Once you’ve got your children excited about the hike, you next have to get them to the trailhead, probably in a motor vehicle. Sometimes those drives to a national forest, nature preserve or state park can be long. You can keep kids’ spirits up by playing games on the drive there.One tried and true children’s game is Catch a Wave.
If there’s a fair amount of traffic on the road to your trailhead, play variations of the wave-at-other-vehicles game. With younger children, have them take turns waving at a passing vehicle. If the person waves back or smiles (should you be going slow enough to see a smile), that child earns a point. For older children, have them also take turns waving at vehicles, but they garner more points based on the vehicle’s color: 3 points for a black vehicle, 2 for red, 1 for all other colors. In either variation, first to reach or go over 10 points wins. To inject a little nature into the game, vehicles driven by forest rangers are wild cards and garner 5 points.
Materials: None
Ages: 3 and up
Read more about day hiking with children in my Hikes with Tykes guidebooks.
