Seattle and Olympic National Park with Teens

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From city-life to Olympic National Park, there's plenty to keep kids of all ages occupied in the far northwest.  This loop can be done in 4 or 5 days with plenty of time to find your own diversions along the way.

Advance Planning

Campsites and hotels need to be booked in advance for Olympic National Park. During peak seasons many non-camping accommodations require two-night-or-more minimum stays.

Take your rain gear!  You may have sunshine, but plenty of storms funnel through.

Pack a cooler. If you are flying into the region, purchase a collapsable cooler and some Ziploc bags for ice along the way.  The food choices are minimal in and near Olympic National Park and it's helpful to have some picnic lunches when hiking.

A small daypack as well is great to have for hikes in Olympic National Park.

Days 1-2 in Seattle

Seattle is very straight-forward to navigate on foot, so no need to get a rental car while you are in the city.  Highlights to visit:

• Seattle Space Needle:  Go before 9:30 for reduced ticket prices and, more importantly, reduced lines even on a clear day.
• Pike Place: While locals will stay away when multiple cruise ships are in port, it's still a great place to wander with plenty of places to buy snacks along the way.
• Underground Seattle officially Bill Speidel's Underground Tour: A colorful, and likely somewhat accurate, tour beneath the streets of Seattle.  Just enough walking to keep kids interested without getting too tired.

Days 3-5 in Olympic National Park

Drive from Seattle to Olympic National Park.  Taking the Bainbridge Island Ferry is the most direct route.  Stop at Sunny Farms in Sequim where there are plenty of healthful snacks, sandwiches, drinks and prepared foods to store in your cooler for the next 3 days.  .

Read about Olympic National Park in advance.  There are many great places to explore and options to camp in and near the park, some moderate-cost options outside of the park and two pricey, though very nice lodges, Lake Crescent Lodge and Lake Quinalt Lodge.  If you want to stay at either lodge, call and book directly as there are fees associated with booking online and you can also reserve a dinner reservation at a table by the window in either lodge.

Here is a sample itinerary for in the park:

• Drive up to Hurricane Ridge and take a moderate and very rewarding hike up Hurricane Hill.
  
• Spend the night in or near the park.
• On the next full day check out Second Beach if the tide is low, or Rialto Beach.
• Visit the Hoh Rain Forest and take a ranger tour.
• Stop at Ruby Beach.
• Spend the night camping near Ruby Beach or at Lake Quinalt Lodge.
• In the morning walk the 4 mile loop along Lake Quinalt and through the woods or take a shorter hike to one of the many waterfalls in the area.

You can extend your trip down to the Oregon coast and through Portland, or simply head back to Seattle.

Sedona to the Grand Canyon to Vegas

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There is much to see within several hundred miles of the Grand Canyon. Using the Grand Canyon as your center point, a myriad of trips can be created. As you create the trip that fits your time frame and travel schedule use the following as suggestions to flesh out your travel plans with children and teens.

Advance Planning

• If you are traveling during the summer or spring break then book your campsites or hotels in advance.

 Sedona

Activities: Bell Rock hike, sustenance at Red Rock Café, Slide Rock State Park, Oak Creek Canyon

Sedona is a great town for hiking and walking—you can be easily rewarded with spectacular views with very little energy. However, the hikes are so beautiful I highly recommend taking a longer walk to appreciate the vistas.

One great hike is up Bell Rock. There is a small parking lot at the trailhead that gets quite full – so head out early or off peak if you can.

Just a short drive from Bell Rock is the Red Rock Café—a great place for a hearty breakfast before your hike or a rejuvenating lunch following.

Take your time driving north from Sedona to the Grand Canyon through Oak Creek Canyon. Not only are there beautiful vistas, but Slide Rock State Park can also be found in the canyon. This is a great spot when the weather is warm to put on your bathing suit and slide down the natural chutes formed by the creek. In the summer months the park gets extremely crowded and there can even be a wait to park. So arrive early to minimize having disgruntled children in your backseat.

Stop at the lookout at the north of Slide Rock State Park for views back down the canyon towards Sedona. This is a must for the driver, as with hairpin turns and a narrow road, the driver will want to stay focused on the road not the vistas while driving.

Grand Canyon
Activities: Ranger Talk, Hike Partway down the South Kaibab Trail, Ride the Shuttle

Both the north rim and the south rim offer fabulous views of the Grand Canyon. While some people prefer one rim over the other, the best choice for your family is likely to be whichever is closer to your route it’s over 200 miles to drive from one rim to the other. The south rim hosts far more visitors as snow closes the north rim for much of the year and the north rim is generally less accessible. If you are visiting the Grand Canyon along with Sedona (to the south) and Vegas (to the West), then you will most likely want to visit the South Rim.

Start with a ranger talk at the visitor center. Check the schedule in advance. For younger children you can pick up a Junior Ranger guide with activities for children to complete as they learn about the canyon.

