Parks are one of the best family vacations in the world — but they require a plan. Shannon Jones, founder of KeeKee’s Big Adventures and family travel expert, joins The Parks Podcast to share everything families need to know: how to choose a park, how to book in advance, how to keep kids engaged without devices, and why state parks are one of the most underrated family travel secrets in America. Plus — Flat KeeKee, the Family Travel Passport, and why you only get 18 summers with your kids.

 

A note from Missy: Parks and public lands are a great family outing or vacation. Shannon helps break down how to visit as a family — and makes it feel possible for everyone, whether you’re a seasoned outdoors family or doing it for the first time.

KeeKee at Crater Lake

Episode Guest

Shannon Jones, Founder & Author
KeeKee’s Big Adventures

About KeeKee’s Big Adventures

KeeKee’s Big Adventures is a kids and family travel entertainment brand created to inspire families to explore the world and develop an appreciation for other places, cultures, and languages. KeeKee is a curious world-traveling cat who has visited Paris, Rome, Amsterdam, Athens, and London — in five award-winning picture books. The brand has grown to include a family travel podcast, AAA partnership, the Family Travel Passport app, and the beloved Flat KeeKee program.

Show Notes & Links

Transcript

KeeKee’s Big Adventures — Making Parks Accessible for Families
The Parks Podcast, Episode 4 | Shannon Jones, Founder, KeeKee’s Big Adventures
What Is KeeKee’s Big Adventures?

Missy Rentz: I’m really excited to welcome Shannon Jones, the founder of KeeKee’s Big Adventures — the family travel entertainment brand — and author of the award-winning children’s book series KeeKee’s Big Adventures. Shannon, welcome to The Parks Podcast.

Shannon Jones: Thank you, Missy. It’s so great to be here.

Missy: Well, I love KeeKee. KeeKee is quite the world traveler, and you tell her stories in a series of books. Share with us a little bit about what brought KeeKee to life and where KeeKee has been.

Shannon: So I’m the founder and creator of KeeKee’s Big Adventures — it’s the kids and family travel entertainment brand, and we created it to inspire kids and families to explore the world and to have an appreciation for other places and cultures and languages. Really to get families exploring, and hopefully with children, help raise more global citizens that come into this world and just, you know, better people. That’s kind of what we’re trying to do. And so it all started literally more than 10 years ago. The first book came out — we thought creating a character that kids and families could love would attract them to this platform and idea, and we thought a picture book series would be a great way to go. So we started with Big Adventures in Paris, France as the first book, and then created four more books from there. In her books, she’s been to Paris, France; Rome, Italy; Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Athens, Greece; and London, England. So it’s five books — and then it’s actually grown into so much more. We have a family travel podcast. KeeKee is the family travel mascot for AAA clubs across the country. And so we are really just creating more content and more programs to help introduce kids and families to the country and the world.

Missy: Shannon, I don’t know if I told you this when it happened, but my first trip to Paris was maybe two and a half years ago. In order to prepare for the trip, I read KeeKee’s Big Adventures. I made my to-do list. So even as an adult single traveler, it was so digestible — oh, here’s what KeeKee did, let me go visit some of these places. And that’s how I decided what I was going to do.

Shannon: I love it. And I think that’s the cool thing — as the writer of the books, I wanted to make sure that grownups are having fun reading picture books to kids at bedtime. Why not take a trip to another country? And what I tell kids in schools everywhere I introduce the books: everywhere that KeeKee goes in the books is real. It may be illustrated in an all-animal world because KeeKee is a curious world-traveling cat — it may be all animals, but everything that she does and sees is real. And then you as a person can go and do those things as well. Except for swimming in the Trevi Fountain. That would be the one exception to the rule.

Parks Around the World — and Why They Matter

Missy: You have done a great job of showcasing parks in your books. Tell me about some of the parks that KeeKee has visited.

Shannon: Well, it’s funny — when you said that to me, I was like, have I? And I have. There are so many types of parks and so many ways to explore parks. We actually feature parks in all of the books, because that is such an amazing way to explore any city, especially as a family. When you’re traveling with kids, you need places for them to run around. There are famous parks in every city. One of the main first places KeeKee goes in her Paris adventure is the Tuileries Garden, which is right by the Louvre. You can stroll around, get a crepe from one of the vendors, watch the little sailboats on the pond. In Rome, the Roman Forum near the Colosseum — once the center of the great Roman Empire, and you can literally just walk through for free. It’s a park slash giant outdoor museum. Just outside Amsterdam in a city called Lisse is Keukenhof Gardens, which dates back to the 15th century. It’s only open for eight weeks each year and it features more than 7 million flowers. When you fly into Amsterdam in the spring, you can just see the rows of flowers from the air — it’s like someone has painted the ground. In London, there are so many parks. Hyde Park is the largest and oldest park in central London and it’s actually one of eight royal parks. And then of course the parks around Kensington Palace.

