Wouldn’t it be great if you could take the whole family to visit our beautiful National Park system and collection of National Historic Sites for free? Well if you have a 4th Grader, you can thanks to a great program from the United States Park Service called Every Kid in a Park.
A couple years ago on a whim, we rented a pop-up camper and spent a long weekend in one of Indiana’s great State Parks. It was hands down the best family activity we’ve done in a long time. We ditched the kids’ electronic devices, cell service for the adults was terrible, and made some great memories and stories along the way. Like when our campsite was raided by a multi-species gang of scavengers…. Yes, you read that right. A gang composed of one skunk and 3 raccoons came after our S’mores. The skunk moved in first and cleared us out. The reward for this was getting to pick what he wanted, then the raccoons followed behind and took the leftovers. Smart animals!
Since then we have rented several times from our friends at Touchdown RV here in Indianapolis, until we finally made the call to buy our new-to-us camper. For this coming camping season we are planning to explore some of our great National Parks, with free admission for the whole family thanks to our current 4th Grader!
How Every Kid in a Park works:
- Visit everykidinapark.gov and sign up your 4th grader.
- Print your pass with it’s unique code.
- Present it when you arrive at the entrance gate of any National Park, and they will provide you a park pass valid for your 4th grader, all their siblings under 16, and up to 3 people over the age of 16! it’s just that easy!
Hope you take the opportunity to make some memories like us!
