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Family vacations - Thinking outside the Disney box
Categories: Places To Go, Holidays, In The News
Last week, Utah lost one of its most famous (and photographed) arches in Arches National Park to time and gravity. Visitors to National Parks are down, due to what is believe to be increasing competition from theme parks, high gas prices, and a sedentary lifestyle.
Theme parks may make it easier to entertain kids with low-attention spans from electronic gaming, but they can never match the feeling of awe one gets when viewing the vastness of the Grand Canyon, taking a tour of Mammoth Cave, or discovering a waterfall after hiking in the mountains.
It's easy to take natural wonders for granted. But as Wall Arch reminds us, these marvels may not be around forever. Instead of going to Disney again, why not spend some family time exploring some of Mother Nature's parks?
Most National Parks offer free activities and information packets geared toward children and have friendly rangers on staff trained to answer any questions about the natural world kid campers might have.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jamie 8-16-2008 @ 11:25AM
I just read this interesting book called "The Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder"...it was a total eye opener.
Kids of our kids generation can't possibly learn to care about the natural world if they never see it. We've really, truly got to get out there.
In my case, it doesn't hurt that I'd rather have acupuncture of the eyeballs than go to a theme park... :)
jamie
www.travelsavvymom.com
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