your stay, return your papers to the Ranger and your child will receive a Junior Ranger Badge. This program is FREE and is actually quite fun. We wish that we would have discovered this great activity several years earlier. Our kids have collected quite a few badges from many places around the country. This summer we made a badge holder to display all of their badges.