Great activity for day hike with kids: Journaling

For kids who like to write, journaling can be a fun hiking activity.
Illustration courtesy of K Whiteford.

Generally, exploring and discovery is enough for kids, but sometimes even they can grow bored with that and become restless. Remember that they naturally have shorter attention spans than adults.

Fortunately, there are lots of tried and true activities you can do on the trail that’ll keep kids from getting bored. Among them is journaling.

If your child likes to write, the outdoors can be an inspiring place to put pen to paper. They might keep nature journals, writing about what they’ve observed on the hike.

Materials: Ink pen, journal

Ages: 14 and up

Learn about more than a hundred other hiking diversions for kids in Hikes with Tykes: Games and Activities.

Consider bringing journal on hike with kids

Keep a journal of your day hikes. Photo courtesy of ilmungo/Photoree.

For kids who like to write, nature can be inspiring. So bring a pen and notebook on your hike.

Indeed, if you like to write, you may find that sometimes children are so engrossed in watching ducks swim down a stream or seeing who can throw rocks farther that you’ll have time to journal.

To keep the load light, don’t bring anything larger than a 6x9 notebook, and make sure it has a hard cover, as you won’t have a surface to write on in the wilds.

Read more about day hiking with children in my guidebook Hikes with Tykes.