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Kings Canyon National Park with Kids

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Our tips for visiting Kings Canyon National Park with kids.

Kings Canyon National Park with kids

We recently came back from our summer trip to some of California’s National Parks.  After one day in Sequoia National Park, we decided to visit Kings Canyon the following day.  While Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks are managed as one park, they are quite different and we found we liked Kings Canyon best.  Kings Canyon is so much less well known than Sequoia but it really does stand alone as the best kept secret in the area!Unfortunately for them, most visitors to Kings Canyon only visit the small part of the park that is home to the General Grant tree and the Grant Grove Village shopping area and Visitor Center and then call it a wrap.  What a shame!

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Our Comprehensive, Non-Hikers Guide to Sequoia National Park

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Our top picks for a non-hikers guide to Sequoia National Park. Note: We receive a small commission for purchases made through links in this post.

Non-hikers guide to Sequoia National Park

Beyond hiking in Sequoia, we enjoyed a few other sights that are worth visiting while in Sequoia.  These stops are perfect if you don’t have a lot of time in the park or are just driving through.  Beyond these quick stops, we would also recommend visiting Crescent Meadow and General Sherman tree which were quick little hikes.  You can read more about those hikes in this post. All of these stops were easy drives from our rental home in Three Rivers.

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5 Best Family Hikes in Sequoia National Park

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The best family hikes in Sequoia National Park. Note: this post contains affiliate links. We receive a small commission if you purchase through a link at no additional cost to you.

Best family hikes in Sequoia National Park

We recently got back from our summer National Parks trip to California.  We did this trip a bit differently than we normally would in that we flew to Las Vegas and rented a car rather than driving from our home in Minnesota.  This presented a whole new set of packing challenges, but that is best saved for another post.  On this trip we went to Mojave National Preserve, Sequoia National Park, Kings Canyon National Park, Yosemite National Park, Mono Lake and the Eastern Sierras, and Death Valley National Park (along with a pleasant, though unplanned, stop at Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge).

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Zion National Park with Kids

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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!

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Bryce Canyon National Park with Kids

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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.

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Capitol Reef National Park with Kids

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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.

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The Best of Canyonlands National Park with Kids

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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.

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The Best of Arches National Park with Kids

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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!  

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3 Best Family Hikes in North Cascades National Park

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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.

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

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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.

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