A Girl Named Journey: Raised in National Parks

When our daughter Journey was born, we knew we wanted to raise her with a sense of wonder, respect for nature, and a spirit of adventure. So we made a big decision: we would visit every national park in the U.S. together as a family. This is the story of that journey, of watching our little girl grow . . . one park at a time.

A month later, Covid hit and things got scary and stressful. We realized that life is short, and nothing is guaranteed, so when she was born, as soon as we were released two days after her birth, we asked our pediatrician if it was okay to take her to Pikes Peak in Colorado. The doctor said absolutely; that is the safest place for a newborn.

We wanted to get her away from being quarantined at home and hit the places that rejuvenated our spirits. We had just watched a documentary about Native Americans traveling with their newborns to majestic mountains to let them open their eyes and breathe in the energy. So, when Journey was one week old, we drove to Pikes Peak, then headed to Sedona to take her for a blessing at the vortexes, and from there took her to the Grand Canyon.

Discovering the National Parks

That is when we saw the brown and white National Park Service sign and realized this was a “National” park, and then we understood what the NPS was. Growing up in Texas, we were raised on two main standards: What church do you go to, and what sport did you play? National Parks were not highly publicized and not something we discovered until we were both 38.

So we did our research and started visiting the ones we were curious about, like Zion, Yosemite, Sequoia, and Yellowstone. Around park 17, we joked that we should do 21 by one, 42 by two years, and 63 by three years, with no idea how life changing and challenging it would be.

Pro Tip: If you plan to see all 63 US national parks, map out clusters. After you visit one park, look for every park in that region and knock them out together. We learned the hard way that chasing famous parks first meant skipping nearby gems, so later we had to fly back to areas we had already visited.

By this time, Covid was causing panic and travel had shut down. Valerie had been on maternity leave, and we were both running our tree service company. Eric is a talented arborist and Valerie is a software tech marketing expert. But we knew this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so we diverted our priorities to take advantage of what most people were afraid to do.

Car rentals were only $5 a day, and we could fly anywhere for a couple hundred bucks. Hotels were cheap too, and getting a 4- or 5-star room was $50 to $100 a night. Not using that to our advantage would have been tragic. Eric had been a coach of young athletes, and Valerie had been in the corporate world as a director for over a decade, so we wanted to do something unusual with Journey.

We saw visiting national parks and hiking as a sport. We wanted to instill in Journey a love of nature, an adaptability to challenges of the outdoors, and strong resilience. We wanted her to have a future where she could possibly become a park ranger or do something for the Earth.

Eric grew up in sports and saw it as a great thing, but he knew it should not be the only thing, because eventually, when that identity is over, many kids get lost. He saw the national parks as a better solution.

Being born a female in a generation that we knew nothing about—with social media, technology, YouTube, and so on—Journey could face challenges we would not be able to help her with. We wanted to give her an identity other than the norm. Her arrival during Covid felt like both a gift and a promise—an investment in her future, so that she could have a voice for her generation.

The parks are not amusement parks by any means, and when you accomplish the challenges of logistics, acclimating to weather conditions, finding food, lodging, and so on, you feel like you can take on anything. It gives you strength. It also humbles you; your problems are nothing when you are in these parks. You see how nature heals itself, and you have that same strength to overcome whatever life is throwing at you.

At Biscayne we had to take a boat ride to get to the island. Ninety percent of this park outside Miami is water. We met a mother and her two daughters; they were preteens, playing with Journey and giggling. The boat ride was a couple of hours, so the captain had us each introduce ourselves and share our story of why we were visiting. Their mother told how her house burned down and they lost every single belonging. While that could have been a tragedy, she saw it as an opportunity for what she called “roadication.” She took her insurance money and her girls and decided to give them an education on the road visiting national parks. She said it was the best thing that ever happened to them, and Eric and I just looked at each other and laughed. We felt the exact same way.

Journey Go Explore

Around the time we set the goal, we had been sharing our photos with family and friends. Our local TV station ran a story about Kids Who Make SA Great and wanted to feature Journey as an inspiration for kids to get outside and enjoy the outdoors. At that time, kids had been feeling the effects of living in a new world, not going to school in person, spending so much time on devices, and parents needed advice on how to handle all the changes. No gyms, no movie theaters—this was causing mental health concerns. We could see it affecting so many kids, and we knew if they just got outside like we were doing, or like how we did growing up, they would benefit in many ways, not just physically but mentally.

We began advocating for getting outdoors and launched Journey Go Explore as a mission to inspire everyone. Our slogan is “Whether You are 1 or 91, It is Never Too Late to Start Your Journey.” We had people of all ages reaching out, saying that if Journey could run a mile at 1, they had no excuses and that she was inspiring them to take their kids to see national parks.

Her story was taking off. She had no fear and a lot of confidence from being around so many people in airports. Talking to journalists was just fun. She was also beginning to understand the Junior Ranger program and what the responsibilities were. It was a perfect way to get her engaged. We went from hiking 10 miles with her in a harness to walking half a mile at a 1-year-old’s pace. In each park, we could see her get stronger, tougher, and more savvy.

As the attention grew, the pressure grew. We had to pick up the pace if we were going to do what we said. We would spend two weeks traveling and two weeks working at home to replenish funds. We did not have help, sponsors, or donations, and as Covid restrictions eased people began traveling. We could see the parks getting more and more crowded. It is a different experience when you are only three people in thousands of acres, and we could see how the ranger count was low for the number of visitors. While we loved seeing people who appreciated the parks like we did, we also saw trash left on trails. That was sad. Even bigger were the climate effects.

