This might be a stupid question, but I grew up very insular and indoors-y.
My son is 2.5 now and I want to start taking him for camping trips and fun holidays exploring the great wide world etc. I never really did this when I was young, I was always very bookish and didn’t spend a great deal of time outdoors so I’m not really sure where to begin.
Is there anyone on here that grew up as an indoor kid that branched out into becoming a capable outdoorsman?
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Start by being an incapable outdoorsman. If you have a backyard, pitch your tent there, spend the night, and learn from what went wrong.
See if there‘s a Beavers/Cubs/Scouts troop near you and consider joining as a leader. They’ll train you to train the kids.
If you have a backyard, I’d start there first. Just in case you have to bail you don’t have to go far. Next I’d try a campground with the amenities ie bathrooms and showers. Once you’ve gotten comfortable there you can maybe do some back country car camping. Again once you’re comfortable with that, you can move on to maybe backpacking. There’s more extreme camping past that by idk if you want to go that far. Good luck and you’re doing a good thing by introducing your kids to the outdoors
Go for a walk. See how far you get. Are you cold or thirsty, fix that, get gear. Go slow and be patient. Little feet dont travel far, lots of shoulder rides. Spend lots of time looking down sewers and playing with firehydrants. Little people are naturally curious, answer questions, if you dont know = homework. A pack of bubblegum or Smarties really keep kids motivated. Adventures are what you see and find. I look for points of interest on my drive. A ditch. A gulley, a hill, town square. Adventures are what you make of it “Do you want to see the crazy creek”!? Enthusiasm is a drug for kids and patience is the fuel. Everything is leveling up from there, tent in the backyard. Hiking down a forest trail. Fishing from shore.
Join the Boy Scouts. volunteer to be a scout leader and go with him. Or if you are not into joining the boy scouts , its still worth reading the book/manual.
If you have never gone camping before you should start doing day trips and going on nature walks and hiking. Then graduate to trying drive in campsite weekend camping trips. After a few of these weekends you will quickly learn what gear you need and how to use it. As you become more confident with your camping skills you can take longer trips or more roughing it style camping where you canoe or hike to remote camping spots and carry only what will fit in your pack, the bare essentials. But in the beginning because you have never done it before and you want to take a toddler, start small and work your way to what you are imagining.
Spending time out doors is great. I take my kids on nature hikes/walks throughout most of the year in various weather conditions and we try to make it out camping a few times a season.
Start with the backyard lol. Treat it like a campsite.. See how many times you go back into the house that first time because something was forgotten, or needed.
Just get the idea of what to expect, what it is like, what you need, etc..
Fishing? Watch youtube videos on how to string a line and prep for fishing, go practice by yourself once or twice, bang bang you’re an expert to junior.
It is nothing crazy, but you just learn the various nuances as you do it. Hard to explain haha.. I was also city but have in-laws/wife that is boonies.. This has been helpful to me I admit lol
I grew up very indoorsy. My parents took me on camping trips, I brought the CRT TV and snes with me (we were staying at powered campgrounds).
That being said, I love going camping and adventuring to unknown/unexplored places now, and completely disconnecting from the world. I also have a kid on the way and share this desire in a few years when my boy is walking and talking.
I have exactly 0 experience with the kid aspect. But adventuring in general… there’s an easy checklist.
There’s an untold number of things you can add to that list that will improve your quality of life, you could spend like a hundred bucks and get all the bare essentials, meanwhile some people spend many thousands on their camp setup. The reality is if you’ve not done much adventuring it’s hard to prioritise. If I were in your position I would start with the bare essentials and go somewhere not too far away, near a beach or lake or some kind of waterway if possible, ideally when the weather’s nice, go for a weekend, have a swim, hike around, see how it goes.
If you’re starting in the backyard as some have suggested, take note of what you’re eating and how you’re preparing it, keeping in mind anything you have to duck back to the house for is stuff you’ll have to bring with you.
Also consider what you’re going to do while you’re out to make it fun! Bushwalks / hikes are a favourite activity of mine, and just sightseeing in general. I like to plan my destinations around some attraction – national park or some man made attraction. Find out what’s at the place and how you’ll go about enjoying that attraction. Will you have to walk a long way? Is that feasible with the youngster? I’m not super into fishing or hunting personally but those are a whole other hobby that may appeal to you/the kid(s).
Anyway that’s my 2 bobs worth. I’ve been 4wd/car camping/adventuring (or “overlanding” as the Americans seem to call it) since I got my drivers license so ama
I bought a backpack to carry my daughter when she was smaller. Took her all over the woods from 6 months to 3 years old. Then she got to the point where she didn’t want to be in it, but didn’t want to walk. Now she is 5 and ready to walk, but she still needs some shoulder rides. When she stopped going in the pack, I started rucking to keep at that level, though. I’m planning a lot of adventures this summer.
Most of the time we don’t go anywhere special, just the woods around our house. It’s nothing exciting, but there are plenty of things to explore for a young mind.
Look for your local public lands.
If you are in the United States, these are typically National forests, national parks, state parks, and state forests.
Get brochures or maps about some of these public lands near you. Find out if they have trails and find out if they have campgrounds. Pick a short trail to walk. Look for one that goes to a waterfall or a mountain or something interesting.
Go car camping. Buy a tent and some other basics and try out that campground for a single night. What doesn’t work well? What do you need to do differently next time? Make small improvements until you’re comfortable.
I just Google things, search reddit, etc
Like “fun things to do” around me
Or my SOs social media skills find something trending
I have absolutely no idea
this is my wife’s personality and I’m glad she was able to provide that for our son because I sure as hell couldn’t
Go car camping on a camp site. Sleep in a tent, make breakfast on a gas burner, hike a trail.
The problem with starting in the back yard is it’s much too easy to go indoors.