Missy: And I love to see how people use them. You’ll see people taking a nap or exercising or playing games. It’s so diverse — for some people it’s like their backyard.

Shannon: Oh yeah. In a lot of these big cities, people live in smaller places, and so whether it’s Central Park or Hyde Park — that becomes your backyard. That’s the space that you have. Near Kensington Palace there’s the Princess Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Playground, which is great for kids. Another one I think is super cool — in Athens, Greece, there is the Agora at the base of the Acropolis. The Parthenon is on top, and down below was the Agora, which used to be the center of Athens in ancient times. That’s actually where Greeks invented democracy and Socrates preached. It’s ruins, but it’s a park — you can visit it for its history or you can visit it because you’re getting a little exercise.

State Parks — The Underrated Gems

Missy: I think we’re really lucky in the US that there’s so much public land set aside for us. You had mentioned before that you were doing some stuff on state parks. What is it that you like about state parks when it comes to family travel?

Shannon: Well, first of all, there are over 10,000 state parks in the US. And particularly in the summer, families want to go on a park vacation — and national parks, as much as we love them, can tend to be very crowded. So state parks are a great option. There are just tons of activities — hiking and swimming and fishing and camping and boating depending on what park you go to. And then a lot of them you can stay in: there are cabins, lodges, camping. I was just writing an article for AAA about the 10 best state parks for family vacations, and there are just such cool parks out there. Like New York has Letchworth State Park, which I had never heard of, but it’s known as the Grand Canyon of the East. It has 20 waterfalls, 66 miles of hiking trails, the tallest fall is 107 feet tall, and there’s a historic Glen Iris Inn in the park that you can stay in. We know Assateague Island State Park in Maryland — that’s a state park where you can see the wild horses. Devil’s Fork State Park in South Carolina has Lake Jocassee — I’m sure I’m saying that wrong — but it has amazing clear water fed by mountain streams, and people go scuba diving there. And then there’s Cumberland Falls State Resort Park in Kentucky, sometimes called Little Niagara because one of their falls is 69 feet high. And the cool thing about that park is that you can see moonbows at the falls.

Missy: I’ve never even heard that term.

Shannon: Me either. It’s a white rainbow — also called a lunar rainbow — and it appears for two or so days, as long as the sky is clear, on either end of the full moon. It’s one of few places in the world that you can see a moonbow. You can also stay in one of the cabins or campsites there. And I even found Slide Rock State Park in Arizona, north of Sedona. It has a mother nature’s slip-and-slide — literally an 80-foot-long red rock water slide that you can go on. How fun for everyone in the family.

Missy: One of the tips given to me when I was planning my trip was that often there’s a state park that butts up to a national park. And if the national park is too crowded or a little on the expensive side, you can go to the state park. You might not see the same arches you’d see at Arches National Park, but it’s basically the same land — easier to get to, a little cheaper sometimes.

Shannon: Exactly. Dead Horse Point State Park in Moab, Utah is just that — a fantastic alternative to the big parks. It’s called the Grand Canyon’s long-lost twin. You can see views of the Colorado River and Canyonlands National Park from there. It was also the location of the filming of Thelma and Louise’s iconic last scene. So you might think that’s in the Grand Canyon, but it was actually in this state park. That’s a great example of your point.

Planning a Family Trip to a Park

Missy: Let’s talk a little bit about preparing for a trip to the park. It is different when you’re preparing for a family. What suggestions do you have?

Shannon: Like most vacations, first of all, you think about what time of year you want to go, how long you have, how far you want to travel, and what you want to see and do. I think the cool thing about parks — especially national parks — you can go by yourself, or there are companies like Trafalgar that do guided vacations to the parks if you don’t want to plan everything yourself. Trafalgar takes you to some of the big parks, takes care of everything, you can even stay on a dude ranch as part of it. So it’s really about what kind of experience you’re looking for. Thinking about making reservations in advance — when you’re a family, you can’t wing it. You need to have a plan. Especially during peak season, things book up. You have to book on recreation.gov sometimes six months in advance when they open up. Consider off season too — doing a fall weekend or something that’s not so busy might be a good time to go. And getting the kids involved in the planning can be a great thing to get them excited about it. The good news is there are tons of resources out there to help, whether you want to do it on your own or have someone do all the planning for you.

Missy: One of the things I love about a park is how leisurely it is. There are many parks that don’t have cell signals — and I think that’s amazing. And I think it could be really challenging to keep a kid engaged when they don’t have devices and it’s just nature. I know the National Parks have the Junior Ranger program, which I often wish I could do as well. But what sorts of tips do you have?

Shannon: I mean, exactly to your point — the parks, even the state parks, check the calendars of events because even state parks have a Junior Ranger type program and just tons of educational opportunities, events, things that’ll be fun for everyone. The visitor center is a great place to start when you go to a park. And a lot of them have scavenger hunts. We’ve actually created a few outdoor scavenger hunts for AAA, because that’s a great way to keep everyone involved. You could even take a theme — like bird watching. How many birds can you identify, whether it’s through their markings or their songs? Bringing binoculars or a chart. Maybe it’s leaves or maybe it’s rocks. Just having some things that you’re going to look for as a family.

