I grew up exploring the beautiful temperate rainforest on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state.

As a kid my family’s chosen form of vacation was camping. I loved it. I was born a nature lover, so being outside all day was perfect. Back then the national and state forest had dozens of programs that were offered at campgrounds, as well as nature hikes, and other “educational” offerings.

I never once thought about the fact that I was learning something while I was on vacation. It was done in such a non-threatening way that I just soaked it up. I can remember the first time a ranger showed us a banana slug. Most people would immediately think yuck. But it was a beautiful, huge, bright yellow with black spots slug. Because it was big you could really get a good look at it and it was quite an amazing creature. I was introduced to all the flora and fauna of the region and got very good at identifying wildflowers, and different understory plants, such as ferns. Sometimes the walks would be environmental in nature and we would learn how to take better care of the planet (even back then rangers were with it). At night there were sing-alongs, sometimes with a movie or film strip (remember those?) about things that the ranger might not be able to show us, such as volcano eruptions, or animals that are too shy to be seen by a large group of people on a hike.

You can make any trip educational. We carried bird and wildflower identification books, art supplies, and snacks that squirrels, chipmunks, and deer liked. You can visit museums; history, art and science. You can go to visitor centers at different parks and sites. You might want to visit an animal sanctuary, maybe even volunteering to help out. You could travel to do relief work someplace where you could also have some new and exciting experiences.

No matter where you go there are always opportunities for your children to learn and making it fun will make it that much more memorable and life changing. I’m now a huge environmental advocate and live as green a life as I can, because I learned to love the natural planet when I was a child. People wonder why, as an over 50 citizen I care about the planet, why I carry my own reusable shopping bags, recycle everything in site, compost all my scraps (even when the pile looks ugly for my neighbors), only go into town once a week for errands, etc. I don’t even have any kids to be concerned about, but I do it because I learned in a very natural way that the planet is living ecosystem and it is like committing murder to do anything else.