Shenandoah National Park With Kids

Taking the Time to Plan

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"Hiking adventures that feature waterfalls seem to be the best way to keep kids motivated!"

Planning our roadtrips with hiking adventures takes some serious work. Add in planning those trips with kids and you've got yourself a real job. Hiking excursions have to be kept to a realistic distance, driving time can't become excessive and hiking adventures that feature waterfalls seem to be the best way to keep our kids motivated!

Our goal is to travel to as many of these kid-friendly destinations as we can throughout the year while squeezing in at least one "adult-only" roadtrip where we can hike super crazy terrain and elevation without stopping every mile for a 5 minute break. Seems easy enough, right? It would be, except our big picture goal is to travel to all of the national parks and forests! It's not the easiest task to keep kiddos happy during long drives when there's not a whole lot of options near Ohio, but, we're pretty determined!

Shenandoah National Park seemed to fit all our needs perfectly this year. It's about a 5 hour drive from home (7 hours when you consider RV driving), and we were able to find plenty of amazing hikes under 3 miles.

Are We There Yet?

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Angels 😇

We were naive in thinking traveling in an RV would lead to less sibling bickering. They have all the space they need to feel comfortable, they can play their own games, they're not of arms reach from each other, they can even use the bathroom! Not. The. Case. Apparently more floor space leads to larger territory issues... "Mom, she's sitting on my couch!!" At least they can sprawl out and sleep, right? Wrong. The more they think they can do the more they want to do, even though we constantly remind them running around isn't an option.

Arrival

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We booked our Shenandoah stay at a KOA in Lurray, Virginia. It's honestly the nicest KOA we've been to. It's clean, small, quiet, and we were surrounded by green fields of pastures with the Blue Ridge Mountains on the horizon.

Is it just us or do all kids ask what's for dinner at the most inopportune times? ...like when you pull into your parking spot for the next 3 days after driving 7 hours and finally have a chance to stand up. Lying and telling them I don't know would have been an easier route but unfortunately they know we plan our trips down to the minute. The best way to distract hungry kids?

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THE POOL! We're convinced our children are half fish. Fish with an odd obsession with goggles.

So, what was for dinner? Hot dogs on a stick and foil-pack veggies (find the recipe here).

Shenandoah Caverns

The biggest downfall to RV travel is driving taking up a solid chunk of time. Our 4 day vacation turned to 3 days plus 14 hours driving our mini-white-semi. We managed to take 3 hikes (2 in Virginia, 1 in West Virginia on our way back home) as well as explore some crazy underground rock formations in Shenandoah Caverns.

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The Caverns were a big hit! We thought being on a guided tour wouldn't be as adventurous as we would have liked but the mile long excursion ended up being one of our favorites. Formed millions of years ago, the ceilings, floors, and walls showed where water ran vogue. Its always humbling to be reminded that nature is no respecter of people, and neither is it's Creator. It goes where it wants with enough power to create an underground oasis complete with formations resembling kings, bears and even bacon strips!

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These strips are famous for being the 2 largest strips of cavern bacon strips.. seriously, look it up.

We fought our girls to wear their jackets (it's 56° year round) but they decided they knew best. They pushed through the cold with pride until we eventually insisted they take ours. That's ok, we were finally able to catch a few "Cave kisses" on our bare arms.

Hiking Shenandoah

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We decided on hiking Stony Man and Dark Hollow Falls, both boasting jaw-dropping features.

Stony Man Trail is a 3.3 mile loop offering a very small stretch of the Appalachian Trail. It's well maintained, provides shade, plenty of opportunities for off-trail climbing and leads to views off the summit to overlook the Shenandoah Valley.

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Dark Hollow Falls is a 1.4 out and back trail located near Stanley, Virginia (totally awesome name, we know). This Trail had rocky terrain down to the falls with some areas being slick. Our kids loved this hike. While typically you'd want to start your trek heading uphill so the way back is easier, we've found that with kids doing the opposite lends itself to a lesser amount of complaining time overall. The falls are well worth the elevation change. Our son, Jared, even managed to climb all the way to the top!

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Can you find him all the way at the top?

On the way back home, we stopped at Cacapon State Park in West Virginia to hike Ridge Trail. At 1.2 miles it was perfect to give our tired kids a break from driving. Big boulders and incline made up most of the terrain as we walked the ridge. This trail is rated as moderate so we knew to expect some difficulties heading up 216 ft of elevation within the first .6 miles but overall we were happy we stopped to explore it.

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Virginia is Underrated

We totally underestimated our trip to Virginia. What started as a checklist trip ended as a bucketlist destination. Although the passionate desire to meet a friendly black bear still remains, we had plenty of opportunities to grow closer together and create precious memories as a family. Virginia is for lovers after all.