22 Easy Tips For Hiking With Kids (from Avid Family Hikers)

This post may contain affiliate links. We may receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you make a purchase. Read Disclosure.

Have you ever wondered if it’s possible to enjoy hiking with kids? Craig and I loved hiking before we had children, and although hiking with kids presents its challenges, we love hiking with our daughters, too!

Of course, hiking is very different now. Before having kids, we would have adventures climbing mountains as high as 4,000 meters above sea level, and we’d spend days hiking many forest trails and wild camping along the way.

Despite the physical challenges, it was always one of the most relaxing and memorable things we’d do.

Of course we haven’t given up hiking because we travel with kids. Our two daughters, Kalyra and Savannah, have been hiking with us since they could walk – we just do it in a different manner than when it was just us.

So if you’re thinking of taking your kids out on their first hike and are feeling a bit unsure about what to expect, here are our tips for hiking with kids so you can have a stress-free hike!

Tips For Hiking With Kids

1. Choose your hiking trails carefully

Of course, our number one tip would be to make sure you choose hiking trails wisely. Pick trails that are best suited to the level of your children’s age and fitness.

If you’re not sure, AllTrails is a great app to gauge the difficulty of a hike – it has trails listed in categories (easy, moderate, hard) and shows the length and elevation of a trail, but reviews from other hikers. Plus it’s free to use.

We do always do our research first to assess if the walk will be manageable for our girls, by using AllTrails and by simply looking up the route on Google.

As well as the difficulty, we also ensure that it’s a hike that is interesting for them – they love rivers, waterfalls, rocks, caves, wildlife, stairs, and rock art usually keep them occupied.

When our kids were younger, we could do 4-6km / 2.5 – 4 miles walks or roughly two-to-three hours with a decent break at the half-way point for rest, food and drink, with 60-second drink breaks spaced periodically.

In Australia, we chose to stay on easy-medium grade trails.

Here have been some of our favorite hikes in Australia with kids:

For the USA, some great hikes to do with kids are:

2. Allow your children to stretch themselves a little

Choose a trail and a time frame, but…