The
Relaxed
Home Schooler®
Mary Hood, Ph.D.
Hiking and Camping
with Children
On the trail, I meet challenges that I don’t run into in my daily life.
In 2011, while waiting in an airport o go to a conference in California, I picked up a small paperback book that lookedinteresting, called A Walk
in the Woods. It didn’t take long for me to
get hooked on the idea of hiking on the
Appalachian Trail.
Up to that point, I’d been an avid day hiker
in the state park near my house. Recently,
I’d started to get tired of going on the same
trail over and over. I found a women’s hiking
group on meetup.com, started gathering gear,
and embarked on a new hobby that quickly
took over and became a big part of my life.
As I went on a variety of day hikes and
overnighters, both on the AT and in other
state and national parks, I occasionally noticed families with young children out on
the trail. It saddened me that I hadn’t done
as much with my kids when they were that
age. Although we went for lots of walks, did
