Basically any National Park you choose to hike with your kids will be amazing. You just really can’t go wrong where National Parks are concerned. This being said, there are some parks that are more suited to hiking with the kiddos than others. Perhaps you’re wondering what exactly makes a National Park great for hiking with kids. Well, please read on to find out the 10 best National Parks to hike with kids.
Family vacations can get expensive, especially on the east coast. The following is a list of family and budget friendly places you should visit.
This museum is located on an air force base in Pensacola Florida. Due to it being an active military site there is some security to go through before getting inside. It is well worth it though. The museum is huge. You will see airplanes from all over the world and spanning through time. Also make sure to get on the trolley tour of the back lot, where you will see some of the planes they can’t fit inside the museum. Kids will love getting inside some of the planes, the best part is that it’s free.
The sta
te of Virginia contains much in the way of history, especially when it comes to the early beginnings of this country. They refer to three of the historic sites as the Historic Triangle. This triangle includes Jamestown, Colonial Williamsburg, and Yorktown. Both Jamestowne and Yorktown have two sites, one being the national park site, the other being a historical recreation. Of the two we only visited the national park sites for both. There is always so much to see and we only have so much time and money to go around. We really wanted to see Colonial Williamsburg though so we decided to buy the tickets and see the sites (you can walk around the town, shops, and eat in the restaurants without buying tickets). They were not cheap to buy, but we had a great time and felt it was definitely worth it at the end of the day.
We loved our visit to the USS Texas in Houston and when we saw the USS Wisconsin was on the ASTC museum list we were excited to visit it. Unfortunately there was just too much to see in what is known as the Historic Triangle and we ran out of time. Our first trip out of camp found us at the NASA Air and Space Museum in Hampton, VA. We had wanted to visit a space museum in Texas and in Florida, but they were pretty expensive and we had to pass on them. Since it was on the ASTC list we decided that it would be our first stop, especially when the weather report showed rain everywhere else in the area except in Hampton. Well it turned out to be a great day to be at the museum. I was really impressed by the Apollo 12 Capsule on display and yes it is the actual capsule that went to the moon! Everyone really enjoyed the flight simulators and now we know that landing a spaceship is exceptionally 
difficult to do. The plane simulator was cool because it had a dozen rows of seats plus the windows were hooked into the computer program, so they showed what the pilot was doing, making it more realistic. Of course the kids really liked the cockpit with the thousand switches and buttons you would expect in an airplane. During our visit we also went to Mars in a simulation and got to see the inflatable structures that NASA is designing to build habitats on the red planet. From the Wright Brothers Flyer to Rockets this museum had everything you could imagine about space and flight. After half a day of learning though we were getting hungry, so we walked over to the marina and had a picnic where we could look at the yachts and sailboats. Journey wants to go sailing after we visit every state in the country, but that is a long way off.
We
are heading north up the east coast and we plan to be in Maine sometime this summer, but we have a lot to see before we get there. This includes a few stops in the Virginia area where there is a lot to see. Richmond VA was one of our stops, it being the capital and all. Virginia has so much history involving the founding of this country and its early beginnings. We were looking forward to touring the capitol building in Richmond. There was also a science museum nearby that we wanted to check out. There is always an opportunity to learn something new at every place we go, but we love that it comes so easily when visiting museums and historical sites. We also get the added bonus of it being fun too!
