Where to Camp? ~National Parks~

National Parks are a great way to explore our country and why not document where you have been with a National Park Passport Book.

Friends of ours, who also camp a lot, introduced us the the National Parks Passport book about a year or so before we had Henleigh.  Jamie and I decided that we would wait until her first camping trip to start our National Park journey and we would document it with a Passport.  Our first National Park stamp was Assateague in 2016, it just so happens that it was Henleigh’s first camping trip.

We bought the little book because it was easy to travel with and pack in the camper. 

We started using the book to plan our next camping trips.  Which is how we ended up in Hatteras for a week in the summer of 2017.  On that trip we got 3 different stamps.

I fell in love with the stickers that you can get for each of the National Parks especially since it has a little description of each park.  After getting 3 stamps just in the Hatteras area we learned that the little book wasn’t going to be big enough especially since the kids weren’t even 2 and we were planning on doing a lot more camping.  So in Oracoke, NC I upgraded to the bigger book.

Jasmine and Dalton, along with Mechelle and Mitchell started their passport books as well.  Mechelle and Mitchell got the little book as did Jasmine and Dalton. After their 3rd stamp Jasmine and Dalton quickly upgraded to the bigger one just like us.  

My favorite features of the bigger book.

1. 1. A space for each National Park sticker. Each sticker also tells you a little about the park.

1. 1. Makes a great coffee table book or a great book to sit on our family room bookcase.

1. There is also a place for the National Stickers that showcase a different park each year.

While in Hatteras we downloaded the National Parks Passport app.  This was a game changer for us, it uses your location to find parks near you and gives you a brief description of each park.  Let’s just say all the way home I was on the app and would make comments to Jamie about how close we were to this park or that park.  At one point he gave in and said fine we will stop. We stopped at Petersburg National Battlefield, after getting lost of course. It was just our luck that they had closed for the day, but we got a see part of the reenactment that was going on and got pictures.  When we got home I write a note to the ranger station at the park stating that we had stopped but it was closed. I made sure to include the date we stopped, a small sticker (that I made from a label), and a self addressed stamped envelope. They stamped the sticker and mailed it back to me, so I was able to add that stamp to our books as well.

If you are looking for places to camp and a way to document where you have been I strongly suggest getting a National Park Passport book!! If you want to see the stamps that we have gotten and where we have camped check out the camping section of my site.