After the movie “Fly Away Home'' was released in 1996, my friend Liz and I became obsessed with the idea of raising baby chicks. Since geese were too scary, we would stalk ducks for hours instead, waiting for them to lay eggs — only to be faced with the moral dilemma of whether we should kidnap their potentially adorable offspring. Without our parents micromanaging our sense of right and wrong, our consciences would eventually win out. We would leave the nests alone, and return home before dinner after a long day of fresh air.

According to play researcher Peter Gray, this was just a few years before independent play essentially disappeared from children's lives. “The only times and places when children have been less free than they are today in our culture have been during times of child slavery and round-the-clock, 7-day-a-week child labor of the Industrial Age,” Gray says.

After tracking the death of independent play for decades, in a new paper published in the Journal of Pediatrics, Gray and his colleagues claim that it has led to the significant increase in mental health problems among children and adolescents, since they began being stripped of their independence and free time in the 1980s. Due to an overemphasis on concerns of child safety and academic achievement, Gray and his team found that between the 1980s and 2000, the amount of time children between the ages of 6 and 8 spend in school or doing homework increased by 11.5 hours. “That’s like adding a day and a half to an adult’s work week.”

Understandably, that would mess with your mental health too. But like a frog in boiling water, these changes for children slowly occurred over two decades, and “people accepted it when they should not have,” Gray explained.

To better understand what children have lost and how parents can help them get it back, Fatherly sat down with Gray to find out more about how play has slipped away from all of us. Here are some ways all parents can do to give their kids back the freedom they lost.

Focus On Learning — Not Achievement

“Historically, children were playing and exploring largely on their own. So this idea that children are fragile creatures that need to be guarded, that they’re not responsible enough to do things independently — this is a new idea that’s been growing in the United States and some other nations over the past few decades.

“There were a few things that happened in the 1980s that changed the way our culture treats children and really initiated the trend towards what we have now. The first thing that happened was a book was published that condemned our school system at the time. A Nation at Risk made the claim that our students are not learning as much as children in East Asian countries are learning, according to standardized testing.

“That set in motion changes in schooling that have occurred since the beginning of the 1980s. It meant teachers, along with principals and superintendents, began to be evaluated based on the children’s test scores. This led to dramatic changes in schools. Over several decades, there was a five-week increase in the amount of time children are in schools. The homework greatly increased, even in elementary schools, even in Kindergarten. This was all a result of the belief that we were somehow falling behind.

“It’s taking time away from children, who are spending more and more time at school and doing homework. And it’s also changing the nature of the parent-child relationship. The parent becomes concerned about the child’s school achievement, which interferes with the kinds of things parents should be concerned about: Is this child happy? Is this child learning how to do chores around the house? Is this child learning how to deal with the real world?”

Interrogate The Facts Behind Your Safety Fears

“There was a very tragic incident, and it was one incident out of millions and millions of children in the United States who were out there playing and exploring freely. One 6-year-old boy was abducted in a gruesome way. And of course, the only way parents could get any meaning out of it was to have a campaign for child safety.

“It wasn’t too long after this that you started to hear public service announcements on the radio saying, “Do you know where your children are?” The implication is that if you don’t know where your children are, then you’re a negligent parent. This was never the case before. Parents didn’t necessarily want to know where children were; they just wanted them out of the house. Similarly, children didn’t want their parents to know; they had their own private lives, and in many ways that’s a good thing.

“This is when stranger danger became common. Children were taught not to speak to strangers, to be wary of strangers. I’m an adult male in this society, and I study play. I used to be able to go to playgrounds and watch children play. Now if I'm at a playground watching children play, I’m suspect. I would worry about someone calling the police. And that is because this paranoia developed and is still present.

“The police and Child Protective Services have a lot of discretion to decide when a parent is being negligent. Parents are being arrested in some cases for what was absolutely normal not that long ago, because their child was seen playing outside without an adult. The way protective services work in most states is that if someone calls them, they have to visit, and if the police are called, they have to go. So you have the police coming, sometimes the parent is aggressive, sometimes not. And the child is seeing all of this.

“So even for parents who know that it’s safe for their child to be out, and it’s good for them, they’re afraid of being arrested. That’s the state we’re in.”

Give Kids More Independence — As Much As You Can

“That’s true for all of us, but for us as adults, we have a lot more freedom in our jobs than children have in school. We can come and go. Children are more or less incarcerated at school, and at home they’re on house arrest because they’re not free to go out unless there’s an adult with them.

“But independent activity away from adults is extremely important for children. Adults inevitably interfere with children’s play. And even with the best adults, children don’t feel comfortable playing how they want to play.

