Before You Begin

Thinking of starting a tour or travel like this?

Educate Yourself Ahead of Time

Wow. It took a lot of prep before the first trip. I wanted to immerse ourselves in the park and be somewhat educated about it in order to pique the kids interest and have them enjoy it as much as possible. I read an article stating the best way to do that was to read and watch as much as you can about the place to which you are going.

So we read, we listened, I downloaded and printed, and we watched. It was very helpful to go into the park knowing a little - OK a lot - ahead of time. This way I didn't feel like we were missing out on things. I'm kinda OCD that way. We met people at our camp site who had nothing planned, were winging their whole trek through the four corners area. I could never do that! I don't want to miss out on anything. But, sometimes that can be a bit overbearing for my family, I'm sure.

I have compiled a list of all that we read and watch before our trips here.

Plan Your Meals

Along with immersing myself in the national park part of the trip, I also wanted to begin to master the camping side of the trip. Cooking and eating while camping can be a super big chore, but I learned that with a whole lot of prep before you can have a fairly easy, and tasty, experience around your supper campfire.

Below is a list of our National Parks Meal Plans. I am going to try to incorporate some sort of relevant food or meal into each plan (ie. corn something or other at Mesa Verde...but....I didn't think of that till now so the only corn at our meals in Mesa Verde was in our Doritos when we ate our Taco in a Bag.)

FYI I don't usually plan to "make" lunch. I pull out deli meat and cheeses, lunchables, uncrustables, snacky things. We are snacking so much anyway, the kids hardly notice.

National Parks Menu Plan, Grocery List and Recipes