Hi, I’m Erin Austen Abbott, and this is the Field Trip Newsletter. It’s completely free to access and read, but if you would like to support my work, please consider a paid newsletter subscription: just $5/month or save money with the $50/annual sub. You can also go way above and beyond by becoming a Founding Member at $75. Thank you so much for being here! I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to have you a part of this community. Enjoy!
It’s been so strange and surreal to go from traveling monthly at times to not getting on a plane for almost two years. As a regular traveler, I almost feel as if a part of my identity has been suppressed during this pandemic. I don’t know how not to get out and explore and search for places to visit, how to not daydream about travel, then do it all over again at night as I dream about travel…I want to breathe in air from a place different from where I call home.
I have stayed home and taught myself to cook from around the world, studied another language, read stories from far, far away, all to transport me just a little bit. It’s worked for the most part, but the urge to actually travel is ingrained, and talking about travel is not the same for me as going in person.
Well, the wait is finally over. We are getting on a plane in a week and a half (tickets we booked back in the spring when things felt like they were getting back on track) and going to see family we haven’t seen in two years. I feel like, moving forward, for a long time, I will plan our trips around getting out, but with isolation in mind. Getting into nature and what places have the best outdoor seating or take-out options. Go where we can find the best picnic places, etc.… It’s funny when you are living through a pandemic because we all understand what this all means, no matter where you are reading this from. We all have been put on this one track.
We are heading to Northern California, and I have so many wonderful places planned to visit that I will save for a later newsletter once we are back. This trip will be our fifth trip there with Tom, so I plan to make one big newsletter of all the favorite places to visit and stop along the way. Side note: I will put it before the New Orleans City guide that I have written but haven’t published. I heald onto that one, waiting because it was hot and didn’t seem like the right time. But Hurricane Ida has since hit. I plan to wait longer out of sensitivity to those affected by the storm.
If you have read here for a while, you know just how incredibly sentimental I am. I collect little bits here and there from all of our travels. It might be a paper coaster from a restaurant or a shell from a beach. A ticket stub from a movie we saw or a play we attended. It’s always small but meaningful. Well, this upcoming trip will certainly be special for us, and so I thought it would be the perfect time to get Tom signed up for his first Junior Ranger badge. I have this thing where I like to look back at memories not just as this thing I remember, but as this moment in collective time. Tom will likely remember getting his first badge when he’s an adult because it will be during the pandemic, and certainly, that will stand out to him. Of course, he’s nine, but as equally sentimental as I am, so I feel that this will likely be the case.
We will be visiting the Point Reyes National Seashore, and I want him to take in all that this program has to offer. We haven’t visited one of the large parks with him yet, but we certainly have plans to. I’ve personally been holding out for the year when his age is free. (see below). The Junior Ranger program teaches children how to preserve the land, what to look for at each park, places to visit, facts and history about each park, and so on. And it’s free!
Did you know that every fourth grader can visit all the National Parks for free for a year? Sign up here. Teachers can sign up their students as well.
This explorers club looks fun.
You can join the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts without joining a troop if you’d like. You are called a Lone Scout, and personally, that sounds sort of awesome to me.
If you aren’t traveling anytime soon, you can visit the parks virtually here.
It’s up to our children to be the next great preservers of this world, yet it’s up to us to show them how to do that. Introducing them to parks and nature and teaching them about conservation is a great start. But, their lives won’t look like ours have, and we owe it to them to give them the proper tools to work through that and make the most of it.
-Erin
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