7 Great Ways to Spend More Time Outdoors as a Family

Being occupied with work, school, and activities means families often don’t spend enough quality time together, especially outdoors.

However, regularly enjoying the great outdoors provides substantial health benefits, promotes stronger family bonds, and creates lasting positive memories.

If you want to increase your family time in nature, here are seven fun ideas to try.

1. Go on Regular Neighborhood Walks

Simply going for regular family walks around your neighborhood can work wonders.

Bring the dog if you have one for added fun.

Let younger kids bring a tricycle or scooter if they get tired of walking.

This promotes exercise, provides relaxing wind-down time after school or work, and gives you all a chance to truly talk and catch up with each other.

2. Do Outdoor Backyard Camping

Let your kids invite a couple of friends over and camp out together in tents in your backyard.

Sit around a fire pit making s’mores, tell scary stories, and curl up in sleeping bags gazing at the stars.

This creates lasting childhood memories, helps kids overcome fears of the dark, and doesn’t require extensive equipment or travel.

In the morning, make a fun family breakfast over the backyard campfire. 

3. Visit Local Parks

Find new playgrounds, splash pads, trails, sports fields and courts, picnic areas, and shady spots to read in local community parks.

Take balls, frisbees, kites, bicycles, or other outdoor toys and games to play with as a family.

Pack a lunch or snacks to fuel your adventures.

Parks provide free, local venues for activity and exploration.

Discover a new nearby park every weekend.

4. Plan Active Family Vacations

Make your family vacations active outdoor adventures rather than passive relaxation times.

Try new experiences like kayaking, horseback riding, ziplining, rock climbing, or surfing lessons.

Plan destination hikes in beautiful natural areas. Sign up for sightseeing bike tours, snorkeling trips, or Segway rides.

Playing adventurers together strengthens family relationships while showing kids new places and exciting activities.

5. Get the Whole Family into Golfing

While golf may seem too advanced for young kids, many courses now offer junior tees, kids clubs, and youth lessons to get children started early.

Ride together in a fun golf cart kitted out with accessories from Golf Cart Tire Supply, and help the little ones putt and tee off on just a couple holes at first.

As their skills advance over years of playing as a hobby, kids gain confidence while the whole family enjoys time chatting amid lovely, landscaped greenery. 

6. Volunteer at an Outdoor Charity Event

Spending time together as a family volunteering to help others connects kids to important values like compassion and service at a young age.

Participate as a family team at walk-a-thon fundraisers, fun-run races supporting causes, earth or stream clean-up days, animal adoption fairs at the local shelter, or area beautification landscaping days at parks, schools, or community gardens.

Giving time rather than money teaches lasting lessons.

7. Have Family Gardening Time

Gardening together teaches kids where food comes from while everyone gets fresh air and exercise.

Let each child have their own little garden plot to plant flowers or easy vegetables like tomatoes and zucchini.

Nurture seedlings into sprouts in an indoor greenhouse for transplanting outdoors later.

Compost kitchen scraps for future fertilizer. Weed, mulch pathways with wood chips, and harvest crops together. Then cook homegrown produce into healthy family meals.

Gardening builds knowledge, responsibility, nutrition awareness, and family bonding.

Making outdoor family adventures a regular habit benefits everyone physically, emotionally, and relationally.

The key is deciding as a team which new open-air activities to experiment with each season.

Consult the kids to discover experiences that truly spark their interest too.

By prioritizing more hours spent actively enjoying fresh air together, families play, talk, create memories, and deepen bonds toward lasting closeness.

Photo credits

Photo by Alberto Casetta on Unsplash

Photo by Daiga Ellaby on Unsplash