Joshua Tree National Park with Kids
Joshua Trees stretch before us as far as the eye can see. We drove into the park only moments ago, but with the Junior Ranger booklets in their hands and rocks towering just outside the windows my kids are giddy to get out of the car.
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Joshua Tree National Park with Kids
Joshua Tree National Park is about two hours East of LA and about two and half hours Northeast of San Diego. The park is huge and contains two distinct desert ecosystems, the Mojave and the Colorado.
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The park is completely fascinating and we saw plants and animals we haven’t seen anywhere else.
joshua tree day trip packing list
- Water (we went through an entire cooler of water bottles)
- Sunscreen
- Sun Hats
- Good Walking Shoes
- Pens
- Snacks
- Lunch
- National Park Passports
when you get to joshua tree
Start by asking for the Junior Ranger booklet at the Ranger Station when you enter the park. We LOVE this program.
You get a booklet (see below) for each kid to fill out. It has sections for different age ranges and ours started doing this when they were about 4.
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We’ve done this at a ton of different National Parks and they are always interesting and help to keep our kids engaged. This one focused on the plants and animals native to the Joshua Tree National Park.
family friendly hikes
Our family did 3 hikes in Joshua Tree. It took us most of the day. We arrived at the park around 10 and didn’t leave until around 4. There are a huge range of hikes that you can do at Joshua Tree National Park. This post from JUST GO offers a lot of helpful information about the various hikes from popularity to how strenuous they are to what you can expect to see along the way to help you decide what will work best for your family or group.
These are the hikes we did with our twin 7 year olds:
HIKE ONE: Hidden Valley Campground Trail to the Barker Dam Trail
This was the longest hike that we undertook. I should say up front that if I were to do it again I might skip the Hidden Valley Trail portion. You can park closer and just do the Barker Dam Loop and I would probably do that if we did it again.
That being said, we did see the best animals on the Hidden Valley portion of the hike. It was a long open space for long stretches where all you could see were Joshua Trees and Cactus and dry grasses.
We saw both a jackrabbit and this chirping squirrel. That was definitely one of the highlights of our day.
The Barker Dam was beautiful. You go up a tiny bit in elevation and the view is cool. My kids loved the opportunities to climb more rocks because it’s their absolute favorite part about hiking.
Hike 2: Cholla Cactus Garden
This was a super short hike. I wouldn’t even call it a hike so much as a walk around a garden on a path. I though it was super cool though. I had never seen cacti like this and it was a bit surreal to see them all together extending out so far.
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Two notes however; 1. there was this welcoming sign about bees. We didn’t see many but depending on the time of year that could be bad. 2. You are close to the cacti and there are signs everywhere about not touching them. There’s even a first aid kit at the entrance because apparently people can’t help themselves.
We emerged completely bite and pricker free with no problems, but when you’re thinking about this one for kids just keep those things in mind.
Hike 3: Arch Rock Nature Trail
This was another super short hike but probably my favorite. This was such a gorgeous part of the park. There were more rocks for climbing and the arch in the rocks was kind of cool.
We also made several hopping out of the car to do a little climbing stops. These little stops were our kids’ favorite parts.
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on our way out of the park
When we were done hiking, we stopped at the Visitor’s Center. There are 3 I believe at different corners of the park.
Here we got our National Park Passport stamped and the kids got sworn in as Junior Rangers by one of the Park Rangers.
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Good things to know about Joshua Tree
- It gets hot – super hot. The park rangers were telling us that it gets over 115 degrees there in the summer. We visited in April and it was perfect. Warm but there was a definite breeze that kept us from over heating. Because of this, avoid the Summer and early Fall months when it tends to be the hottest and always bring Sunscreen and Water.
- The park is huge. Look at a map beforehand and figure out what hike or hikes you most want to do. Be prepared to do some driving in between. This worked out well for us to re-hydrate and fill up on some snacks before we got out of the car again.
