Here are my hard earned and learned ultimate tips to creating young hikers.  Hopefully, these ultimate tips will help you get your kids out hiking so that you can enjoy trails together for years.

I love hiking with my kids.  For me there is also nothing better than to spend a day together up in the mountains.  We’ve been hiking together since they were babies and now that they’re 9 and 11 our trips have become much longer and more serious.  As toddlers we would go for a 4 hour hike and only walk like 1 or 2 miles.  Now, we go for a week long trip, covering 40 miles.  What are my secrets to getting kids hiking?  Well, you’ll just have to read my ultimate tip below to see what has worked for me and hopefully, will work for you too:)

Ultimate Tips On Hiking With Kids – My Secrets To Creating Young Hikers

Ultimate Tips On Packing Lists – What To Bring When Hiking With Kids

One of the first secrets to creating young hikers is to just know what to bring.  Here are my tips on what you should bring along with you to help you enjoy your hike and keep everyone happy.  These tips are broken down into the basic items and then more specific items for babies or toddlers.

11 essential items to bring when hiking with kids.  Those 8 items are the things that I never go on a hike without and are kind of like my starting point.  On top of that I also throw in other things depending on the time of season or how old the kids are.  For example, if it’s the rainy season here are some tips on rain gear.

Here is my eBook that you can get on Amazon that is full of tips on hiking with kids.

Here are some fun, optional items you may want to bring along when you go hiking with kids.

Here are 4 must bring items when hiking with toddlers.

Or here are some of the must bring items when hiking with a baby.

8 Tips To Get Out The Door

Here are a few tips that may help you get the kids out of the door.  Sometimes the hardest part of hiking is just getting out of the house.  Some days it feels like everything is conspiring against you to prevent you from going for a hike, including some whining kids.  Hopefully, these tips will help you overcome that sluggishness and get out the door.

Ultimate Tips On The Mental Aspect Of Hiking With Kids

Make It Fun

With most things for kid or even for us as adults, we will want to do it again if it was fun.  I know that if I try something new and it’s fun I’ll want to do it again.  But, if I try it and it is awful that may be it and I won’t want to do it again.

Thus, the most important thing to creating young hikers is to make it fun.  As parents, you need to keep that in mind.  Don’t force them to walk too far or walk too much in the beginning.  Take it easy, go slow and enjoy being outdoors.  Here are 7 tips to make hiking with kids fun.

One of the keys to this of course is that the parents need to enjoy it.  If your kids see that you don’t enjoy it then they won’t enjoy it.  Like everything, our kids pick up clues from us and feed off of our example.  Be a good example and enjoy yourself.

Change Your Mindset

Remember at an early age the focus needs to be on just getting outside together and having fun.  Don’t have a destination as a goal.  Rather, the goal should be to get outside and have fun in nature together.  I found this really hard as I was such an avid hiker that it was hard for me to scale things back with my kids, but now I’m super glad I did.

Make It A Routine Or Habit 

I found that it helped a lot to just make going for a hike part of our normal routine.  On a nice weekend day it was normal for us to load up the car and head up to the mountains for a hike.  Some days we’d be gone all day and other days we’d be gone for an hour.  The important thing was just to make it a routine. The routine or habit made it easier for us as parents and for the kids.  Here are 5 tips to help parents make a habit of getting out in nature.

Just Go

Sometimes you just have to stop overthinking everything and go for a hike.  There are days when the kids don’t want to leave the house and you are fighting them for everything.  Not all the time, but some of the time I would just overrule the kids and make us all go for a hike.

Be Safe When Hiking With Kids

It is crucial that you keep your and your kids safety in mind when you go hiking.  Here is another post that covers some basic safety tips to keep in mind when hiking.  This

Be Safe Around Wild Animals

Most of the time when you’re out hiking you won’t need to worry about wildlife.  You may see some wild animals, but mostly they just want to avoid you and you won’t get too close.  However, you may surprise an animal and in that case you need to know what to do.  Here are some great tips to keep in mind to make sure your safe around the Rocky Mountain wildlife.

Now if you’re ready to get even more information about hiking with kids you can buy my eBook today at Amazon.  Just click on this link.