What about combining things? San Francisco and some state/national parks in the vicinity? Denver and the Rockies? Seattle and Olympic National Park?

It’s either your thing or it isn’t.

We work outdoor activities into our vacations, like hiking or snorkeling into our vacations. But there’s no chance I’m spending a week sleeping in a tent for my limited vacation time. My hiking days end at a pool and an amazing cocktail.

We like our vacations to be a mix of relaxing, active, and educational. The idea of being in a big city, going to museums, shopping, and eating in restaurants multiple days in a row makes my skin crawl. The idea of schlepping my kids and all the stuff (food, umbrellas, sunscreen, etc.) to make us comfortable for a whole day at the beach sounds like an exhausting way to be bored - and hot - and sandy. We like active vacations, but we also like nice hotels and not being dirty and tired every day.

There are plenty of places you can do a variety of things.
Vancouver, BC + hiking and kayaking day trips
San Francisco + Muir Woods and Point Reyes
Boston + Acadia
Miami + Florida Keys - you don’t have to go all the way to Key West to snorkel and kayak.
Seattle + ferry to the islands
Boulder, Colorado

So many options to get into nature and also visit a city. You don’t have to go to the really big parks out west to be active and see some beautiful landscapes different than where you live.

Frankly, I think it's a matter of personal preference. Obviously, you can relax more in nature, but people vary. If it's too quiet in nature, it can feel strange because some people want to socialize a little. We like city holidays because we love architecture and history. However, we always spend an above-average amount of time travelling so that we can rest.

It sounds like you will regret it if you never try it. You sound curious.

List the cities and I'll suggest a few outdoor excursions. How long are you willing to spend in a car (or in a vehicle with strangers) during an outdoorsy day trip?

Anonymous wrote:Do what you want. Are you trying to keep up for social media?

Hahaha 🤣 I don't even have Instagram. This was from some people I've talked to who spend weeks at these places but I (no joke) would really love to go to Detroit.

I'm not dragging the family to Detroit anytime soon, but if I go to all the U.S. cities I want to go to, I'll run out of time and money and youth to go to the national parks. Wondering if I should mix it up because I don't know what I'm missing.

To me, cities seem like good vacations for when I'm in my 60s and traveling without my kids. For now, we like doing things like rafting, kayaking, hiking, skiing as a family (we even went ice climbing - loved it!). But we are also active people in general. There is right or wrong way to vacation!!!!

Anonymous wrote:"The idea of spending a week in one place hiking makes me feel kind of stir crazy and not even there yet."

So listen to yourself. Do what you want.

Do you like biking? Boats? Do you like small towns? Plenty of places with great outdoorsy activities are not all that far from nice towns and even cities.

Are you worried about your kids not being exposed to a variety of things?

Part of it I think is I didn't get exposed to these things growing up. We sometimes went to the beach and anywhere else we went was sightseeing history stuff mostly within our state. We never went on a hike or boat even around home. And never an amusement park--I went with groups, but not my family.

I like boats but some of the family don't. Biking is okay. Small towns are nice. Mainly I think an outdoor trip seems way harder to plan and more can go wrong like if we spend a bunch of money and it rains the whole time. Maybe you are onto something with starting with one or two outdoorsy activities that are close to a city or town and they can be moved around depending on weather.

Get off Instagram, OP. Run your own race.

Do what you want. Are you trying to keep up for social media?

If it’s not your thing then you shouldn’t regret not doing it.

Our favorite vacations as a family are either the beach or a city to explore. We like hiking in nature, we like biking, we like visiting national parks but we are not into camping or doing a lot of adventurous kayaking/canoeing/being far from civilization.

Also do those of you who do these long active national park vacations do a lot of those activities closer to home? Maybe we should start there?

Yes. There are places with better hiking than the DMV but I'm drawn to walking in nature so I do that wherever I am.

If you never have the urge to hike/walk in say Rock Creek Park, then why spend your vacation (time, effort, money) walking in nature?

"The idea of spending a week in one place hiking makes me feel kind of stir crazy and not even there yet."

So listen to yourself. Do what you want.

Do you like biking? Boats? Do you like small towns? Plenty of places with great outdoorsy activities are not all that far from nice towns and even cities.

Are you worried about your kids not being exposed to a variety of things?

We tend to take vacations to cities. I've been to some national park highlights, as an example I saw Old Faithful and some hot springs in Yellowstone on a tour but was there for less than a day. Some people we know do very outdoor vacations and could spend weeks there, hiking, kayaking, etc.

Could someone please explain what we're missing by not doing these trips? We're not too adventurous but we (parents) did like hiking once upon a time. The idea of spending a week in one place hiking makes me feel kind of stir crazy and not even there yet.

I'm wondering if we should become more adventurous before we're too old to do certain things, but I'm not really clear what the advantages are. It seems like as long as you're semi-mobile you could go on a bus tour of many of the national parks, so if that's all I'm going to want to do ever, I may as well knock cities off my list first.

Also do those of you who do these long active national park vacations do a lot of those activities closer to home? Maybe we should start there?