Have tyke, will travel
How I got my kids to love — or at least not hate — outdoor adventures
Two years before we had kids, my wife, Cathleen, and I were on the Big Island of Hawaii, where we met a 25-year-old Colorado man and his partner, both of whom seemed relaxed, happy and sane as their toddler ran roughshod in the jungly vegetation between a rainforest hiking trail and the beach. Because I saw children in my future but dreaded the lifestyle shift they would bring, I asked this guy how he was managing it.
“If he sleeps when he needs to and eats when he wants to, we can bring him anywhere,” he replied. “So we get to do pretty much what we want, and everyone’s usually happy.”
Over the intervening years, during which Cathleen and I had two kids and dragged them along on a suite of outdoor adventures, we discovered that getting our children into natural environs indeed benefits us all.
Numerous studies support our experience, finding that time in nature reduces stress and negative thoughts and correlates with higher self-reported happiness among adults and children.
That makes sense, says Patricia Hasbach, a psychotherapist in Eugene, Ore., author of “Grounded: A Guided Journal to Help You Reconnect with the Power of Nature-and Yourself.” “We evolved as part of the natural world, but at this time in our history, we have never been more removed from it,” she says, with about 80% of Americans living in urban environs and our society-wide dependence on technology. “It’s all very primal, . . . and we need this re-engagement with the natural world.”
I never analyzed it to that degree, but I knew that I was happiest when out in the wild and that I wanted to share that transcendental joy with my family. Here are some tips gleaned from my 13 years of trying to shape outdoor-loving kid travelers.
• Start early. Toting infants and toddlers
outdoors is as much about sustaining your own outdoor travel cadence as it is about engendering a love of nature in them. Because if you start using your spawn as an excuse to loll around sidewalk cafes, malls or (gasp!) your house, you might forever lose your mojo.
Admittedly, dragging tiny humans outside for extended time entails Eagle Scout-level planning - diaper bag, nap time, snacks, toys - which makes it wise to . . .
• Start local. The path to 1,000 awesome trips starts within reach of the panic button. Which is to say, when your baby still has that shiny new maternityward smell, get your nature reps nearby. For us, that meant walks in Rock Creek and Great Falls parks, during which we realized that Colorado Man was right: Babies have very simple needs.
Thus emboldened, when Kai was 5 weeks old, we slung him out to southern Arizona, where we cradled his tiny mass on numerous hikes, including one into the depths of Kartchner Caverns. Over the ensuing years, Kai, now 13, and his sister, Christina, 10, have dug in (and surely eaten) sands from such disparate locations as Cape Hatteras to
St. Martin, hiked and skied all over the country, surfed waves in Hawaii, and biked, canoed, caved and rock-scrambled throughout the Mid-Atlantic.