Category: Travel

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Airstream Accessories Giveaways Outdoor Adventures Outdoor Gear

The Currently Wandering Holiday Gift Guide

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We seriously own 90% of this gear, and the other 10% we would own if we could fit it in our Airstream (ahem! Vacilando quilt!).  This post contains Amazon & REI affiliate links which help to fund the blog in a small, small way. Thanks for helping us out by clicking through to shop!

Now that Thanksgiving is over we get to celebrate Christmas!! I love this time of year, and amid all the presents, the lights and everything else we try to concentrate on spending time together as a family. While we are big on experiences (not presents) for Christmas and birthdays we do have our favorite gear to help facilitate our adventures. We have very little space to store things, so we make sure they are our favorites. If you are looking for the perfect gift for a child, for family time, outdoor adventure, the adventure mom, or even a traveler, read on!

Gifts For Kids
1. REI Sahara Convertible Pants – My kids wear these EVERYWHERE. Hiking, mountain biking, or just playing. Great because if they get too hot they can stash the legs in their pockets.

2. Drawstring Backpack from Mamoo Kids – Super comfortable, great adventure bag! Stash their nature journal, a pen, a water bottle, and some sunglasses and head out to explore.

3. Nite Ize Bug Lite – We have three of these (one for each!) and they make fantastic backcountry night lights. They also wrap around hiking poles or wrists for exploring in caves. Just sayin’….

4. Woom Bike – I’m not sure I can express how much we LOVE our Woom. So much that the older two kids are begging for one. Full review here.

5. My USA Adventures Map – I can’t think of a more adorable way to keep track of your adventures. A 12×18 map of the USA comes with 16 stickers to highlight your trips. They also have a world map if you are a bit more adventurous.

Family Time Gifts6. Aerobie SuperDisc – people are surprised with how well my kids can throw a frisbee. This thing is soft, flexible and flies well. Perfect for an afternoon out in the campground (or the lawn, or the park!).

7. Forbidden Desert – Everyone we’ve taught to play this game loves it. Its a cooperative game – so your family against piling sand, thirst, and a huge storm. Just be prepared to lose your first few times playing.

8. Talkabout Radios – These are great for hiking, for sending your kids off exploring (together) or just to general keep track of each other at Disneyland. Blog post here.

9. Bora Single Line Parafoil Kite – We have a stunt kite, but this one is MUCH easier for the kids to fly. Whether on the Oregon coast, or in the deserts surrounding Las Vegas we’ve loved pulling it out.

10. YayLabs! Soft Ice Cream Ball – We don’t own one of these (yet) but friends have said they are a blast! Who doesn’t love ice cream?

11. Trekking the Parks Board Game – Visit the National Parks, earn points, and enjoy the beautiful photos and artwork on this family game. Full review here.

Gifts For Outdoor Adventure

12. Sea to Summit Aeros Pillow Premium -We recently bought me one of these for backpacking as I was struggling to sleep, and then we ended up buying another one. Love that one side is soft so my face doesn’t slip off while I’m sleeping.

13. REI Flash 22 Bag – We use this as a super light-weight everyday bag. It packs up small and doesn’t weigh much so that the kids can carry it pretty easy as well. Great for short hikes or exploring a city.

14. Samsung NX500 – This is the big brother of the Samsung NX300 that we own (full review here). On this one the screen actually swings all the way around for video and selfies.

15. Capture Pro Camera Clip – I use this ALL the time. Its super easy to carry a camera around and have it easily accessible. I’ll even strap it to our REI Flash Bag.

16. Hydro Flask – We bought this on a whim before our backpacking trip on the Apostle Islands and it was fabulous for keeping our hot chocolate warm in the morning. Actually, the Hydro Flask keeps things almost too warm!

17. REI Stratus Thermarest – We bought one for me awhile ago, and its so small and compact, we’ve now bought one for Rachel and Andrew.  Its not self-inflatable so you have to blow a little, but its worth it for the weight savings.