If you’re feeling fresh and full of energy start with a short hike along the rim and down into the canyon. The South Kaibab trail is somewhat less traveled and has fabulous views into the canyon.

Hike at least part way down into the canyon. Remember: This is a canyon—knees aside, most people will find themselves more tired and moving more slowly on the return trip so plan accordingly. Ensure that you have adequate water for your group—everyone should carry his or her own water, kids too—and a snack to re-energize for the return trip is well advised.

Game suggestion: The observation game. If you need a diversion from “how much farther?” “Look up at the top of the rim, that’s how much farther”, here’s an easy game all ages can enjoy. Whenever you pass a group of hikers, everyone observes how many people there are, their relative ages, what the fellow hikers are wearing, perhaps even snatches of conversation. Then each member of your hiking party can ask an observation question or 2 such as, “What was written on the smallest child’s T shirt?” or “What color was the first hiker’s back pack?” Everyone in the group tries to answer; hopefully the question asker remembers the correct answer to his or her question. Everyone scores a point for each question answered correctly and the asker gets a bonus point for stumping all but one responder.

Back along the canyon rim take a shuttle ride. The shuttles are not only the only way to drive along the rim of the canyon, they are convenient, frequent and driven by helpful and generally talkative drivers.

Hoover Dam
Activities: Take a Dam Tour

Not only is a tour the only way to see the giant turbines in the Hoover Dam, it is a great way to learn about the history of the dam for kids and parents alike. The ticket prices are steep ($30 per person in 2010), but the tour guides are generally very entertaining, the views from the top of the Dam are quite breathtaking when looking down to the Colorado river and the tours are quite educational both in the engineering of the dam and the history of its planning and construction.

Las Vegas
Activities: Walk along the strip, view the hotel extravaganza, ride a double decker bus ($7 for a 24 hour pass)

There is plenty for children and teens to see in Vegas. The fabulous facades at the major hotels are attractions in and of themselves. Three that are worth stopping to view are the Bellagio Fountains, the volcano at the Mirage and the Sirens of Treasure Island at the Treasure Island Hotel. All keep the times of their shows posted and crowds will gather in advance of shows for a front row standing view.
Let your children and teens experiment with their cameras in Vegas—from the juxtaposition of lines and color to the neon lights at night—there is ample material for any photographer to experiment with day and night.

Not to Miss in Southern New Mexico and Arizona

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Advance Planning:

• If you are traveling during the summer then book your campsites or hotels in advance.
• Book a tour of Carlsbad Caverns if you want a guided tour
• Book a tour at Kartchner Caverns

Day 1: Carlsbad Caverns

Followed by a 170 mile drive to White Sands

If you are in an RV stay at White’s City campground—a campground straight out of the 1950s, complete with a ‘Million Dollar Museum’ with a speaker blaring a boardwalk caller.

Get to Carlsbad Caverns early.  Start with the self-guided Natural Entrance tour and get the audio guides for kids and adults.  Both are good, although teenagers and even some pre-teens will likely find the kids much too young. Continue with the self-guided Big Room tour and then a guided tour if you made reservations. If you are at Carlsbad for an entire day during the summer, stay for the bat flight program each evening.

Neither my words nor my two dimensional photographs can possibly begin to describe the magnificence of Carlsbad Caverns.  In short—go!  It is spectacular in beauty, in soundlessness, in darkness, in speleothems, in expanse, in nearly every natural measure.  We explored for over 5 hours and heard not one complaint from any one—we were all captivated.

From Carlsbad to White Sands is about a 170 mile drive which is often more pleasant in the cool of the evening.

Day 2: White Sands

Followed by a 280 mile drive to near Kartchner State Park

Like Carlsbad, it is difficult to describe the beauty of White Sands.  The dunes are fabulous for imprinting footprints, fabulous for photographing, fabulous for making sand angels, fabulous for rolling down, crawling up, jumping off, but most especially fabulous for high stepping down, kind of like a run, which we called the moon walk—such a blast!  Here everyone will be a kid!

The 275 square miles of white gypsum sand has engulfed the desert creating the largest gypsum dune field in the world.  The Tularosa basin has the perfect conditions for creating this spectacular wonder—gypsum, dry air and wind.  Gypsum is soluble in water, so most everywhere else in the world it isn’t in crystallized form.  No water drains from the Tularosa basin, so all rain water that falls pools together in lakes and eventually evaporates.  As the water evaporates it leaves behind gypsum crystals which then get broken down by the wind and when broken into small enough particles, are blown into huge dunes across the flatlands.

Day 3: Kartchner Caverns

Stay two nights at or near Kartchner Caverns

If you are camping, Kartchner State is one of our favorite State Parks.  You need to arrive before 6pm, so if you are coming from White Sands, you will likely need alternative accommodations where you can arrive later.

