Upper Geyser Basin

A young teenage girl descending from the Fenetre d’Arpette on the Tour du Mont Blanc in Switzerland.

The 10 Best Family Outdoor Adventure Trips

By Michael Lanza

As a parent of two young adults who’s taken them outdoors since before they can remember, I’ll share with you the biggest and in some ways most surprising lesson I’ve learned from these trips: Our outdoor adventures have been the best times we’ve had together as a family—and not just because the places are so special. The greatest benefit of these trips is that they have given us innumerable days with only each other and nature for entertainment—no electronic devices or other distractions that construct virtual walls within families in everyday life.

For my family, our experiences together outdoors make up most of our richest and favorite memories. They have brought us closer together.

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A young girl hiking in Sequoia National Park.

12 Wonderful National Park Adventures to Take With Kids

By Michael Lanza

America’s 63 national parks preserve over 52 million acres of uniquely beautiful and genuinely awe-inspiring places in nature, and the payoff for our country’s foresight in protecting them is a lifetime’s worth of unforgettable experiences—many of them entirely feasible, safe, and really fun for families with kids of all ages. Best of all, you’ll find that sharing these adventures will create your best times together as a family, as they have for mine.

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Lower Yellowstone Falls in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River, Yellowstone National Park.

The 10 Best Hikes in Yellowstone

By Michael Lanza

Yellowstone National Park is a place where the earth comes alive, with more than 10,000 hydrothermal features and 500 active geysers—that’s more than half the world’s geysers—as well as 290 waterfalls, not to mention having some of the greatest diversity of wildlife remaining in the contiguous United States. America’s first national park is also famously busy, drawing between three and four million visitors a year. Thankfully, most of those visitors never wander far from the roads, which means that hiking provides one of the best and quietest ways to explore Yellowstone.

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Hikers at Grand Prismatic Spring in the Midway Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park.

The Ultimate Family Tour of Yellowstone

By Michael Lanza

Every American should see Yellowstone—and not just for the historical significance of it being the world’s first national park. Few places in the United States still host the range of wildlife thriving in Yellowstone: You are likely to see numerous bison and elk, bald eagles, osprey, possibly wolves, maybe black and grizzly bears (usually from a distance), and trumpeter swans among the park’s 285 species of birds. With more than 10,000 thermal features including hot springs and more than half the planet’s geysers, and nearly 300 waterfalls, it often feels like the park is putting on a live performance.

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A hiker watching sunrise at Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone National Park.

Why Everyone Should Visit Yellowstone

By Michael Lanza

When I think about Yellowstone National Park, I recall seeing a wolf pack suddenly appear on a skyline ridge high above me and begin howling at the vast, impervious sky; and another wolf pack, on a bitterly cold winter day, descend at full speed upon an elk herd, spurring the entire herd to dash off, moving in unison as if it were one organism. Thinking about Yellowstone conjures mental images of Lower Yellowstone Falls pouring thunderously into the colorful magnificence of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River, a sight I’ve witnessed both in summer and half frozen in the depths of winter.

I remember smiling at the reactions of my young kids to geysers erupting in the Upper Geyser Basin, or whistling fumaroles in the Lower Geyser Basin, or the kaleidoscopic surface of Grand Prismatic Spring in the Midway Geyser Basin. I vividly recall watching a black bear sow with cubs in tow shuffle across a meadow at dusk; hearing the nasal shriek of an elk bugling as I stood on a boardwalk in the steam of Mammoth Hot Springs at dawn on a chilly autumn morning (lead photo, above); and many times seeing hundreds of bison quietly grazing a grassy valley.

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