“Part of the reasons why play evolved and why children have such a strong drive for it, is that it is how children learn to manage themselves. Play is how children learn to solve their own problems, control their own activities, and discover what they love to do, as opposed to what other people are trying to make them do. It's how they develop skills; it’s how they make friends.

“These are all extremely important parts of child development, and when we deprive children of the opportunity to play without adult intervention and control, we are really depriving them of the opportunity to learn how to control their lives.”

Don’t Blame Social Media And Screen Time — But Also Don’t Give Into Them

“Almost no adults want to admit the things I’m saying. I think on some level, everybody knows it, but on one wants to admit it. So what do we do? We say the problem is technology, it’s social media. You see all kinds of complaints and headlines about this.

“But here’s the way I look at what’s happened: We don’t allow children to get together in the real world, so the only way they can get together is online. And then we blame them for being online, and we blame technology for why children aren’t getting together. But the truth of the matter is that we’re not allowing children to get together the way they want to get together, which is away from adults.

“The biggest realistic challenge for parents today is how to create conditions where your child can play, explore, and make friends away from adult control. That’s very hard to do, but people have done it. But it takes some effort.

“If a parent sends their children out, they probably won’t find anyone to play with. Aside from the fact that some neighbor might call and report it, children are not attracted to the great outdoors as much as we wish they might be. They’re attracted to other children. So if there are no children to play with, they’re going to want to come back in. Or if they have a smartphone, they’re going to want to get on that phone, because then they can interact with their friends.

“The challenge is to figure out a way where children are going to be out there, in a group, on a regular basis. Ideally it’s the same children regularly, because it’s important to make friends and have stable friendships over time. Unfortunately, if you take your child to the park, and it’s a different group of kids every time, that’s not really the same as making friends and figuring out long-term ways to play.”

Open Your Doors To The Neighborhood Kids

“There was a book written over 10 years ago called “Playborhood,” written by Mike Lanza, who describes what he did in his neighborhood in California. He devotes different chapters to how they solved the problem in seven quite different neighborhoods.

“He lived in an upper-middle class area, and he had one young son who he wanted to have the same opportunities to play with neighborhood kids as he had growing up. And he knew there were kids living there, because he would see them waiting for the bus with their parents guarding them. But other than that, he never saw them. And he thought, what can I do to get these kids outside playing with other kids? So he turned his front yard into a kind of a local park. He had a small basketball court on the driveway, a fountain for water play, a really nice sandbox, and other things that would attract kids of different ages. He put this all in the front yard instead of the backyard, so no matter what, you couldn’t help but see the Lanzas out there playing.

“When people would walk by and comment on the yard, he would say, “Your kids are always welcome to come over and play, even if we’re not here.” And eventually kids started playing, and he had two more sons who grew up in a neighborhood where kids play. As time went on, parents became more trusting and these kids were growing up with a lot more freedom than other kids in America.

“In that book, Lanza also describes environments that were very different from his. There is a chapter on what parents in a low-income housing project did. They were living in an area where there truly is some danger for kids outdoors. They were on a busy street in a neighborhood where there was some gun violence. But there were parents who regretted that they just couldn’t send their kids out to play as they did when they were young. So they got together and figured out a way to do it. They got the city to close off the street for certain hours after school, with the agreement that they would all send their kids out to play on that street during those hours. And to make it safe, there would be a couple of grandmothers who were living in the housing project that would sit out there to drive away drug pushers, and make sure it was safe in that sense.

“This problem can be solved no matter where you live or what situation you’re in, but it requires effort. It requires an understanding that it’s worth the effort to do this. And it generally requires somehow getting to know your neighbors, and convincing them that this is important for their kids. It’s not that hard to convince them if you can show them a way to do this that’s safe enough.”

A Reddit thread recently went viral in the r/CuratedTumblr subreddit after a user shared an image of a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon strip with the title “Calvin's dad is a DILF.” Funny, yes, but the whole thread might make you wonder: How come no one noticed this before?

Redditors seemed to agree. It didn’t take long for the community to inundate the thread with solid evidence that Calvin’s dad deserves the coveted DILF title.

One user, u/starstarstar42, posted a bullet point list of all the reasons why Calvin’s dad is hot, calling him a “dad extraordinaire.” The list includes the fact that he’s a patent attorney (solid income!), took his family camping and fishing (outdoorsy!), helped his child understand death and grief (emotionally honest!), is supportive of Calvin’s love for his stuffed animal, Hobbes (nice!), and came through with solid dad jokes too (funny!).

