Adventuring Beyond

Adventuring beyond through travel, food, and more.

family hikes

Zion National Park with Kids

By

Note: We receive a small commission for purchases made through links in this post.

Zion National Park is currently the 3rd most visited National Park and for good reason, it is beautiful and fairly close to many major cities.  Here is our family’s guide to visiting Zion National Park with kids.

On our Spring Break adventure in Utah, we planned to spend one day in each of the National Parks but carved out two and a half days to spend in Zion.  Why?  Two reasons.

First, to take the pressure off of trying to cram everything into one day. Since you have to take a shuttle bus to get around, we weren’t sure how much extra time that would add. The number of visitors to Zion has ballooned from 2.8 million visitors in 2013 to 4.5 million in 2017 (whew!), so we knew the crowds may cause things to take more time as well.

Second, the park had a few hikes we for sure wanted to do and we thought it best to do them on separate days.  Add to those the opportunity to explore the city of Springdale, and we were glad we made the choice we did.  In the end, we spent about 2.5 days in the park as we decided to visit the separate Kolob Canyon section on our way back to Las Vegas. It was the perfect finale to our trip.  But, I’m getting ahead of myself!

…

Read More

Bryce Canyon National Park with Kids

By

Note: We receive a small commission for purchases made through links in this post.

Following our stay in Moab and visits to Arches, Canyonlands, and Capitol Reef National Parks we headed to Bryce Canyon. Here’s our 1-day guide to visiting Bryce Canyon National Park with kids.

When I was a kid, one of the most memorable places we visited was Bryce Canyon.  I remember hiking through the hoodoos and taking picture after picture with a film camera (most of which didn’t turn out that good).  So, on our Mighty 5 National Park adventure I knew that a full day at Bryce was going to be a highlight.

…

Read More

Capitol Reef National Park with Kids

By

After leaving Arches and Canyonlands in the Moab area we headed towards Capitol Reef National Park.  Following is our best tips for viewing Capitol Reef National Park with kids. 

Capitol Reef, the site of a geologic monocline (wrinkle in the earth), is a beautiful, unique, and frankly hard to visit park.  Situated in a remote part of central Utah, this park presents a public face that is very accessible even if the geologic aspects are not. 

The history of Capitol Reef is really interesting and it is a pretty unique National Park, so it was well worth the stop. We entered the park from the east and did not spend the night here but rather visited on the day we left Moab and headed towards Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks.  As a result, we got a taste of the park but would like to return and spend some time outside the main area to see more of the monocline itself.

…

Read More

The Best of Canyonlands National Park with Kids

By

Our tips for visiting Canyonlands National Park with kids.

Canyonlands National Park with Kids

Canyonlands has 3 distinct areas, all of which have their own entrance roads and are, well…not close to each other.  We debated seeing the Needles section, which is accessed south of Moab, but instead chose Island in the Sky.  Island in the Sky is the most visited section, and we were not disappointed.  Island in the Sky is an easy section of Canyonlands National Park with kids as far as hikes are concerned because there really aren’t that many. The hikes they do have are either fairly short or too long or steep to consider doing with kids.

…

Read More

The Best of Arches National Park with Kids

By

Our best advice for hiking and viewing Arches National Park with kids.

Arches National Park with Kids

We recently returned home from a Spring Break trip to all of Utah’s National Parks – “The Mighty 5.”  It was an amazing trip, though a bit exhausting to try to fit it all into one week.  The kids were troopers as usual though!  We flew into Las Vegas and drove to the furthest parks first, which happened to be Arches and Canyonlands in the Moab area.  We spent our first day of hiking in Arches National Park because we were eager to get out and stretch the legs, and since Arches was closer it meant less car-time.

Whenever we travel west we like to try to stay on our home time-schedule to take advantage of getting to the parks early.  We drove straight to the hike we knew we wanted to do which was the famous Delicate Arch trail.  There are 2 different viewpoints for this arch (Lower Delicate Arch Viewpoint, 100 yard walk, and Upper Delicate Arch Viewpoint, 0.5 mi. walk with stairs) as well as a longer hike right up to the arch.  We chose to do the longer hike right up to the arch and were glad we did!  

…

Read More

3 Best Family Hikes in North Cascades National Park

By

This post contains descriptions of our picks for the 3 best family hikes in North Cascades National Park.

3 best family hikes in North Cascades

The North Cascades are often called the American Alps, and for good reason! North Cascades National Park is a beautiful park and the mountains here are the most beautiful I’ve seen in all of our National Park travels.  Many of the trails were still closed when we visited this park in July, so we will include in this list all of the hikes we did and our take on each of them, since we weren’t able to do as many hikes in North Cascades as we did in the other ones. Don’t miss our complete itinerary for North Cascades National Park in this post.

…

Read More

Olympic National Park: Best (and Worst) Short Family Hikes

By

This post contains all the best (and worst) of our Olympic National Park short family hikes. Contains affiliate links.

Olympic National Park

Olympic National park is unique in that there is so much diversity within the park.  Because the park encompasses so much of the Olympic Peninsula navigating the park is done by driving along the perimeter of the park with roads heading in to specific sights.  To break up what would have been long drives, we ended up staying in 2 different areas for our stay in Olympic and these hikes are spread throughout the park.  Don’t miss our complete itinerary for Olympic National Park in this post.

…

Read More

The Great Washington Road Trip – Days 9-14, North Cascades NP

By

This post is the continuation of our great WA road trip, if you missed Days 1-4 and Days 5-8 catch up here and here.  This post contains our North Cascades National Park road trip Itinerary.

WA Road Trip Itinerary, North Cascades National Park road trip Itinerary. adventuringbeyond.com

Day 9 saw us headed to North Cascades National Park, staying in Mazama.  Following is our North Cascades National Park road trip itinerary.

…

Read More

The Great Washington Road Trip – Days 5-8, Olympic National Park Road Trip Itinerary

By

The adventure continues in our great WA road trip with days 5-8, if you missed days 1-4 catch up here. This post contains our Olympic National Park road trip itinerary. Post contains affiliate links.

WA Road Trip Itinerary, Olympic National Park. adventuringbeyond.comDay 5 saw us headed to Olympic National Park with a stay in La Push and later in Port Angeles. Olympic National Park is large and spread out, with many different areas to explore, so we felt it best to split our stay in this park into two different locations.

…

Read More

Best Mount Rainier National Park Short Family Hikes

By

Mount Rainier National Park short family hikes

Our family recently visited Mount Rainier National Park and it is gorgeous, though I still think Glacier NP is my favorite.  We did some longer hikes, but there are many Mount Rainier National Park short family hikes for those who are not up for a longer hike.  Here’s a list of the shorter hikes we did, some are not really even a “hike.”

…

Read More