How to Plan a Great Family Camping Trip

Camping with your family can be great fun -- cooking hot dogs and s'mores around a glowing campfire, discovering new animals and plants on a nature trail, cuddling in your tent reading books at night, and so on.  It can also be wet, disgusting, buggy, hot, dirty, and many other things.  The difference between a good family memory and a vacation nightmare comes down to two things -- attitude and planning.  In this post, I'll review some pros and cons of a camping vacation, take a look at some of the essential gear for camping, and provide some tips and tricks for making your camping trip a great success.

Camping at 2 months old

Top Ten (Ok, 17...)Things to Do in Yellowstone National Park

As outlined in a previous post, I spent the summer of 2005 working for the park concessionaire in Yellowstone National Park.  It wasn't glamorous work, but I did get the opportunity to live in Yellowstone for an entire summer and I spent alot of my free time exploring and hiking.  I created this Top Seventeen list for a friend who was going to Yellowstone the following summer.

• Walk around the Old Faithful Geyser Basin.  You can pick up a guide leaflet by the trail for 50 cents (or return it when you’re done and you can use it for free).  Stop by the Old Faithful Visitor Center before you start walking to note the times of the major eruptions in the area.  Old Faithful erupts about every 90 min; if you can time it right, try to catch either Castle Geyser or Riverside Geyser too.

Castle Geyser

• For a unique perspective, hike up to Observation Point to watch Old Faithful erupt.  The trail goes off the boardwalk behind the Old Faithful Lodge.  It’s about a ½-mile hike and kind of steep, but well worth it.
• Walk around the Hot Springs at Mammoth.  Same thing with the guide leaflet.  Rangers at Mammoth lead guided walks of the terraces too that are pretty interesting.
• Check out the Upper and Lower Falls of the Yellowstone.  If you feel like getting out of your car, check out the Uncle Tom’s Trail on the South Rim of the Canyon.  It’s a whole bunch of stairs down to the base of the falls – hard on your lungs coming up but well worth it.
• Take a few minutes to go in the Old Faithful Inn.  It is the original National Park lodge and it’s stunning.  They do historical tours of the inn which are really cool.

Interior of Old Faithful Inn

Arches National Park

Players:  Jenny, Jake & Jackson
Date of Visit:  May 2007
Website:  www.nps.gov/arch
Location: Utah
Entrance Fee:  $10 per car
Type of Trip:  Overnight Trip as part of Western US National Parks Roadtrip
Park Passport Stamps Available:  1
Trip Report:  This was Jackson's first national park, and the first stop on a 3-week roadtrip through the Western United States that we took in 2007.  Arches National Park is located in southern Utah, in the desolate rock/canyon section of that state. Arches is just a few miles outside of Moab, UT and a few miles from Canyonlands National Park (which we did not visit for some reason).  This means that Arches can get very hot in the summer and snowy/icy in the winter.   Arches National Park protects some of the fantastic red sandstone arches, natural bridges, and hoodoos found in this area.