Missy: Are those available to the public?

Shannon: For some of the things we’ve been creating with AAA, you can go to aaa.com/familytravel. A lot of the other stuff you can find on our website. One of the other things that I think is really cool — and I know you’re big on this — is stargazing. There are all of these parks, whether state or national, that are actually designated dark sky parks. I think that would be amazing for kids, to find some of the parks that do that. There’s a trail in Colorado where the whole trail is dark sky parks and they have programming. You can camp or you don’t have to camp. I think that would be just an amazing thing for kids to get them engaged in the park and get them learning about the sky.

Flat KeeKee — Take Her on Your Adventures

Missy: I know your socials and website are filled with suggestions. Another thing on KeeKee’s Big Adventures website is Flat KeeKee. And I love Flat KeeKee.

Shannon: Thank you. You were a big fan — we appreciate it.

Missy: Flat KeeKee and I are preparing a three-week trip where she will be clipped to my backpack seeing all sorts of sites. Tell me a little bit about Flat KeeKee and what Flat KeeKee has done.

Shannon: Flat KeeKee just loves to travel. She loves everything. Similar to Flat Stanley for those of you that are older — we created a Flat KeeKee so that you can take her on your adventures. It’s literally just a cutout — laminate her, that’s the best way. Just plain paper doesn’t always work. But it’s great to have her laminated and then take her on your adventures. And that’s another way to engage the kids — let’s have Flat KeeKee. Let’s see how many things we can capture with Flat KeeKee around the park. She was in San Francisco, she was in the Outer Banks over spring break. There are so many places that she goes and I’m jealous of her travels. You can go to our website — it’s KeeKee, spelled K-E-E-K-E-E — KeeKeesBigAdventures.com. We have a weekly newsletter called the KeeKee Club Courier. You can join the free KeeKee Club and we send out a weekly email that has fun things for the family, travel and non-travel, exploring at home. You can actually download a Flat KeeKee as part of signing up. There’s also a fun downloadable board game that you can just print out at home. And when you’re traveling, make sure that you tag KeeKee’s Big Adventures or hashtag Flat KeeKee so we can share your pictures too — we love getting those. We do a KeeKee Friends Friday on Instagram and Facebook and we love to share things we get from fans.

The Family Travel Passport

Missy: You have a new feature coming to the website. Can you tell us about this new passport program that you are launching?

Shannon: When you think about it, you really only have 18 years of vacations with your kids. So as a family, that’s 18 summers. So we’ve created the Family Travel Passport with AAA — the first of its kind web-based app, really designed to help families plan and make the most of those 18 years of vacation together. It’s really cool. The whole family goes in to the app and selects activities and attractions and destinations, and then it literally creates your family’s very own Family Travel Passport that you can use to really maximize your time together over the next however many years you have left with your kids. Everyone who’s tried it and all of the families using it are just loving it. It’s FamilyTravelPassport.com, powered by AAA Travel.

Speed Round

Earliest park memory?
I grew up in the Washington, D.C. area and we were lucky enough to be really surrounded by the National Mall and all of the museums and amazing monuments. My earliest memory is being at all of those locations and discovering everything that the National Mall had to offer.

What made you love the parks?
I think it’s everything that you can discover in most of the parks — whether that’s something new in nature, or something that you learn. I’m a huge fan of nature, so it’s something you definitely get to do in the parks.

Park on your bucket list?
I can’t wait to see Old Faithful and Yellowstone. I’ve never been to Montana or Wyoming, North Dakota, or South Dakota, so I can’t wait to just get out there and explore those.

Favorite campfire activity?
S’mores. I mean, what else is there to say? Actually — roasting marshmallows. I love the whole activity of taking it layer by layer. That’s my favorite activity.

Tent, camper, or cabin?
Camper or cabin, preferably.

Best animal sighting?
We were just recently in Myakka State Park and we saw, of course, tons of birds — there’s just such amazing ornithology here in Florida. We have parrots in our backyard. But the best animal sighting just recently was seeing an alligator in the park. That was a little bananas.

Favorite sound in the park?
Quiet and just the birds.

Greatest gift the parks give to us?
Nature and a place that you just know is not going to be developed. Whether that is among trees, in the water — you can go to Biscayne National Park, which is 95% underwater, or go to beaches. There are just so many places that parks preserve for us to enjoy. I think that’s the greatest gift.

Missy: Shannon, thank you so much for being on the podcast and for everything that you do to help make family travel easier. And I cannot wait for more adventures with KeeKee.

Shannon: Thank you, Missy, and thanks for taking her on your upcoming adventures.

Missy: Thanks for listening. Until next time — we’ll see you in the parks.

Music for The Parks Podcast is performed and produced by Porter Hardy. Follow us @TheParksPodcast or visit TheParksPodcast.com.