Family Adventure
May 14, 2011 | 
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For more and more families, simply traveling somewhere and seeing the sights is not enough. More and more families are venturing out into the wilderness. Traveling internationally as a family has become more common. Now, sharing in-depth cultural experiences and age-appropriate adventure activities is bonding more families closer together.
While some may consider a trip to Chili’s with children a “family adventure” for many families, a family adventure trek to Machu Picchu is replacing Disney World. Instead of simply peering over the edge of the Grand Canyon and continuing on to the next sightseeing destination on those classic family road trips we all cringed at as kids, other families are now river rafting through the Grand Canyon. Families have become by far the fastest-growing demographic segment in the adventure travel industry.
Hiking and camping as a family is a great option for families new to adventure.
There are literally thousands of hiking trails near every metro area in the world that would be appropriate for children. Let kids do the hiking themselves wherever possible, and don’t push them too hard. When hiking with children for the first time, it’s quality over quantity. Amazing first hikes for families with young children abound at National Parks like Yellowstone National Park. Down under at Tasmania’s Freycinet National Park, families can hike to wilderness beaches on gentle trails and see exotic birds and fish.
Camping as a family can be a challenge, but the more interesting the camping spot, the better the experience you’re going to have. Stay away from any sort of developed campground, especially a KOA, and give most National Park and National Forest Campgrounds the miss. Instead, camp for free on BLM land anywhere. Camping out at the Horseshoe Canyon trailhead on BLM land at the entrance to Canyonlands national park, you’ll be on the canyon rim in a red rock wonderland, and the kids will have fun playing with lizards galore. Best of all, you can take a day hike the next morning down into the canyon to see the Horseshoe Canyon petroglyphs, one of the largest panels in the world.
Raft trips on gentle whitewater, a canoe trip on flatwater, adventure cruises, and safaris are all great options for young families looking for just a bit of adventure. A classic rafting family adventure is a 3-day raft trip on the Colorado River, down Ruby and Horsethief Canyons provides an amazing do it yourself family wilderness experience that’s age-appropriate for water-safe children. Because the rapids are never more than class 2, it’s not uncommon to see families with toddlers. Camping on sand bars ripe for sand castle building, and plenty or water fights, make this section of the Colorado River, America’s best rafting family adventure.
It’s hard to backpack as a family, but with canoes families can carry all their gear. The best family canoe trip in America is an 8 day Green River canoe trip through Canyonlands National Park. Camping on pristine sand bars every night and canoeing though flatwater desert canyons by day, families have a true wilderness experience without having to carry anything. Side hikes to ruins more intact than any at Mesa Verde and lots of petroglyphs are icing on the cake.
A small boat family adventure cruise to Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands affords families with children the opportunity to see an ecological wonder of biodiversity and the birthplace of Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Swimming with turtles, and seeing giant lizard and shore birds up close are just a few of the great things about the Galapagos for family adventures.
If your children love animals, why not take a family adventure safari to Africa to see the animal life in its natural habitat? Safari operators were some of the first in the adventure travel industry to really gear up to be family friendly and thousands of families go on safari together every year.
For more adventurous families, the sky is the limit, within reason. Kids are more resilient than you think. Consider a visit to the Jungles of Costa Rica or a trip toIndia or Thailand for an amazing family adventure.
Even a trek in Nepal is not out of the question for a family with some hiking experience – with sherpa porters you can pull off an amazing family adventure. Nepal is unique country with few roads, where adventurous families who like to hike will be right at home. You will trek from village to village with guides and friendly porters, in some cases women, who can expertly carry any child in the family under 40lbs on the narrow mountain trails. We’ve seen children as young as 12 at Everest Base Camp, and children as young as a year old routinely enjoy treks in Nepal at lower elevations.
If going with a family adventure tour company, don’t get stuck in a group with a toddler and a some teenagers, when you’ve got a 7 year-old. Ask and make sure the ages of everyone in the group will mesh– try to arrange a private family adventure trip otherwise.
Family adventure is a new concept and many tour companies are still tweaking their itineraries. Make sure that the itinerary has plenty of time for just hanging out and is not jam packed with too much adventure. Additionally, a red flag would be more than 50% of days on the trip being travel days. Kids need time to chill.
If you’re going on a family adventure internationally, make sure you start the process of inoculations and passports well in advance of the departure date.
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Mountain Biking
Mountain Biking is the sport of riding bicycles off paved roads on dirt trails, slick rock, and in some cases modified ramps. A huge array of specially modified bikes exists, from simple steel “hard tail” bikes to full suspension bikes made out of space age materials.
Back in the mid-1970′s groups of innovative mountain bikers in Crested Butte Colorado and Marin County, California, working separately but in parallel timeframes, modified bicycles with fat tires, called by some “Klunkers,” which became the ancestors of the modern mountain bike. Improvements in technology and design caused a virtual boom in Mountain biking in the 1990′s. Today, mountain biking has grown to be an international sport, which now even includes Olympic Mountain bike competition.
