Older kids need different support for adventures from parents than younger kids. This means that the articles and advice you get when you want to plan a trip with your older kids may no longer be appropriate.
If you have always been taking them on adventures (or at least started when they were pretty young), then you might need new ways to keep them engaged. If you waited until they were older, and that time has come, you may be wondering how to get started.
As an additional challenge, kids this age have more activities going on, and often want to spend time with their friends rather than their parents. What is the adventurous Mama to do?
Don’t worry, we will address all these challenges for getting out on adventures with older kids if you keep on reading!
This post may contain affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, if you purchase something through one of these links and use the discount codes provided, we may earn an affiliate commission at no cost to you.
All products and brands recommended are hand selected by our team, so thank you for supporting us by clicking through!
General Tips
Get Buy In From Your Kids
Find out what activities they want, or where they want to visit. Make sure you consider what events at home are “can’t misses” for them. TMM Member Laura suggests that fewer bigger events may be easier to schedule and feel more worthwhile them. She had her entire family thru-hike the Appalachian Trail last summer, so she’s definitely had experience with this piece of advice.
Keep the Kids Involved in Planning
Here are some things they can do, even if they are new to adventures:
- Help with the menu
- Prep food
- Plan the route
- Research the weather
- Make packing lists
- Research gear needs
- Research and/or arrange permits
Find Ways for Them to Adventure with Other Kids
Here are some places you can find other kids:
Have them invite their friends (see above – then they are more involved). This way they are going on the adventure with someone they want to spend time with (besides you, of course).
Scouts – both Girl Scouts or Scouting America (formerly Boy Scouts, now co-ed) work, although on average Scouting America is more adventurous. Older kids may enjoy Venture Crews or High Adventure Girl Scouts. My kids are both in Scouting America, and my son will join a Venture Crew when he is 14. My daughter is also in Girl Scouts, in a High Adventure group.
Cycling team or club – My kids are in a cycling team that races at community events. As a bonus, the kids are learning that bike racing can be a lifetime adventure, not just a sport for high school.
Climbing team or club – My kids don’t do this, but I have students who were in climbing clubs growing up, and they were an important way to spend time outside.
Nature club – If your area has nature clubs, this can be a great choice.
1000 Hours Outside group – the 1000 Hours Outside challenge (to spend 1000 hours outside in a calendar year) has sparked communities of like-minded families who are trying to spend more time in nature.
Homeschool group – Wild and Free has groups all over the country for homeschooling mothers and their children. There are other, less formal, groups that exist as well. We are part of a homeschool group that isn’t explicitly outdoorsy, but the kids spend a lot of time outdoors when the weather is good.
Participating with Other Kids at Activities
Our kids race in community mountain bike and cyclocross races that have juniors divisions. They get to hang out with other kids at those. Over time, they have made friends with the other local racer kids.
Set Up Device-free Time
Keep devices away from everyone so you encourage family time. If you want a camera and don’t have a separate camera, put the phone for camera use in airplane mode.
Find Outdoor Classes
Check out outdoor classes that may be good for them; our TMM post on Outdoor Education Courses for Kids and Families has a bunch options. My son and I recently took Wilderness First Aid together, and we had a great time. There was another teenager in the course, so he didn’t even hang out with me much. My daughter came and was a patient for one of the big scenarios.
Consider Summer Camps
Some summer camps are really expensive, but do a lot of big trips. Others are more basic, but still get kids outside. Scout camps are WAY more affordable than other camps, and girl scout camps don’t require that you go with your troop, which makes it really accessible. We are a big fan of tech-free sleep-away camp for a range of reasons, including quality time spent outside with other kids.
Just Getting Started
What if you waited to start adventures until the kids … were potty trained? Could carry a pack? Could hike longer than 1 mile (faster than ½ mile/hour)? Slept through the night? Weren’t so whiny? Whatever the reason, you are now at the point where your kid is older than many of our how to posts (Camping and Backpacking for Families, Canoe Camping with Kids, Water Adventures). How do you get started?
First off, start with looking at some of those posts for younger kids. I know your kids are older, but they still need to learn to carry a pack without freaking out and some of the same basic principles still apply.
Here are some tips to keep in mind:
Start small! Don’t assume that just because your child is older, they can do a 15 mile day hike. You want them to enjoy themselves!
Try a wide range of activities. Your kid may really hate hiking, but love cross-country skiing. Cliff jumping might not be for them, but they are excited about snorkeling. You won’t know unless you try many, many different activities.
Don’t take “no” for an answer until they have tried something a few times. Be sure that they have really experienced the activity more than once before you move on to something else. You can try a variety at once, but circle back periodically to test the waters again on the thing they were lukewarm (or worse) about the first time.
Make food exciting or special in some way. We carry a lot of candy (pocket candy). When a kid starts dragging, we will say, “Oooh, I see a chocolate rock (or tree or log or whatever) around the next corner. Let’s go see what it looks like.” Then we give them candy when they get there.
Have ideas to keep them entertained on the trail. I’ve checked out joke books to the kindle app on my phone for real bad situations. Lists of conversation questions or conversation starter cards can be nice. My daughter really drags when she focuses on what we’re doing, but if she’s distracted, she can hike for hours. She has a few different ongoing fantasy worlds. We’re not sure the exact rules of which one gets pulled out when, but we can reliably engage her (and stop the whining) if we ask her about what is happening in one of these worlds. They are pretty weird – tiny, multicolored, shapeshifting chickens are often apparently dancing on my mountain bike helmet – but they keep her entertained.