Gifts For Adventure Moms 18. REI Co-Op Down Vest – We dress is layers, and having a puffy vest has been absolutely spectacular. I looked at a bunch, and the REI Co-op vest has a great design and is reasonably priced.

 

19. Smart Wool Candy Cane Beanie – I am in LOVE with this beanie. Warm and stylish. And it goes with my vest.

 

20. Haiku Bag Bucket Bag – I heard about these bags from some outdoor friends and decided to give it a try. I needed something that could hold my wallet, my Kindle, and my Nexus 300 but not be overly large. Its perfect.

 

21. Broken Compass Trading Handmade Notebook– I ran into Sarah on Instagram as they live out of their Airstream and just bought some land in Colorado to call home. She makes beautiful, hand made notebooks and jewelry! I can think of a million ways to use these notebooks, but a nature journal would be epic.

 

22. Title Nine Dress – Can you tell I’m in the mood to recommend clothes? When a girl has a tiny closet, I have to love everything in it, right? I just bought this dress from their store in Utah, and dressed up with leggings and a scarf its trendy, warm, and super-duper comfortable!

 

23. REI Venturi Hoodie – My favorite shirt. Its functional, cute and works great for hanging around or going on a short hike.

 

24. Tarma Designs Charms – I’ve had the Cairn & bicycle charms for years and wear them religiously on a chain around my neck. I love that they represent activities in my life that I love and are a huge part of my identity!

 

Gfits for RV Travellers 25. Eno Double Nest Hammock & Atlas Straps: I think everyone needs a hammock, and this is the best. Super comfy and Sam and I can both fit in it. The Atlas straps are great for wrapping around trees, rocks, or whatever else is handy.

26. Wander T-Shirt: We picked this up at the Airstream factory, but you can always buy it online. Subtle and simple, its one of Sam’s favorites.

27. Frostfire Solar Ice Rocks: We use these outside our trailer for a little more light at night. They charge via sunlight, so as long as you leave them out during the day you’ll be good to go!

28. Airstream USB Keychain: GREAT for the Airstream lover. How awesome is this?

29. Quilt or Subway Tote from Vacilando Quilting: Laura & her boyfriend traveled in an Airstream for awhile under the Democratic Travelers. They’ve since “settled” in the Bay area and Laura is using her seamstress talents to make amazingly beautiful quilts & tote bags!

30. Camper Leveler Blocks: These are on our wishlist. Lego blocks are great until they aren’t. These allow to precisely level at any increment between 1/2 inch and 4 inches.

If this isn’t quite what you are looking for, check out this other amazing Gift Guides from some of the best adventuring family experts I know!

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Giveaways

#ThankfulForFamilies Instagram Contest & Giveaway 2015

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What better way to celebrate Thanksgiving and the spirit of giving than to talk about how grateful we are for our families? I’m incredible grateful for all the time I am able to spend with my family. We eat together, sleep together (pretty easy when you live in 188 square feet of space!) and play together. I love watching them grow and I love how we are developing our relationships every single day. I wouldn’t give up this time for anything!

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, a group of Outdoor Family Bloggers has gotten together to celebrate families and give away some AMAZING prizes. This giveaway has been in the planning for MONTHS and I’m so excited its finally here!

So, celebrate with us! Let us know why you are grateful for your family, and you could possibly win some really great gear to help fuel your next adventure!

Steps  to Enter:

  • Post a NEW photo of your outdoor family on Instagram making sure to include both #ThankfulForFamilies AND #OutdoorFamilies and tell us why you love your family!
  • Follow ALL of our awesome participating hosts to win! Tap on MY prize photo (@CurrentlyWandering)  to see where to go next. Follow that host, and find THEIR awesome prize in their feed. Tap on their photo to see where to go next. Repeat until you have come full circle.
  • Check out ALL the awesome giveaways and make a comment (one per photo) on the prize(s) you want to win!

