The Four Key Ingredients to a Successful Family Adventure
The Ingredients to make your next family daytrip a success:
Emotional preparedness: Make sure you're emotionally ready to be patient, happy, and full of energy throughout the day.
Practical preparation: The stuff and the people! I.e. Don't forget to pack all the essentials like snacks and gear you’ll need. AND prepare everyone who is coming! Give them roles and get them excited.
Going at the kids' pace: Remember to let the kids explore and enjoy nature at their own speed. Even if it means slowing down a bit, it's important to adjust our expectations and embrace their rhythm. This can make or break a trip.
Reflecting on the trip: Take some time to reflect on the highlights of your day together. Talk about the highlights and brainstorm ways things could have been better. This reinforces positive memories and feelings, and gets you motivated for the next adventure!
These ingredients are based off my own family’s experience doing a small walk/hike in a nearby national park. You can read about our family adventure below (grab a cuppa and enjoy the laughs!).
My Family’s day-trip Experience
I’ve now done a few Adventure Days on my own with my son, and taken holiday visitors on a few outings too. Our first attempt at taking our kids to a national park walk had almost turned us away for life, but after everything we’d been doing, it felt time to try again. I finally felt confident to try something we haven’t done very often – a family adventure. It sounds a bit crazy, I suppose, but we usually just go to the beach or creek together, or catch up with family friends, on weekends. But I was inspired this week to do more adventures and trips away together, so I felt like a family mini-adventure would be fun. I’d had some me-time on Saturday already, so I was emotionally prepared to be patient, happy and energetic with everyone, which is the first key ingredient to a successful day out.
So what does an Adventure Day look like? For me, it means going somewhere and doing something different, outdoors. It means a significant amount of time away from screens, being in nature, usually with an element of activity (e.g. walking, riding, climbing, swimming).
I researched areas close to home and decided upon a local national park which had a beautiful picnic area. It ran alongside a creek, where there were fishing spots (and you can take kayaks too, which was a bit too much preparation work us that day). There was a lovely walk through the bush, which was wide and safe for walking or bike riding. In fact, it was a small section and the halfway point on my very first Adventure Day with my son, which made it feel familiar and doable. I knew my youngest, my four-year-old son, could easily do a small section of the walk, because he had already done a big three hour walk with me. So a picnic and bushwalk, with the possibility of fishing, was the agenda for the day.
You might be thinking that a picnic doesn’t sound like much of an adventure, especially if we could do a three-hour hike with it too. You’re right, it isn’t. However, this is about building up our family’s adventure capacity, so we are starting really small. It’s a lot easier to do more intense trips when you are one-on-one with a kid, compared to a family of four. Also, doing something easy gives everyone a boost of confidence to try something a little bit more next time. Slow progress, small steps, is still progress. Becoming a family who adventures is not a race.
It’s worth thinking about what level of ‘adventure’ you want to get to with your family. For me, I’d love to be able to stop in for a day at a national park and do a decent hike or bushwalk as a family (hopefully without too much whinging or crying from anybody). So we are starting small, and working our way up to that. Whatever your goals are, find an easy and comfortable starting point, and work your way up from there. Small and easy successes spur you on a little bit further each time.
The second key ingredient for the ‘adventure’ was preparing the practical stuff. I packed a picnic, then hid some more secret fun snacks in my bag so no one spotted them on the picnic, and then grabbed the gear – hats, towels, sunscreen, bug spray, park toys to throw/kick around.
Then I prepped the others.
My daughter wasn’t enthusiastic to go anywhere or do anything. I suggested she could be The Photographer and bring her camera. She lit up at the idea and was instantly the most eager of us all. “Can I really?” she exclaimed, and raced to find her camera. I checked the battery and made sure there was storage space before we left.
My husband was doubtful it could work (“the kids are just going to fight, everyone is too moody today”). I suggested he bring a fishing rod – with the intent of having a quick bit of fun, not of catching the evening meal – and he lit up too.
Then I encouraged my son to pick whatever socks he wanted to wear. It’s the little things! I packed a bike and helmet for him so he wouldn’t have to walk too far and could keep up with us all easily.
Everyone was given a snack while they got ready (including me), so we would make it to the picnic without the hangries (i.e. the grumps as a result of being starving). Food fixes everything. And I made coffees to take for my husband and I.
As an afterthought, I grabbed our swimming gear in case we had a swim (accidental or not).
