Creating a Family Travel Guide

When Michael and I were in college we spent many weekends at the Red River Gorge, and even after we got married we still went camping pretty regularly.  But once we started having kids camping got a bit complicated, and we started staying in cabins and not tent camping as much as we used to "back in the day".  Now that the kids are getting older we've decided it's time to start tent camping again.  Last Fall we decided that we are going to take the kids to our favorite place to camp, the Red River Gorge at least once a year for a camping trip.  Read all about our first camping trip with all four kids in this post.

The Gorge is breathtakingly beautiful, and there are more paths, trails, and sites to see than one can count.  We have several trail guides for the Red River Gorge that we use when we go camping and hiking, but we decided to make our own family Guide Book for the Red River Gorge and Natural Bridge area for our future trips.  This book is something that we can continue to add to over the years, and take with us each year to remember the paths we hiked, the places we camped, and the sites we saw.  I'm hoping this book will end up being a family treasure as we add to it each year.

Here's a bit more about how we made our book:
I bought a simple (large) journal at Michael's Craft store, and printed out many pictures from our trips, along with labels to label each hike/page.  Then we decided how to organize the book.  We have sections for hikes we take, places we stay, and what we ate.  I started each page with a title and a few pictures, then we all write notes about the hike.  It was interesting to see what the kids had to say about our trip.  And I can't wait to add to this each year and see how it evolves as the kids get older!

Here are some pictures of our Red River Gorge Travel Guide:
**Click on photos to see larger versions of them.

For some of the pages I copied text from our official trail guide books, just so we could remember exactly which trail we took on each trip. 

Do you have a place your family likes to travel to on a regular basis?  Or perhaps you take a different road trip or vacation each year?  You should consider making a family travel guide with your kids, it's a great learning experience!

And if you are looking for things to cook on your camping trip see this Menu Planning Post