Giveaway entry rules:

  • Contest will run from November 19-30, 2015.
  • Entrants must be a resident of US or Canada
  • Entrants’ Instagram account must be a public account.
  • Entrants MUST follow all the participating bloggers on Instagram (listed below) to be eligible to win any of the prizes: @mommyhiker @jennifer_fontaine @outdoorfammag @adventuretykes @natureforkids @currentlywandering @meghanjward @mtnmamatales @mountainMomYYC @pedaladventures @playoutsidegal @rockieschick22 @mrmoosefish @chasquimom @activekidsclub @mountainmomtots @co_mtnmom @familyadventureblogger @valinreallife (look to our posts in Instagram to link you up directly!)
  • Entrants must post a new, original, and taken by you photo (a re-posted photo or tagging an old photo will disqualify you) to Instagam of their family, or members of their family, outdoors.
  • All photos entered in the contest must be tagged with BOTH #OutdoorFamilies AND #ThankfulForFamilies.
  • Entrants must comment on Instagram on the specific prize they are entering to win. Photographs of prizes will be distributed among all the hosts’ Instagram feeds. Entrants need to only comment ONCE per prize. Additional comments DO NOT equal additional entries.
  • Entrants may post a photo once per day to their Instagram feeds for additional entries, up to  12 entries total. All photos must use the two contest hashtags.
  • All photo entries must be submitted by 10 pm MST on November 30th.
  • All winners will be chosen randomly from all submitted entries at the end of the week and announced on each of the blogs after December 1st. Notifying comments will also be left on the winning photos on Instagram.
  • Hosts will do their best to contact winners. If prizes are not claimed within 48 hours of notification, the prize will go to the next winner.
  • This giveaway is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Instagram.

What you can win:

**PLEASE note prizes have various shipping capabilities which are described below**

Participating Bloggers (who worked hard to round up these great prizes!):

*Make sure you check out all of these great blogs!*

  1. Adventure Tykes: http://www.AdventureTykes.com
  2. The Adventures in Parenthood Project: http://www.AdventurousParents.com
  3. Nature For Kids: http://www.NatureForKids.net
  4. Chasqui Mom: http://www.ChasquiMom.com
  5. Outdoor Families Magazine: http://www.OutdoorFamiliesOnline.com
  6. Currently Wandering: http://www.CurrentlyWandering.com
  7. The Mommy Hiker: http://www.MommyHiker.com
  8. Rockies Family Adventures: http://www.RockiesFamilyAdventures.com
  9. The Kid Project: http://www.KidProject.org
  10. Rockieschick’s Adventures: http://www.Rockies-Chick.com
  11. Play Outside Guide: http://www.PlayOutsideGuide.com
  12. Moosefish: http://www.Moosefish.com
  13. Tales of a Mountain Mama: http://www.TalesOfaMountainMama.com
  14. Pedal Adventures: http://www.PedalAdventures.com
  15. Val In Real Life: http://www.ValInRealLife.com
  16. Colorado Mountain Mom: http://www.ColoradoMountainMom.com
  17. Adventure Awaits: http://www.AdventureAwaits.ca
  18. Mountain Mom and Tots: http://www.MountainMomAndTots.com
  19. Active Kids Club: http://www.activekidsclub.com/

A HUGE Thanks to our awesome sponsors who have donated the prizes for this contest!General Sponsor Logo

Categories
Daily Life Outdoor Adventures Outdoor Gear

Gear Review: Trekking the National Parks Board Game

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We recently stumbled across a new board game at the Sleeping Bear Dunes Visitor Center in Michigan. I always make it a point to browse the gift shop as we’ve found some great books, games, and other educational items, so this time I was just doing the rounds.

I spotted Trekking the National Parks board game and had never seen it before (and with how many visitor center’s we’ve been in that says a lot)! So, of course, I immediately Googled it to see if there were any reviews.

