About us
As with many families, both my wife and I work full time jobs. This leaves little quality time to spend together as a family.
We were looking for something that could be spontaneous, inexpensive, and adventuresome.
I bought everyone in the family their own backpack for Christmas. I went to the bookstore and found a couple of books that outlined fun things for families to do. I put them all in a tote labeled Family Adventure Packs and wrapped them up for Christmas.
The packs I wanted were large enough to hold one change of clothes, but small enough that the pack would be functional where ever we went. One thing that was very important to me was to have loops on the front of the pack to put key chains, as memories from the places we went.
Needless to say, my wife was a little surprised when the kids opened the package at Christmas. She asked "are we going on a trip?"
I explained to her my idea:
- Everyone in the family has their own backpack for clothes, snacks, games, personal needs, etc.
- Everything we take needs to fit in the backpack. This allows you to be spontaneous, and as all of you know, the less "stuff" that you haul around with children the better.
- Overnight and day trips are ideal.
- Adventures should not be extravagant or expensive.
- Your adventures should be to places you have never been, and may not have ever thought to go. Guide books, and hopefully this site, will help tremendously with this.
- Everyone in the family has input as to where you go.
- Tough decisions can be settled by flipping a coin or rolling dice.
- Make sure to bring a camera to take lots of pictures.
- And most important, enjoy the time you spend together
We launched this web site as a place for families to share ideas and experiences.
I encourage all of you to put together Family Adventure Packs of your own.
Have fun, and experience the world together.
The inspiration behind Family Adventure Packs came at Christmas 2008. My wife was already planning a trip to Northern Arizona to take the kids on the Polar Express. This is a train ride with the Grand Canyon Railway from Williams, AZ to the north pole. This is set in the spirit of The Polar Expresstm by Chris Van Allsburg.
Both my wife and I are also big fans of The Amazing Race on CBS. Initially I started looking for an Amazing race t-shirt or hat for my wife for Christmas.
That's when it hit me. Why not have family adventures with just what we could fit in a backpack?