Kartchner Caverns is a living cave as it is still wet and the formations are continuing to grow in the cave and a fabulous contrast to Carlsbad Caverns. The caverns were discovered in 1974, but kept secret until the mid 1980s and then developed as carefully as possible to protect the cave—and it is spectacular.  The cave is warm and humid—70 degrees and 99% humidity! 

And the sights are spectacular!  The soda straws, draperies, stalagmites, stalactites and other formations that are still growing are translucent—amazing to view.  Everything shines with moisture—the cave is subtly lit so visitors can view the formations. 

Outside the cave there is an excellent foothills loop trail for wonderful above ground vistas.  If you have teens, you can take an early morning walk while they are still sleeping!

Day 4: Bisbee, Arizona

Bisbee is a small town near the Mexico border, just under about a one hour drive from Kartchner Caverns.  There you can tour the Queen Mine—an outstanding Darwinian tour of a copper mine.  Our guide was a wizened prospector, or rather miner, who had lots to share about the life of a miner underground.  This isn’t Disneyworld; he didn’t waste time with frivolous admonitions such as ‘keep your hands and feet in the car at all times (not even possible as the ‘car’ was only 8 inches wide) or ‘don’t wander down any dark mine passageways’.

Day 5: Sonora Desert Museum and Saguaro National Park

Total drive about an hour up to Tucson

The Sonora Desert Museum is really more of a natural oasis than a museum.  There are plenty of activities for young children.  In addition there are animals and plants native to the desert in their natural habitat as well as a small ice cream stand which is always a good stop on a hot day!

The Saguaro Desert National Park is split into an East and West (also known as the Tucson Mountain District) portion.  Both are wonderful to visit, but walking in the desert in the heat of the day is draining for anyone— I recommend choosing one to focus on with your kids—whichever has a program on the day you are visiting that more interests your family.

More Time

If you have more time visit Sedona (a longer post on that in the future) and then head up to the Grand Canyon and the Hoover Dam (also topics of future posts).

Two Days Exploring Acadia National Park

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Most of the activities at Acadia are outdoors, so this itinerary is weather dependent. If you are fortunate to get a clear evening and a clear day then Acadia can be an outdoor enthusiast’s ideal.

Advance Planning:

• Book a hotel early. Finding somewhere for a family to stay that is a reasonable value can be difficult (most everything is very pricey and the cozier places are targeted for couples).
• Get a copy of the Beaver Log (the park’s newspaper) .
• Book a kayaking adventure with one of the outfitters in Southwest Harbor (the quiet side of the island). Maine State Sea Kayak. is one outfitter on this side of the island.
• Bring your bikes! Or you can rent bikes from several outfitters on the island.

Clear Evening: Star Gazing
If there is a star gazing ranger talk while you are in Acadia then GO! Dress very warmly and bring a flashlight (it can be a dark walk down to the beach). The stars and other celestial objects are brilliant when viewed from the beaches along the Maine coast.

Day 1: Hike, Picnic, Kayak
My family’s favorite hike is the Beehive trail which is considered strenuous and not recommended for younger children. But if you are a group of hardy hikers, undeterred by heights, then this is a great trail to entice even the most reticent teen out for a climb.

Park at the small parking lot at the top of Sand Beach. The trailhead is across the road (back a bit). For a short hike you can go up the Beehive and loop back down to the parking lot. For a longer hike, continue up and over Gorham Mountain. This will bring you to the Gorham Mountain Trailhead not far from Otter Cliffs You can then follow the Ocean Path back about 1 ½ miles. Note that depending on your route this can be a 5 mile hike (or longer if you go out to Otter Cliffs) —be sure to bring plenty of water along especially on a hot, dry day.

Head over to Northeast Harbor where you can get a picnic lunch to go from The Colonel’s Restaurant and Bakery. Take your picnic down by the harbor and watch folks coming and going on their boats while you enjoy your picnic.

Enjoy the afternoon with a group kayaking.

For dinner wander through Southwest Harbor to find a restaurant to suit your family’s taste. While there are fewer restaurants here than in Bar Harbor, most offer a broad spectrum of selections. Dry Dock is one casual family friendly spot.



Day 2: Bike
The carriage trails around Acadia are outstanding for biking—wide, fairly smooth and free of motorized traffic. Get a map, find a starting point and head out for as long or short as your family would like.

When you tire of biking and hiking, drive the Loop Road around Acadia being sure to stop at Thunder Hole. Back in Bar Harbor there are plenty of places to browse. For a healthy take away lunch try Michelle’s Brown Bag Café. You can watch candy being made, try lobster ice cream and shop all along Main Street.

When you head out of Acadia, look for some wild blueberries to purchase and take home to freeze. There is a fabulous wild blueberry stand on Route 1 in Ellsworth, just north of Acadia. Buy a flat at around $3/pound and take them home to make pies and muffins all winter!