The game started as a Kickstarter project, and after watching the videos decided it was worth a try.

So glad we did! Even though the box says its for ages 13+ we found that we could play it just fine with our 10, 8, and 5 year olds. Their strategy tends to be a bit simpler but it still works. Cara played on my team for the first few times, but she got the hang of it and just wanted to play by herself after that.

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Trekking the Parks has some great tutorials and videos on their website of how the game works so I won’t bore you with that, but the basic premise is that you “travel” the U.S. trying to collect National Parks and earn points. It feels a little like Ticket to Ride in that you only do one thing per turn, but that’s probably where the similarities end.

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I struggled a bit coming up with a consistent strategy. You need to decide whether you want to go for parks and collect Trekking cards to earn them, or go after the tokens (the person with the most of a color gets 5 points) which you get just by landing on the park. Sometimes a mix worked, sometimes just going after one or the other was better, but it was hard to tell.

I guess that what makes it more fun, though right?! Plenty of hours of fun, and the photos and graphics are great so playing is a pleasure. Being a photographer, it always bugs me when the photos in a game are less than stellar, but these guys did a great job.

From their website, “We’ve worked diligently to create a game that’s strategic, competitive and educational. Trekking the National Parks allows you to explore these wonderful recreational playgrounds in a spirited manner…all in the comfort of your home.”

The only con I found is the price tag – we paid about $60 for the game, but I also understood its a family run business and they put a great deal of time and effort into creating it. More than anything on our journeys, we’ve come to understand that time is worth something, and having a great game to play as a family is worth it!

Keep turned over the next couple of weeks, as we’ve partnered with them for an awesome giveaway coming just before Thanksgiving!

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Categories
Illinois Utah WanderLog

Indiana Dunes, Chicago, & 2.5 Whirlwind Weeks in Suburban Utah

Travel Dates: October 14 – Nov 3, 2015

We dropped the Airstream off at the factory in Jackson Center, OH for repairs while we flew to Utah to visit family. Everything went off without a hitch – we stayed a night in the terraport, talked with the technician early Wednesday morning and then packed and piled in the car headed for Indiana.

About an hour outside of Chicago is Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore (Jr. Ranger Badge!). We had heard it was fabulous and spent the night in our tent in the campground so we could explore. As a bonus we also had dinner with @thestreamlinedlife who are fellow adventure – explorers.

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After a short hike and passing off our Jr. Ranger Books Thursday morning, we headed to Chicago and PIZZA! We ate at Giordano’s, saw the Bean and played at Maggie Daley Park which was the most amazing park we have ever seen,

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We spent the night in a hotel close to Midway airport so we could hop our 8:30am flight the following morning. I couldn’t tell if the kids were more excited to swim in the pool or fly on an airplane.

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Once in Utah we knocked out our chores as fast as possible. We had family photos taken by the amazing Kara Elmore, visited the storage unit, had dentist & doctor appointments, I took Rachel and her best friend out for birthday pedicures, we went on a date to the temple and to see The Martian, did the ropes course at the Museum of Natural Curiosity, visited the cemetery where my infant, twin brothers are buried, helped with suburban chores, and got Andrew enrolled in cub scouts.

Whew. Not to mention the half a dozen lunches, meeting up with friends, and other fun things we had going on.

12120461_426155644245674_1048954704_nTwo of our social media get togethers were in Salt Lake. We met up with a family who is living in a small, downtown condo to hike Ensign Peak. It was fun to talk with another minimalist minded family and see how they were making a simpler life work in the city. I also met Alyssa from kidproject.org and we chatted outdoor family blogging and travel while the kids played at the park.
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About this time I started going CRAZY. We had been in Utah for over a week and had not made it into the mountains once. In a recent blog post I wrote that I don’t trust myself in Suburbia and that living on the road was actually a cheaters way of getting outdoors and exploring more often. Even though everyone was cranky and tired, and it was going to be chilly I convinced my family, my parents, and my sister-in-law with her 3 kids to hike up to Cecret Lake. It was beautiful, it snowed, and everyone came home much happier!

