For Christmas 2017, we decided to forego all of the trinkets and small gifts, and made one big gift for the family – the gift of travel. On Christmas Day, we revealed to the kids our intent to bring them on a Spring Break trip to visit several National Parks out West. It is hard to say whether they were more excited for the opportunity to see the parks or to fly for the first time!
If you are not familiar with the National Parks’ Every Kid in a Park Program, it allows Fourth Graders and their families to gain entrance (at no charge) to any National Park (including National Monuments, Recreation Areas, and other Landmarks that are managed by the National Park Service). Check out the official NPS “Every Kid In A Park” website for more information or to get your Fourth Grader’s application approved.
Once we had the approval printed, we needed to go to a National Park office to get our pass. We chose to go to Cuyahoga Valley National Park because it is only a 45 minute drive from us.
The Fourth Grade pass is free, but we wound up spending some money in the gift shop anyway. We saw the National Park “Passport” books and thought that would be a wonderful way to document our travels. We purchased the large one for the family and one of the smaller Passport journals for each of the kids.
