Trail walks and nature hikes are some of the most exciting outdoor activities. You can enjoy these activities of all ages and in any weather. Generally, enjoying trial walks and nature hikes add up more to the fun when kids participate in these activities.

Kids usually enjoy the freedom of running down the trails. They love examining animal tracks, climbing on the fallen logs, and more of what hiking trails offer.

Best kid-friendly games to play on nature hikes and trail walks

Here we have enlisted some of the best kid-friendly games you must consider playing on nature hikes and trail walks.

So, here we go:

Close encounter

You must consider enjoying one of the most fun activities on a nature hike or trail walk. Walk with the camera ahead of your family. Take a close-up of something you spotted on the trail. This may include a knot in a tree, a mushroom, a rock with a crack, or anything else that’s easier to identify. Bring that picture back to your hiking group. Ask your kids and everyone else to look at the picture and examine it carefully.

Whoever identifies or finds the object you showed in the picture will win the game.

Be a storyteller

Stories are always the best way to keep your kids engaged. You can add a twist to your storytelling activity on the trail to make it more entertaining. Ask your kids to be a storyteller. You can start yourself with a fairytale story and develop that as you go on the hiking trail.

Encourage your kids to add their creativity to the story to continue it. Then pass it to the other one to keep continuing it. You can keep secret names and codes of the path to keep your kids' excitement up.

Play rainbow game

One of the best ways to enjoy kid-friendly activities on hikes or trail walks is to pack some creativity. This will let you enjoy a colorful take on the popular I Spy game. When walking on a trail or nature hike, Name different things along the hike in a rainbow colors’ order. You can either name your things as per rainbow colors or can consider the ones we have enlisted below:

• Red for Road
• Orange for Open Field
• Yellow for Yield or Yard
• Blue for Bee
• Green for Grass
• Violet for View (any panorama, landscape, or something else)
• Indigo for Ice

They have to shout the color name to score a point whenever you see these things. The one who wins will get the reward at the end. You can choose the favorites of your kids as rewards.

Find the alphabet

Here we have another amazing kid-friendly activity that will also help kids learn. The rules of this game are pretty simple. Start with the letter “A” and ask your kids to find any object along the trail that starts from A. Then move through the rest of the alphabet the same way.

Create a nature scavenger Hunt

Everyone loves scavenger hunts. Creating a nature scavenger hunt is pretty simple. You just need to list items that everyone will find along the trail. You can create a list just like this:

• Find 3 different shades of green
• An oval-shaped rock
• Find something blue
• A human-made object

These are just for ideas; you can choose multiple options based on your creativity. The first one to find will score the point.

Enjoy a roving hide and seek experience.

Are you going hiking or trail walking with older kids? Then roving hide and seek will be the best activity to enjoy. With older kids, you won’t be worried about wandering a little bit off the trail to add more fun to your outdoors.

The hider in this game will run ahead to hide within up to 15 feet of the trail. The entire group will keep moving when the hider hides. This will excite your kids to run up the trail to find the perfect hiding spots.

Don’t forget to keep rotating hiders. So, everyone can have a fair chance to hide.

Create a wild copy by collecting different objects from trails or nature hikes.

When you are on a nature hike or trail walk, you can indulge in the fun game of creating a wild copy. Consider collecting sticks, fallen leaves, tree bark pieces, etc. In short, collect all the wild things you are finding on your trail.

Now take a piece of paper or a diary. Lay each item over it. Now take a crayon or colored pencil to rub it over the paper gently to reveal the texture and outline of the item. You can use these images in multiple ways. For example:

• Make a frame of these images
• Use these beauties to create handmade greeting cards
• Create a colorful adventure book to let your kids cheer up their memories forever.

Important Note:

It is highly important to ask your children to collect all the items from the ground only. Never let them pluck anything from the living plants. This would be the best practice to have fun while keeping nature intact.

Learn and sing different trail songs while walking or hiking

If your kids love rhyming things, you can exercise your vocal cords when trekking or hiking along the trail. Singing different trail songs as you hike will add great fun to your walking or hiking activities. Divide your hiking group into two different teams and have a competition.

Singing on trails won’t only let your kids enjoy more. It will also help you to let the animals around know about your presence, so they don’t get scared by you.

You can sing a song you all know or make your own rhymes to an old song. Get inspired by nature and try making the sillier lyrics for better fun.

Final Thoughts

To make trail walks and nature hikes more interesting, kids need fun activities now and then to keep going on. Therefore, it is always handiest to plan some kid-friendly games to play on nature hikes and trail walks. Consider the activities mentioned above to double the fun.

Image by Maggie Morrill from Pixabay