A Changing Climate

The first real gut punch was visiting Yosemite again when Journey was able to walk. The first time we were there she was 6 months old, and we carried her to the greatest waterfall we had ever seen. It was so majestic that the wind from the water blew you back, and it was so loud you could not hear yourself speak. It was the moment we fell in love with national parks. Seeing her joy as a baby with the wind in her face, we decided to return when she was one.

We witnessed tragedy while planning Hawaiʻi Volcanoes, Haleakalā, and American Samoa. We had spent $10,000 on flights and logistics, and then Maui suffered the deadliest wildfire in its history. We thought that was the end of our goal because people said, “Do not go to Maui out of respect.” But thank God we went anyway—as advocates.

We landed at the same time as President Biden. We immersed ourselves in the culture and talked to many locals who told us their livelihoods were impacted because they relied so heavily on tourism. We waited for days, watching the NPS site for Haleakalā to reopen, refreshing our screens at 1 am, and finally won the lottery to enter the next morning. It was breathtaking, and everything it took to get there made it that much more gratifying.

Going to Samoa felt like stepping into a capsule that transported us into a different world for two people and a toddler from San Antonio, Texas. When we arrived at the small airport, we felt the shock of being outsiders. Natives arriving on our flight were greeted by dozens of family members so excited to see their loved ones come home. The family unit was tighter than anything we had ever witnessed.

We could see that cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents had all made the effort to greet them even though the arrival was after midnight and there were only two flights a week. Many even had T-shirts with family names, like team jerseys. Driving in, we noticed graves in front yards and learned that they bury family members in their yards or under their homes to keep them close. This deep love and respect is something we rarely see in our own culture. Kids played outside in bunches, and again we felt awe.

First off, do not go to Alaska at the beginning of winter because reaching parks can be life or death and transportation shuts down. Most places are accessible only with guides. Every test felt like a Mario Brothers game; every time you think you are near one level, you shrink right back down. We should have done Alaska before Hawaiʻi because of weather, but no one told us, and we figured, “Save the hardest for last.” That was an understatement.

So many decisions affected timing. We started by driving to Denali, then driving to Fairbanks to get a charter to Gates of the Arctic. The charter was not a tourist flight; it was a cargo flight with boxes of goods and no heat. Freezing, we landed in a village where there was no Uber or taxi, so we walked to the NPS office. Like striking gold, we met the ranger who was packing boxes to leave the next day for winter. He had stories to tell!

From there, we caught a flight from hell—a single engine plane that kept blowing sideways in gusts of wind as it took us to Kobuk Valley.

We had booked a charter to Katmai and Lake Clark, and we got the call that weather turned and the charter was canceled. That was it for the year. We got on the phone and called every pilot in Alaska and cried when they all told us no; it was too dangerous. Again, we were losing hope but not giving up.

As we drove from Juneau toward Wrangell St. Elias, the road was closed due to bad weather. Sitting for hours in a car with a toddler was not fun so we got out of the car and chatted with a road worker/godsend who said she knew the owner of an airport that serviced Lake Clark—his family were the Clarks the park was named for. She told us to look him up and email him using her name as a reference. He had no phone number.

That night we wrote the most desperate yet heartfelt email begging him to take us. NPS was officially closed, and parks were understaffed because the government was shutting down. Another hurdle. Mr. Clark emailed back and said he would fly us, but the cost to reach both parks was almost $4,000 since it was a private tour, and he would call NPS to get special permission. We booked it.

His son took us from Anchorage to Lake Clark in the smallest plane we had ever boarded. From there, he flew us to Katmai and fed us the best lunch of our lives. We prayed with our eyes closed the entire time flying on his plane. Eric had to pee in a water bottle because it was so scary. We made the mistake of saying yes to seeing the volcano over Katmai, which added 30 minutes at higher altitude and more terror.

We get asked often, “What are your favorite parks?” That is like asking which chapter of a book you should read if you skip the rest. It is not easy to answer. We have experienced so many unbelievable memories in each park, private moments personal to us that might not matter to others. These special times are priceless and worth every sacrifice. The resilience gained from setting foot on such iconic lands, each with its own spirit and energy, is like a liquid you never quench.

Visiting all 63 is not for everyone; they are not amusement parks, and many are hard to access physically and financially. For the small group who achieve all 63, only they can vouch for the gratification. Journey being recognized as the youngest person to visit all 63 US national parks by age 3 was never on our minds while traveling. We just knew this was a gift to her, and what she does with it could change the world. This is not about us; it is about Journey and her voice.

The Future

We encourage parents to make visiting a national park fun but also educational. Ask your kids a few questions:

1. Why is the park a designated national park?
2. What is the story behind its becoming a park?
3. Who fought for it to be protected?
4. What cultures are preserved there?
5. What history happened there?
6. What are the park’s challenges today?
7. What does the park contribute to the ecosystem?

Asking these questions makes the visit a deeper experience and helps kids think about what actions they can take. Will it inspire more future park rangers, biologists, scientists, animal researchers or activists? Nothing will be solved in our generation, but there is hope in theirs. They are the hope for the future, and what we can do is give them the tools to fight battles we will not be around for.

We are not joking when we say Journey will be President in 2055. Like Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, or Serena Williams, greatness starts young. This spring in Washington DC, Journey proudly protested in front of the White House and became the youngest activist for national parks at age 4. We now see the parks threatened from unexpected angles. We thought climate was the biggest threat, and now politics. The fight is real. Journey is ready and equipped. Let us all stand for the parks and fight.