Family Camping
PLAY. PHOTO: DAVE QUINN
EXPLORE. PHOTO: DAVE QUINN
REPEAT. PHOTO: DAVE QUINN
EXTREME FAMILY VACATIONS WHY TODAY’S PARENTS ARE TACKLING BUCKET-LIST ADVENTURES WITH TODDLERS IN TOW
Forget Disney—how about llama trekking instead? Adventure tourism isn’t just the domain of wilderness travelers and
backpacking vagabonds anymore. Today’s parents are taking their children on adventurous trips all over the world in greater numbers than ever before. The children of Generation Y will be the best-trav- eled youngsters in history. Whether it’s a week kayaking the coast, a month canoeing the
backcountry or a season spent cycling across Patagonia, the trend is the same—today’s parents are unwilling to put their passions on hold until their kids grow up. “The family outdoor industry is booming because the people
who grew up in the ‘70s and ‘80s with the advent of backpacking, mountain biking, rock climbing and other adventure sports now have kids they want to bring along on their outdoor pursuits,” says Scott Graham, author of Extreme Kids: How To Connect With Your Chil- dren Through Today’s Extreme (and Not So Extreme) Sports. His fam- ily floated their first multi-day rafting trip when the kids were just toddlers and by age six the kids were paddling their own kayaks on multi-day trips. The rewards are worth the extra work it takes to plan a trip that in- cludes little ones. “Family closeness and a shared appreciation for the natural world are the benefits of family adventure travel—it’s espe- cially important when so many electronic-gadget-addicted children and parents are losing touch,” Graham adds. “Traveling with kids brings great rewards,” agrees Dan Clark, a fa-
ther at the leading edge of this trend. Creators of award-winning flick Have Kids, Will Paddle, the Clark family canoed 2,000 miles to reach the Arctic Ocean in 2012. The film inspired many families to get outside on trips of their own, albeit usually shorter ones (read about the Clarks’ adventure at
www.rapidmedia.com/0237). This summer, Clark, wife Alice, Kobi, 6, and Ava Fei, 4, are cycling 3,000 miles from southern Chile to northern Argentina, crossing wind- swept pampas and the jagged Andes mountain range.
38 | Canoeroots
“One thing I really enjoy about the pace of self-propelled travel is the opportunity to see something on the horizon, chat about it, look at it and then talk about it after,” explains Clark. “Kids can be part of that in a canoe or on a bike, but it goes by too fast in a car. We notice so many things in our travels that we would miss in a car. We met one car-bound family in southern Chile who had yet to see a condor. Kobi heard this and was surprised because we had seen at least one every day that week.” Along the way the Clarks have met like-minded families, including a Ger- man family who started their cycling journey in Alaska, about 17,000 road miles away. Clark hopes their family adventures help his kids develop goal setting skills, tolerance for adversity and an interest in exploring the world. Some may consider an international journey with kids risky, “but most of those risks can be minimized with planning, a conservative approach and listening to the kids along the way,” Clark adds. Graham agrees: “There’s growing recognition that the most danger- ous thing we can do to our kids is allow them to become couch pota- toes. The current generation of American children is the first ever that may have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. That’s alarming, and something a growing cadre of parents are recognizing and work- ing to forestall by making sure their children are active.” Author, TV personality and veteran traveler Bruce Kirkby spent this summer on a three-and-a-half month journey to Ladakh, India, with his wife Christine, and children, Bodie, 6, and Taj, 4. To get there they traveled from British Columbia by canoe, container ship, train, jeep and by foot—no planes allowed. “For us, these trips are all about exposing our kids to the beauty and
diversity of the planet,” explains Kirkby. “Traveling is what Christine and I truly value—open-minded explo-
ration of the world’s wildest places and cultures. It is what we live to do, so it would make no sense not to involve our kids,” he adds. Brian McCutcheon, founder of ROAM Adventures Inc., runs adven- ture travel trips all over the planet, from week-long, laid-back paddling
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