Despite several prior trips to National Parks over the years, we recently discovered the Junior Ranger program during a trip to Arizona. Walnut Canyon was their first badge, then Grand Canyon and Montezuma Castle. We picked up Denali by mail. We went there several years ago on a trip but besides not knowing about it, the kids were too young. There are many you can do by mail, just go to the Park's website, print out the book, have the kids complete it and mail it in. The response from Denali included both the badges and a personal letter from a ranger. We just picked up Gateway Arch, Old Courthouse, and Ulysses Grant on a trip to St Louis. Our two older kids, aged 5 and 7 really get excited going to the parks and earning the badges. We are up to 7 now. Does anyone else's kids do this? How many have they earned?

We have been doing the Jr Ranger program with our kids for 3-4 yrs now. They have badges from the Grand Canyon, Arches, Canyonlands, Capital Reef, Bryce Canyon, Zion, Yellowstone Escalante NM and Dinosaur.
It's been fun for them and us.
Hope to get to a couple more parks next year. We haven't done it by mail, only in person.
Make sure to take advantage of the 4th graders free annual pass if your kids are around that age.

My kids got Tuzigut grand Teton, Yellowstone and a few others in the Southwest they were 9 and 10 last summer in Hawaii and had no interest in earning Volcanoes national park.

My kids earned them at the Florida State Parks we have visited.

We try to include National Park visits on almost all of our trips in an effort to learn more about our great country. It’s been a great time for the kids as well as for the adults. There really is something to be said for seeing the places that we leaned about in school first hand.

Overall, the Junior Ranger badge count is close to 50 right now. We also have the National Park System map with pins in all of the parks that we have visited.

My kids got some Mt Rainier and Olympic National Park ones I think.