If by now you are thinking, jeez this is a lot of work, well that’s why I usually avoid family outings on the weekend, when I most need a break from getting everyone ready. But since I wanted to make it a successful day, the prep was just as much for me. I wanted to plan for everything so everyone would have a fun time. (I know it gets easier and you take less stuff the more adventures you have, but in the beginning it’s really helpful to be prepared, it helps you relax and enjoy everything more – at least, it does for me!)
Now you could be more spontaneous and leave all the prep out. However, if you aren’t used to doing stuff like this as a family, then it’ll be much more enjoyable if you’ve at least got food. Trust me.
When we arrived at the national park picnic spot, we set up, ate, and then played on the grass. Two other family groups were having barbeques, and my kids enjoyed watching the older kids throw a ball to each other and ride their bikes. Seeing other families out reinforced to all of us that this was a wonderful idea. When else were the four of us going to take time to simply throw a ball to each other? After everyone was fed and content, the picnic had been packed up, and the kids had had a good play, we got ready to go exploring.
The bushwalk I chose was only about ten minutes adult-walking pace, so it took us a bit longer together. We had a ‘destination’ so the kids knew we were going somewhere, and they would get a rest when we arrived. I don’t think I’d have done this outing if I didn’t know where we were going or what was there. Going ahead of them is sometimes a really great idea if you can, if you’re the sort of person who likes to know what’s going to be there for the kids. It helps if along the way you can prompt them with what is coming up next. For us, our destination on that hot day was a train bridge over a creek, the ideal place to stop, explore and play/fish.
The beginning was a bit rocky as we all settled into the walk. My daughter wanted to take photos of everything, which was lovely. My son wanted to collect every coloured leaf he saw, which was challenging. I had to explain that you can’t keep things from national parks, which was difficult for him to understand but an important value to learn.
When we got to the bridge, we stopped in and the kids and my husband had a go at fishing, and those special chocolate muesli bar snacks came out. The food halfway was a real energy boost for the kids (even though they’d just had a picnic). They enjoyed sitting and munching while my hubby baited the hook. And they thought it was pretty cool to be allowed to go underneath the bridge.
On the way back, things got a bit moodier. The fun track I’d told them about was closed for upgrades, so the kids were disappointed even though they didn’t know what they were missing out on. My son wanted to keep every giant stick he found and kept stopping to inspect leaves and sticks. It was actually fine, but my husband (who hadn’t practised any adventure days with us) wasn’t used to a bushwalk being at a child’s pace. He kept walking ahead and then waiting for us to catch up, and eventually I suggested he could go on ahead with our daughter. Of course my four-year-old wouldn’t just walk at a decent pace (he was sick of riding his bike by then), he wanted to stop and investigate. Instead of seeing this as an inconvenience, it’s important to see this as the whole point. I want to encourage in them a love of the outdoors, an appreciation of national parks, and an enthusiasm for nature. That sort of requires taking time to go slow.
That’s the third key ingredient: go at the kids’ pace, where practical.
There is no rule you all have to stick together. It was nice for my son and I to have a bit of the walk by ourselves, and I know my daughter enjoyed getting her dad to herself too.
When we got back to the car, more special snacks were brought out (in this case, icy poles kept in a little esky). We all cooled off and loaded up the car and headed to a nearby swimming area for a swim. We could have gone home but it was too hot! Finishing off the day with a swim in the creek together was so much fun. It was the best day out.
My husband especially was happy to have done the family day, even though he’d been sceptical to begin with. I knew that would be the case. For a day we could have spent like any other, we actually did something special, enjoyed a local national park, and made memories together. Amazingly, despite people whinging or getting hot, it was overall a very positive and fun day.
My fourth key ingredient for a successful day is to reflect at the end (and throughout, if it’s not too annoying). During different moments throughout the day, I would hug my husband or a kid and say, “isn’t this fun,” or “isn’t that cool,” and “I’m so glad we’re here”. At dinner time, we all talked about the things we saw and our favourite part of the day. We also mentioned one thing that wasn’t great, and brainstormed ideas to make it better next time. It helped to reinforce those positive memories and strengthen our motivation to do it again. And of course, we looked through the photos my daughter took and had a good giggle. Here are a few of the pics she took.
I’m already looking forward to the next family adventure day out. In fact, I’ve already begun my research!
Your Turn
What will your next, or first, family adventure be? If you’re more experienced as this stuff than me, share the good stuff – what are your key ingredients to making family adventures work? Comment below or hit me up on Instagram.