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Erica Zazo (she/they) is a Chicago-based freelance writer covering outdoor gear and adventure travel for outlets like Outside and Backpacker. She lives in Chicago with her partner and daughter, and this article comes straight from their own adventures finding wild close to home.
I consider adventure with an under two-year-old "Type 2" fun: exhausting when it's happening, fun in retrospect.But parents willing to take their small child into the outdoors without creature comforts like a climate-controlled nursery, a proper changing table, and a warm bath to end the night deserve a merit badge. Or at least a strong beer around the campfire once the kids go down for the night.
On the flip side, there's nothing more rewarding than raising a little one in the outdoors.The wonders are endless for kids and parents alike — watching them marvel at swaying pine branches overhead, sharing in their excitement at every pinecone they collect from the forest floor, reading and relaxing inside the tent while she bounces on our HEST mattress beside us.
Our daughter AJ has three camping trips to her name at just 15 months old. Her first was at two months, the second at eight months, and the most recent at 14. Each trip has come with its own set of challenges and lessons.
For our second trip, we stuck to the same campground for familiarity, but this time we invited friends. We shared in AJ's joy as she crawled around the campsite collecting little treasures (and we all kept an eye out to make sure she didn't eat any of them). We took turns dancing with her around the fire while she kicked her little feet to the beat and the flickering flames. And we hiked her down to Lake Michigan to dip her feet in for the first time (a Great Lakes rite of passage).
What we learned this second time around was mostly common sense, like the fact that baby-proofing a campsite is downright impossible. But that's what friends are for: extra eyes, hands, and advice for every curveball you didn't know was coming. This spring, we wanted to stay closer to home. At 14 months, AJ is an entirely different kid than she was at eight months. She’s walking (aka running) everywhere, getting into mischief, but mostly, curious about everything around her. We drove 40 minutes south of the city to Camp Bullfrog Lake, one of five Chicago Forest Preserves campgrounds all within city limits. Staying close came with its own perks: less time in the car, more time outside, and an easy out if we needed it.
Exploring nature in the city isn't a compromise. It's our everyday life, and, honestly, our favorite way to enjoy the outdoors. Urban adventure, to us, means finding and enjoying nature right outside your front door. It’s seeking out a neighborhood path that leads to a craft brewery, launching a paddleboard with a view of the skyline, enjoying the best of city life, and the green space that exists there, too. You just have to seek it out.
Raising AJ in Chicago meant we were never willing to wait until we could get her to the mountains or deep into the backcountry to start building her relationship with the outdoors. We wanted her introduction to nature to be our neighborhood parks, Chicago’s lakefront path, the shoreline of Lake Michigan, and the forest preserves campgrounds just a short drive away.
The city is full of wild if you know where to look, and we're teaching her to look early. At local escapes like Camp Bullfrog Lake, our family finds connection to nature watching birds at the campsite, searching for wildlife on the lake's edge, and sleeping under the stars. We don't need a national park backdrop to log an adventure. We just need our city's backyard.
