Balancing Outdoor Adventure with Work and Kids' Activities

How do you balance outdoor adventure with "normal" life? I've been struggling with that for almost 11 years. Here is what I've learned, from my experiences and from what my friends have taught me. It has also been added to our General Advice page, Outdoor Life Balance section.

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Fall hiking near Mt. Reba, Bear Valley, CA (Washoe Land)

​One of the biggest challenges of outdoor parenting is setting up our schedules to keep going on trips and getting outside, despite the pressure of sports teams, school events, friends’ birthday parties, and demands from work. Additionally, it’s important to balance between family trips and individual parent time. Here is a summary of advice from us and from our interviewees on how to create that balance. 

How to fit activities into working life:

• Set up systems and routines for frequent shorter trips that you can do close to home:
  • Set up a routine for getting out, even if it has to change each season or as kids get older
    • Example: Shannon said they tried to get out for a hike every week, taking advantage of one parent working part-time to get out midweek.
  • Set up systems to get away quickly (have go-bags in the car, change them for each season)
    • Include in this a set of snacks and water bottles to bring quickly
  • Have a list of places to go (nearby or farther away) so you can get away quickly without much planning.
    • Learn about the idea of planned spontaneity from Mrs. Adventure Rich on this episode of the ChooseFI podcast.
• Incorporate it into your daily life:
  • Bike with the kids to school or on adventures around your town
  • Build a climbing wall in the backyard (as Emily suggested) or in your home as Cragmama did.
• Plan longer trips annually and ahead of time. If you don’t like planning far in advance, make sure you have vacation time allocated and a rough time to use it so you don’t let the vacation time go unused.
  • If you need to use vacation time to visit family, plan adventures to do while you’re already out visiting them.
  • Err on the side of reserving too many backpacking permits or campsites - you can cancel them if needed.
• In a perfect world: live somewhere close to family or friends so you don’t have to use vacation time to visit them, live close to outdoor activities that you love so you don’t have to drive so far, and have one or both parents with less demanding jobs (or jobs that align with the school schedule) to make packing and getting out of town easier.
  • We moved to the mountains for the year from the Bay Area and love how quick it is to get outside into the backcountry and play.
  • Emily said that “Right now we are satisfied with planning ~4 - 6 trips/year and doing a lot of local hiking. We are fortunate that most of our family is close so our vacation time is generally spent in the outdoors.”

How to balance outdoor adventures with kids school/sports/friends:

• This isn’t a problem when kids are babies, but this is a good time for parents to set expectations that can continue as the kids get older.
• Decide what is the priority for your family, and revisit this discussion with the kids as they get older and develop more opinions.
  • Karl writes: “We have avoided organized sports and have done everything we can to keep our weekends open.”
  • On the other side, Shannon writes: “It’s hard! Our balance leans toward a greater commitment to team sports at the detriment of our outdoor adventures.”
• When you decide to sign your kid up for activities, decide in advance if this is something that you will never miss or what cases you would miss it for so you have a plan ahead of time. As your kid gets older, involve them in the discussion.
  • Example: ski team conflicts with soccer in the spring, and possibly with friends birthday parties, so decide (on your own or with the kid’s input) what is going to take priority.
  • As Emily said, “If she's doing something on a weekend like swimming or gymnastics, I am fine with her missing a class and swallowing the money if we have another plan.
• When your kid starts school, you’ll need to have the same discussion about school events.
  • Try to get the school calendar as far in advance as possible, so you know about any weekend events or Friday afternoon plans so you can decide to miss or attend them.
• Agree among the parents on how you feel about taking kids out of school. Take advantage of half days on Fridays, if your school has them. Learn the rules for missing school - for example in some districts if you take off more than 3 days a year there are consequences, but if you take off a full week you can get an independent study plan and have no consequences.

How to make sure each partner gets enough outside time, on their own if necessary:

• Start by having multiple discussions with your partner about what is important to each of you and determine what you want to do without kids.
  • This is hard to do think about doing during the chaos of a new baby, but there are a lot of benefits of making time to do this.
  • You’ll most likely need to lower your expectations of what you can do, individually and together, compared to life before kids. Take advantage of the change to focus on what is most important to each of you.
• If there are things that each of you wants to do every week, take turns so each of you can get a break from parenting duties.
  • Shannon says: “She likes running so I make sure to be on kid duty so she can run. I play soccer, so she’s on duty then.”
  • Corbin writes: “We developed a schedule. I get up first and take care of our son in the morning from when he wakes up till 8:30 or so. My wife then takes over till 3 pm. I then have time to work or bike. I take back over at 3 pm till after dinner, at which we swap again. This allows each of us to have dedicated time to ourselves. On days that my wife works, I will watch our boy for the entire day.”
• If either of you can fit things in during daycare hours, look to take advantage of that.
  • When my husband and I both worked close to home, we would take a long lunch break and meet at the climbing gym.
  • When I no longer worked close to home, I found a climbing gym with auto-belays and would fit in 1-2 climbs a week there during my lunch break.
• Look for opportunities to get out together without the kids.
  • Make it into a date night (or afternoon) and get someone to look after the kids. Hire a babysitter and go out to the climbing gym or go for a bike ride. Or swap childcare with friends nearby.
  • If you have family nearby, or good friends, maybe they want to play with the kids for the day or a weekend.
  • If family is far away, consider flying them out for a visit. We once flew my mother to come to visit for a while and look after the kids when we went on a trip.
  • Many ski resorts have daycare options (but it’s usually very expensive!). You don’t need to ski at the resort - see if there is good backcountry skiing nearby
  • Emily says “We found ourselves stranded in Red Rock Nevada once when another family skipped out our planned trip and we were able to find childcare at a local kids gym in Las Vegas (Evelyn was around 2 or 3yrs). We would wake up, drive her into the childcare, then book it back to the rocks, climb something shorter, and then dash back to pick her up by 5 pm."
• Go on trips with good friends or near where your family lives.
  • If you travel to your parents’ house, see if they’d be willing to look after the kids while you go away for a day or three.
  • Go on a trip with another family and each family takes turns taking care of all the kids so the parents can go out by themselves for the day.
  • Go on a trip with another adult, and the parents take turns going out with the other adult for the day.
• Go on trips with just your family and have the parents take turns. Each parent can:
  • Go skiing by themselves for a few hours or a day.
  • Go on hikes (even if it’s just the morning).
  • Find a climbing partner for the day and go climbing.
• Or just make the decision that you will just do everything with the kids.
  • From Karl: “We have settled on a group of activities that we can all enjoy together.”
  • From Emily: “Neither of us really do outdoor activities sans kids. Kids are just part of our life now and they are generally included.”