FEATURE
Kids in Yellowstone
Picnics are a great way to spend time outside of the van on long tour days. Games during lunch help stretch legs and work off excess energy. Photo by Kelly Nicholson.
“I want to see a BEAR!” said the excited six-year-old from behind the driver’s seat.
“I want you to see a bear, too!” I responded enthusiastically. I had just learned that this little girl’s only wish for her first trip to Yellowstone National Park was to see a grizzly bear, which is never guaranteed. “It’s up to the animals if they want to be seen or not, so we may or may not see a bear today. But if we do, we’ll celebrate!”
In addition to learning facts and stories, locating clean bathrooms, and leading group engagement, managing guest expectations is one of the first lessons a tour guide learns. Guides set the tone for the day and can make or break a tour if they promise something they can’t realistically deliver. Most adults will understand noncommittal statements regarding the potential to see charismatic megafauna in one of the United States’ most popular national parks, but children often need a different explanation.
In fact, having kids on full-day van tours makes the day different for everyone. They need more of everything: bathroom stops, snack breaks, and time to stretch their legs, not to mention more answers to their incredibly insightful and curious questions. Tours with kids drastically differ from tours with teenagers, family reunions, or bachelor parties.
In fact, I will argue that they are better. In my two summers of guiding in Yellowstone National Park, my favorite tours have been the ones where I get to spend the day sharing my knowledge and excitement with equally enthusiastic kids. I’ve been stopped in my tracks by questions I’ve never thought to ask, I’ve played hours of I-Spy and Alphabet, and I’ve watched young eyes open wide as they take in giant, lumbering bison right outside the van windows. Joy, wonder, and awe are alive on these days in America’s first national park.
Never forget that a tour guide’s enthusiasm can be contagious! Photo by Kelly Nicholson.
Kids are a hoot and a half. They truly do say the darndest things! Last year, one group of kids insisted on calling the bison “bougie cows.” We laughed about it the entire tour and wished there were t-shirts we could buy to reflect their great sense of humor.
Laughter is so important on full days in a moving vehicle. Giving animals nicknames, pointing out scat (kids LOVE scat), and playing games are great ways to keep kids engaged and having fun. I’ve also learned to lean into their jokes and silly trains of thought. When kids ask questions that make their parents’ eyes roll, I give equally silly replies, trying to activate their imaginations and get them thinking outside the box.
I once responded to a bison-riding comment with a suggestion that we all pick out our bison of choice, name them, and create backstories for the local bison rodeo flyers. (Nellie Sue and her gang of Nefarious Nappers, having missed the last rodeo due to a scheduling conflict with their afternoon siestas, are back and ready for this year’s competition!)
A big thing I’ve been trying lately is interpreting complex landscapes using unexpected comparisons. For example, on one of my first tours, I struggled to explain why the Yellowstone Caldera wasn’t visible. Near the end of the day, I drove past the Caldera Rim picnic area between Norris and Madison Junctions—a place where the road closely follows the edge of the caldera—and had a late-day epiphany.
I turned on my microphone and told the kids to think of the caldera as a big bowl, with the edges of the bowl being the caldera rim. I then told them to think of the bowl filling up with pancake batter, representing lava. We discussed how pancake batter's consistency depends on the ingredient ratio, much like how lava flows can also be thin and runny, or thick and slow, depending on their mineral ratios. We concluded the metaphor with pancake batter accidentally spilling over the edges of our imaginary bowls and creating a mound, just like the Yellowstone Plateau!
Two girls admire the colorful display of Yellowstone’s Grand Prismatic Spring from an overlook. Photo by Kelly Nicholson.
I’ll admit that this pancake batter metaphor was a bolt of inspiration and not a pre-planned concept. While working as a guide, I’ve had to think quickly on my feet and communicate connections between seemingly unrelated topics. In these moments, I regularly refer back to my Interpretive Guide course, remembering that, in my role, I serve as a bridge between park visitors and the resource. One of my top takeaways from the CIG course was the lesson on connecting tangibles with intangibles. We can only meet people where they are, so I try to ask guests of all ages questions about their knowledge of the park and try to help them connect what they learn on a tour of Yellowstone with what they already know.
It's even more important to get kids thinking about how Yellowstone can teach them about the natural spaces they regularly engage with. I sometimes worry that visiting national parks is a grand, abstract adventure that will only occupy one place in their memories. So, on my tours, I regularly encourage kids to compare their observations of natural interactions in Yellowstone with places they are more familiar with, like their backyard or a local park they enjoy visiting.
Great learning opportunities take place when kids can relate new experiences to what they already know, and asking kids about their interests and what Yellowstone means to them is a great place to start this process. To some kids, the park is where bison and wolves live; to others, it’s all about geothermal features or the supervolcano. They rarely think of the park as a place of constant change, sculpted by water, fire, ice, and molten rock, and that humans have little control over change in the natural world.
In fact, most park visitors think of Yellowstone National Park as a wild place frozen in time, though much has changed since the park’s designation in 1872. National parks are not places of untouched wilderness. Human history in the Yellowstone area dates back over 10,000 years. During this time, Native Americans lived, hunted, fished, gathered plants, quarried obsidian, and used thermal water for religious and medicinal purposes in and around lands colonially known as Yellowstone.
Awarding an enthusiastic six-year-old with a “Yellowstone Bear Club” pin after seeing her very first grizzly bear in Yellowstone National Park. Photo by Kelly Nicholson.
In the last 100 years, the National Park Service has built extensive infrastructure throughout Yellowstone for visitor comfort and ease of travel. Visitor services such as flush toilets, espresso bars, and well-stocked gift shops are now conveniently located in “villages” throughout the park. These easy-access amenities and subsequent crowds can make Yellowstone feel a bit like an amusement park, but they are also critical for successful tours with kids.
Taking care of their basic needs on a 10-hour tour is the foundation of a good day. Offering bathroom stops before they’re needed keeps the focus on the landscape, not on full bladders, and reminding guests to drink water and eat snacks keeps dehydration and hunger at bay and moods positive. Being especially aware of the needs of children is critical, both for the kids’ benefit and for their families.
When the landscape between stops becomes a monotonous sea of lodgepole pines, the weather takes a turn, or the day begins to drag on, I hand out Junior Ranger activity booklets, wildlife bingo, animal pelts, stones, and claw replicas, and storybooks. I have one illustrated book full of Yellowstone quick facts and have kids take turns reading them aloud. Every now and then, I pretend to be shocked. They think it’s hilarious that they’re teaching the tour guide something new.
While I’ve painted a rosy picture in this article, full-day van tours with kids are not always easy. Some kids are grumpy from the early wake-up time and never recover, and some would rather play games on a screen than look out the van windows. But on the whole, the curiosity of children wins out. Asking them lots of questions, looking out for their needs, and maintaining a positive attitude can change a good day in the park to a great day in the park.
Two girls receive Junior Ranger badges from a Yellowstone Park Ranger after completing their activity booklets. Photo by Kelly Nicholson.
Strategic walks help keep kids moving, engaged, and immersed in their surroundings on long days in a van. Bring along guidebooks and binoculars, and point out exciting finds! Photo by Kelly Nicholson.
My tour with the excited six-year-old turned out better than I could have ever hoped. This little girl, whose dream was to see a grizzly bear, was rewarded with not one but four separate sightings! When the tour was over, and the family got out of the van one last time, I gathered everyone around the little girl and presented her with a pin I had purchased in one of the gift shops that day, welcoming her into the “Yellowstone Bear Club.” Her big smile is imprinted in my memory, reminding me that making a child feel special and important is one of the most rewarding feelings in the world.