Be sure to bring ideas for camp. Same as the trail – bring something to do. Usually I have a read aloud for the family, and we really like to play Farkle. It’s a silly dice game, but we have found that dice work better than cards when we’re in the woods. They can’t blow away!
Keep the kids involved even if they don’t know what to do. Teach skills as a way to engage them. Scouts is great at assigning tasks to different kids, rotating those tasks, and teaching everyone skills. You can do this with your family as well.
You’ve Been Adventuring All Along
If you’ve been doing fun and adventurous trips with your kids since they were really little (or maybe even babies), you run the risk of them deciding that the same stuff you’ve always done is a little boring. Obviously, this isn’t ideal. How do you keep them engaged without continually upping the ante (and danger!). I’ve been thinking about this a lot as my kids are expert skiers and have already skied chutes at ski areas out west. We ran into Jeremy Jones (from Protect Our Winters) at Hermit Lake Shelters on Mount Washington, and I kind of asked him about this (in a roundabout way). He said his kids love jumping off big cliffs on skis. Yikes!
Some Ideas:
Get kids involved in all stages of planning. We are preparing for a Long Trail thru hike. I’ve printed out a list of shelters and camp spots, plus road crossings, and my kids will be in charge of planning our days. They also will plan our food, and help me dry it all. When we have shorter camping trips, I’ll sometimes put each kid in charge of all food for 24 hours. They make the menu, help with the shopping, then cook those meals.
Get them involved on the trip – they can lead for periods of time, be in charge of meals/water/tents at a campsite. You can start small as they get used to taking on more roles.
Try to do different activities, even if you are a little skeptical – we took ours for a snow campout we got to on skis at Hermit Lake Shelters (even though we both hate snow camping). Our kids loved it! While my husband and I remember the cold, and that we forgot that canister stoves don’t like the cold, the kids remember how cool it was that we went snow camping (and met Jeremy Jones, one of the founders of Protect Our Winters).
Teach new skills – can they start to lead climb? Learn orienteering? Cook on a fire? Identify birds/plants? Learn to ski moguls or steeper runs? You can learn also. I bought a PSIA handbook for teaching kids to ski, and use that to learn drills to assign them. I do them as well, and so I’m improving on my skiing. Last summer, we decided they could learn to lead climb. Each kid mock led a few easy routes a Rumney, then we put them on a 5.0. Not a typical lead (even for a beginner), but it got them started on leading.
Push yourself – we are doing a stupidly hard mountain bike race this coming fall. In prep, we’ll do gravel races, which we haven’t really done before. We will also do some endurance races that are more local. This is pushing adults and kids in our family.
Go different places – The same type of trip can feel really different if it’s a different place. Maybe you go to a slightly further away place for your training ride or take a different route.
Gear for Older Kids
It can be challenging to find gear that fits your rapidly growing kids but not totally break the bank or have junky gear. We have been struggling as they outgrow our favorite kid brands but aren’t really adult sized and shaped yet. Especially true for girls as they stop growing younger, but are shaped in between child and adult. Some ideas:
Check out used adult gear in small sizes – REI outlet, ebay, the facebook backcountry hand me down group. I’m lucky that my mom saves all sorts of used outdoors gear in two big tubs (“waist up” and “waist down”), so I regularly send the kids “shopping” in the bins to see if there is anything that will fit. You can do the same in a gear swap, used gear store, or even goodwill.
Look at a range of brands, including some unexpected ones (we got great long underwear from Uniqlo, and it was super affordable).
See if any of your old gear will do. I am ok with my son getting slightly wet in the butt from my retired rain pants since he’ll grow through them in under six months at the rate he’s growing; both kids are using my old ski mittens as “play” mittens this year.
Don’t be afraid to size up as needed, especially with safety gear (we’ve had to get new helmets and new climbing harnesses this year). We are also aware that our daughter is not likely to grow taller than our son currently is, so spending a bit more on skis for him that she can use for a long time is fine. We got hand me down plate touring bindings for them (super adjustable!), so she’ll fit in them even with her likely-to-remain-smaller feet. Similarly, she’s getting a new bike now that she’ll fit in the adult size that she will likely never outgrow. If she does outgrow it, we’ll sell it, but she’s at the small end, so probably ok.
Buy a little too large if it will end ok. For example, rain mittens are ok a little big, so everyone got adult sizes when we ordered them.
Borrow. We are borrowing a frame pack from relative with small kids since she won’t use it this year so that we don’t have to buy our son a small adult pack before we know if he’ll need a large size eventually.
Conclusion
Just because you have older kids, doesn’t mean you can’t adventure with them. You can adventure with them whether you have ever done outdoorsy stuff before or not. It’s a great way to spend time in nature, away from technology.
Related articles
- Canoe Camping
- Backpacking Food Ideas for Families
- Rock Climbing for Kids
- Adventure Packing Lists for Families
- Cultivating Screen Free Habits in Your Family
Adventures with Older Kids: Getting Started or Keeping Things Interesting
© 2026, Tales of a Mountain Mama. All rights reserved. Republication, in part or entirety, requires a link back to this original post and permission from the author.