From Theme Parks to National Parks: How a Little Passport Changed Our Family Vacations

Growing up in New Hampshire , I never realized there were places so historically or naturally significant that our federal government would protect and financially support them for everyone to enjoy.

It wasn’t until I had my own daughters that I discovered the National Park System. The first park I brought them to was Minute Man National Historical Park in Concord, Massachusetts. We watched a great film that explained the significance of the site, and then, while browsing the gift shop, I spotted something that changed my life: a small passport book.

This book listed the national parks by region, with blank spaces waiting for date stamps from each visit. My daughters were about4 and 8 years old at the time. Like many families, we had already done the big-ticket kid trips:  Disney World, San Diego Zoo, and so on. They were fun but often expensive and not always that meaningful.

But this little passport book offered something different: a way to build vacations around places of history, nature and discovery.  Even better, so many of these sites were free to visit.

From that day forward, our family vacations shifted. Instead of starting with theme parks or commercial attractions, we began with the National Parks Passport and asked: Where can we explore next?