Start small , backyard overnight . Get a good size tent and make sure you can secure access in/out with a young one
They say an adventure is something you don’t enjoy when it’s happening…
Na, I’ve always been outdoors.
The other day I was riding my bike down a trail when I saw a small path offshoot down to a creek. I ride my bike down it and at the end was a nice hole filled with creek chubs. The next day I took my kids down there with their fishing poles. They caught a couple fish, then they wanted to play in the water.
I enjoy exploring
Microadventures for the win! Start off with a hike. Then add a bird book and identify birds on the next hike and look for a spot off trail to rest. Then, add a nice snack break and tie your daypack to a tree with some knots you learn, then, if you are up for investing anyway, bring along a small camp stove and pot and make hot cocoa while you are out there. Then, add in some ‘just add water’ hot snacks like Mac and cheese in a cup.
Before you know it you’ll be like me and mid 40’s with pre teens, walking to the middle of the woods in the winter on a Saturday with buddies and their kids to build a fire and campfire cook a 4 course meal just to get out of the house and watch the kids get to be feral for once.
Its incredibly easy. Everyone making it sound massive.
-Go to anaconda (camping shop) by the cheapest 3 person tent and an esky.
-ask around on social media or google for some nice free camping spots within 2 hours.
-go there friday afternoon
-set up your tent, (fill it with thick blankets and sleeping bags and a pillow each)
-make a little fire pit with some rocks or dig a very shallow hole about 2ft wide
-paper, twigs, once its burning out the next size sticks on, and keep going up a size until you got a good fire.
-couple big branches on each side of the fire, pop your fry pan on, cook away, sausages, burgers, eggs, that kinda stuff
-go to bed,
-wake up in the morning, find some sticks, get the fire up again, cook some eggs and bacon, kick back and enjoy
-rinse and repeat aslong as you want or until the eskies empty.
Scouts helped me get confidence in being an outdoorsman. I’d done some, I wasn’t entirely naive, but I didn’t have the scout experience growing up, so I kind of learned with my boy.
I did do some camping when they were younger, but I always wanted a car nearby, or an easy out.
Camping is about doing without. Like a nice bed. Or hot food. etc. You need water, food, warmth to live. Break it down to those elements. I’m a bit more minimalist, like it seems silly to try to recreate my house in some parking spot in the woods. You don’t have to be 100 miles from anywhere to have a good time. That place that’s a 20 minute ride from a gas station with snacks etc. is fine. If you really want a whole house type experience, cabin rentals are a thing and might be cheaper than an RV.
Age 2.5, the adventure doesn’t have to be that grand. Starting at that age, I made a tour of every park in the city. That age, and a little beyond, some of the best memories of road trips were stopping at random parks in random cities. A pool in a cheap hotel does the trick just as much as the main attraction of the trip.
Younger kids, things like a children’s museum, amusement park, zoo etc were more of the order of the day. Keep the stuff age appropriate. A hike is great, but a toddler has limited patience for that, and pushing too hard or going to far is going to make it not fun for both of you.
At age 2.5 I got a bike stroller trailer deal, and started having little adventures with that then graduated to them riding their own bikes etc.
I carry a murse or a “kids be quiet bag” like a little backpack with a water bottle, granola bars, and candy, such that hangry is easily resolvable, along with stuff like band-aids etc. We could pretty much survive a day or two off that, and it is a daily carry, so I’m never caught out on little adventures. That gives a bit more confidence leaving for an adventure, that with that, yeah, we’ll be ok and it is always packed and ready to go, restocked when needed.
Improve in increments
Start by hiking a couple hours then progressing little by little until you figure out what you enjoy
Starting slow will help your bank account also it’s expensive to adventure
I didn’t grow up hiking and camping, but now I’m pretty good at it because my wife likes those things and it turns out I like them too.
The way to become a capable outdoorsman is to do it. No one is born knowing how to start a fire but some people learn it when they’re young and some don’t. You’ll pick it up a lot faster than a kid would, so you have that going for you, but you still need to go through the learning process.
Just be sure to have fun! No one enjoys a trip full of worry and frustration. It’s ok not to have the skills, you can account for that by choosing the right adventures (maybe hold off on backpacking for now) and bringing the right gear. Be sure to focus on fun and learning and you’ll have a great time.
It’s just deciding to do something and going and doing it, and getting more comfortable with it over time.
Taking a kid and going outside is probably one of the easiest chillest things one can do without practice.
Just drive to a state park for a day trip. Decide what you’ll want with you and throw it in the car. A cooler, camp stove and stuff to cook. Or find the public grill/picnic area and grill. Bring a water toy and throw it in the water. Go on a hike. Kid’s 2 years old, his level of hike is probably a half mile along a creek or something it’s not like you need to pack survival gear. Then you know what you like to have on a park day, do the same thing but bring a tent, pad, bags, pillows and firewood and book a campsite (fire dead out [cold] before sleep). You don’t need a campsite but it might make it feel a bit easier to start to have a table and toilet nearby. Or just go to public land and camp there. You don’t really need skill, just do the classic old “parent opens the new tent and fumbles around for a while but eventually gets it set up”.
I’m not outdoorsy but my parents were very much hands off to put it politely.
Scouts is a great way to learn those skills.
Taking hikes in the woods is fun , you can grab some field guides and just got for a long walk and identify birds/bugs/plants.
My biggest tip is routine. With my daughters, I know I wouldn’t keep them in sports if I didn’t sign them up for regular classes. I was never a sports kid. But they go every Saturday to play for a few weeks at a time. I also sign up for passes to like a swim place or for a trampoline park. Just shit to get out off the house and keep moving. If I have a financial commitment attached to it, I’m going.
Start small, start local, buy gear incrementally as you need it.