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Thursday we attended the wedding of my cousin to her dashing fiance. It was a beautiful ceremony in the LDS Salt Lake City Temple and we all attended a lunch at Olive Garden afterwards. We also spent some time on Temple Square and enjoyed the Visitor Center as well as the model showing the inside of the temple.

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Friday we hung out with Sam’s parents who had come into town, and also had dinner with Sarah & Ty from the @backroadbennetts. We met these guys last winter in Arizona and it was fun to catch up now that they had officially caught the Airstream travel bug. It was also really therapeutic to sit in their Airstream as we were desperately missing ours.

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In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints we baptize at 8 years old. Saturday morning before Halloween holiday craziness began, we were able to gather with friends and family and celebrate Andrew’s baptism and his decision to follow Jesus Christ. We are so proud of the young man he is becoming and forever grateful we get to spend so much time with him on a daily basis!

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We had fun being in Suburbia for Halloween. It was easy to find costumes and we enjoyed time spent with friends & family!

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After a few more family get-together, and some final errands, we left on an early flight Tuesday morning to head back to Chicago. We loved the time we were able to spend with family and friends (and we got A LOT of chores done) but it was definitely time to get back on the road!

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Categories
Daily Life Mommy Diaries Utah

I Don’t Trust Myself in Suburbia

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“Just get out the door. Just get out the door,” I chant to myself as things start to look bleak for our afternoon adventure. In a perfect world, our kids jump up, excited to get out the door and explore. The reality, however, usually consists of a whole lot of whining.

“I don’t want to go,” says Rachel, our oldest. “That doesn’t sound fun. Do we have to?”

I sigh, count to ten and then looked at my daughter. “Yes. We really need to get outside. We are going and I want absolutely no more complaining. You’ll feel better when we get there.” The longer we go without hiking, the harder it is to get everyone motivated.

Rachel looks at me doubtfully, but nods realizing she’s lost this battle and heads toward the bedroom to change into her hiking pants.

We have been staying with my parents in Utah for over a week and this was the first opportunity we had to get outside on a hike. With Little Cottonwood Canyon only about 20 minutes away, I feel like a complete failure because it has taken us so long to carve out an afternoon to get up there. We are advocates for an active, outdoor, adventure, family-oriented lifestyle so what does that say about me when I can’t even get us out the door in over a week?

It says that life in Suburbia is hard and we are cheaters.

There’s something about being in a house (luckily not my own) that makes me lazy. As a family, its so much easier to spread out into the far corners of the house and be completely unaware of each other. The kids are upstairs playing nicely, so I’ll jump on my laptop for a few minutes and suddenly an hour goes by and I have no idea what anyone else doing. Its much easier to let the kids stay inside and play with toys than it is to grab our gear and hit the trails. Its even easier to let grandma play with the kids while I “get things done”.

I just don’t trust myself in a “normal,” suburban lifestyle. I don’t have the willpower to get us outside and exploring from a house, and I love how much we’ve been able to explore over the last two years from our Airstream. Its cheating. We don’t have to deal with soccer, or cub scout meetings, or neighborhood friends, or all the other distractions that pull us away from each other and use up all of our time. Don’t get me wrong – those things can be good. They just aren’t what is best for us right now.

As we hike up the hill towards Cecret Lake, I watch my kids break up ice in the frozen stream, and stare with wonder at the sky as it starts to snow. They run up the trail with their cousins, and for the first time in over a week I start to relax. I knew we’d all feel better after a little outdoor therapy, but I never realize how much better until we get there.

Rachel looks over at me and smiles. “Thanks for bringing us up here,” she says. “Its so nice to be back outside!”

I know exactly what she means.
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