Mountain Biking has branched out into different specialties. Downhill is essentially the original form of mountain biking, with the focus on going down at high speeds with heaver bikes, often assisted with lifts or vehicles. Cross-Country is the most common form of mountain biking, riding under one’s own power on trails and dirt roads. Freeride encompasses jumping and riding ‘North Shore’ style on elevated trails made of interconnecting bridges and logs. Trials riding consists of balancing and hopping bikes over obstacles.
In the U.S., Moab, Utah, and its extremely technical slickrock trail and the 100 mile long White Rim Trail is ground zero for mountain biking. Lake Tahoe, along with Marin County in California, Sun Valley, Idaho, Crested Butte, Boulder, and Durango, Colorado, Bend, Oregon, Asheville, NC, and the Monongahela National Forest in Virgina are each important mountain biking centers. The most up and coming mountain biking hot spot in the U.S. is Fruita, CO with it’s extraordinary high desert single track.
Canadian Mountain Biking’s soul center are the North Shore forests of Vancouver island, where enterprising riders, to deal with the mud, built elevated wooden ramps and technical obstacles on dozens of secret trails. This practice has expanded now into hundreds of bikers parks in the forests of Canada and the U.S. Pacific Northwest. In addition, great trail systems exist in Whistler, Squamish, Golden, and Rossland, BC.
Morzine, France is the soul center or Euopean mountain biking with hundreds of miles of trails and a mind-blowing location in the Alps. In addition, Chamonix, France, Sardinia, Lake Garda and the Dolomites, Italy, Fort William and Glentress, Scotland, Blandford, Dorset, England, Afan and Cwmcarn, Wales, Mount Parnitha, Crete, and Mikonos, Greece, as well as Cyprus all have great trails.
Down under, Hobart, Tasmania, Canberra and Cairns, Australia, Whakarewarewa and Makara Peak in New Zealand each are mountain biking hot spots.
Mountain Biking has become an important part of the larger adventure travel industry and mountain bike journeys to Vietnam, China, Morocco, Ethiopia, Malawi, Peru, Chile, and Argentina are popular. Kathmandu, Nepal with it’s ancient system of trails and roads has become the center of mountain biking in Asia. Mountain biking from Lhasa Tibet to Kathmandu and from Kashgar, China to Pakistan are rapidly becoming classics.
At the cutting edge, Intrepid mountain bikers like Martin Adserballe and Janne Corax have been making ground-breaking, extraordinary long distance mountain biking journeys over 5,000 meter passes across the Tibetan plateau and Western China.
Mountain bikers to tend to be regarded by those of other communities as brash and reckless. This impression isn’t helped by the fact that there have been a number of high profile incidents of mountain bikers colliding with hikers. These incidents have led to considerable tension between the the mountain biking and hiking communities. You can do your part by knowing and observing the right of way. Yield to hikers and horses on the trail. This means stopping, getting off your mountain bike and letting them pass. Be as friendly as you can with people you meet on the trail. It’s only by doing this that mountain bikers will rebuild their reputation in the adventure sport community.
Mountain bike participation peaked after the initial boom years in the 1990′s. As an industry exec. said confidentially, “people all bought bikes in the 1990′s. . . then they found out that mountain biking was hard.” Indeed, mountain biking takes effort, but with impressive trail systems going in at ski areas like Winter Park, Mammoth Mountain, and Park City in the U.S. and Les Gets in France there’s no excuse not to get out there.
If you get the urge to go out and do some “North Shore” freeriding, make sure you’ve got the skills to do it, or better, take a class and learn the skills. A lot of people are getting hurt riding on ramps and logs. Wet, muddy wood can be slippery- ride smart.
Adventure Travel
Adventure Travel is the fastest growing area of the travel industry. Traditional travel is all about seeing and observing, often though the lens of a carefully scripted tour. Adventure Travel, on the other hand, is all about doing, actively participating in activities which help you gain a deep understanding of a country, a people, and yourself.
Because adventure travel could be as wide ranging as bird watching in Columbia, cruising the Galapagos Islands, rafting the Cumberland River in Kentucky, an Antarctic small boat adventure Tour, or climbing Everest, you might think of adventure travel as more of a state of mind than any particular activity.
Get off the beaten track– get creative and you’ll have a better experience. The vast majority of adventure travelers have a very limited number of experiences in mind when they consider an adventure travel trip. Trekking routes to places like Machu Picchu and Everest Base Camp, Kilimanjaro, and wildlife safaris to the Serengeti tend to be overcrowded paths. Head for lesser-known adventure travel destinations or even do a variation of these popular destinations for far better experiences.
Be careful with the adventure tour company you choose. Make sure they’re not just a glorified old-school travel company with a few activities that make you simply think you’re really going off the beaten track. Many adventure travel companies go to great lengths to make you feel like you’re having a truly unique cultural experience, for example going to the house of a one-armed hat maker in Hue, Vietnam, when in fact your group may be the 3rd or 4th group from that company that has visited today!
You can save an enormous amount of money by planning the trip yourself. You’d be amazed by you can do with a few evenings of planning and some good guidebooks. You’ll save a ton of money and go farther off the beaten track.
Consider a local adventure tour operator in the country in which you’re visiting. Most adventure travel tour operators use the same local operators you could simply book yourself and save hundreds of dollars.