It’s hilarious to look back at the things we loved in our childhood because there’s almost always something that went right over our heads when we were little. Let’s be honest: Kids are way more interested in Calvin’s hijinks at school or on his wagon with his best friend, Hobbes. So while you may not have noticed the emotionally available, sardonic patent attorney dad when you were little, there may be something extra to consider the next time you read Calvin and Hobbes now that you’re a grown adult.

u/DoubleAgentBlumaroo guessed that the dad’s DILF energy came from his glasses, and SpecialistUpperHat agreed, “it's the dad energy,” they wrote. “Some people are really into that.”

u/bumblyburg thinks Calvin’s dad has a particular body part that gives him DILF status. “Man’s got nice calves, can't lie,” he wrote. (He doesn’t skip leg day!)

“Calvin's dad is loving, tolerant and funny,” gman2093 explains. “He's also resentful, uptight and stubborn. But in the end he's always there for his son, even when Calvin is the ultimate ungrateful, smart-Alec, delusional man-child.”

“Calvin's dad has got us all down bad,” CatnipCatmint insists, while WaitingForJalad shared, “Found a sentence I never thought I’d read.”

You can read the full thread on Reddit.

Good communication is the backbone of every relationship. Talking. Listening. Hearing. Couples who want to communicate successfully must learn how to say what they’re really thinking and be able to listen openly and actively to their partner. Less confusion and more clarity make for a happier marriage. But it takes practice. And that’s why it’s smart to have some communication exercises for couples in your back pocket. They help streamline communication and address any inefficiencies.

But what communication exercises are worthwhile, specifically for busy parents who have to get a lot across to one another? We spoke to a variety of therapists and asked them for the recommendations. The exercises they explored with us are relatively simple and don’t involve too much time. But while they’re short on commitment, their big on payout as they help you focus on such important skills as active listening, conflict resolution, and expressing gratitude. Vow to practice these exercises a bit more — or really just keep their principles in mind — and, chances are, you’ll have less missed connections and more

8 Great Communication Exercises for Couples

1. Listening Without Interruption

It’s a common sight: One partner talks, the other person simply waits for their turn to speak or fully buts in. Pretty much everyone is guilty of interrupting but we all need to be better as it takes empathy out of the conversation and turns communication into a game of one-upmanship.

This simple exercise seeks to root out that bad habit. And yeah, it might seem obvious, but going into a discussion with this framework in mind helps set the tone.

It works like this: One partner speaks for five-to-seven minutes and the other partner just, well, listens. When the first person is finished, the other then asks questions to help them understand what they just heard (Think: “How did you feel when you told me that?” “How can I help to make it better next time?” and “What makes it so important to you?”) Once those questions have been answered and addressed, it’s the other partner’s turn to speak.

“The purpose of this exercise is not so that one of the partners justifies why they did something or how they did it, but to help understand each other,” says Valentina Dragomir, Psychotherapist and founder of PsihoSensus. “Defensiveness, judgement, criticism are discouraged during the exercise, and instead listening and asking questions with empathy is encouraged.”

2. Expressing Gratitude

Two words, two syllables. “Thank” and “you.” But it’s surprising how often these words are left out of conversations between couples, and how many things are taken for granted or deemed not important enough to warrant appreciation. Often, it’s the everyday little things that couples do for each other often get overlooked. Simply think about appreciation and taking the time to say “Thanks for making me coffee,” or “I appreciate your filling up my car with gas yesterday.”

“This prompts us to pay attention to how and when our partner is already showing up for us, and to verbally express appreciation,” says Saba Harouni Lurie, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and the owner and founder of Take Root Therapy. “For those who respond well to words of affirmation, this exercise can also help meet that need. This exercise can also lead to a positive snowball for the relationship: the more we express gratitude for one another and feel appreciated, the more we may feel driven to show each other care.”

3. Mirroring

In many discussions, one person speaks, the other listens at first and then slowly tunes them out, responding ultimately with neutral phrases like, “I understand,” or just simply, “Uh-huh.” It happens. And it inevitably leads to a not-so-fun argument. Mirroring, a classic communication technique, helps prevent this.

When mirroring with your partner, you listen to his or her thoughts and feelings and then repeat back what was said, following it up with, “Did I get that right?” Your partner can then confirm or deny whether or not you had it correct and continue the conversation until they feel they’ve been sufficiently heard. At that point, the listener can validate their partner’s feelings by saying, “That makes sense,” or “I’m glad you explained that to me.” Even if you don’t fully agree with everything that was said, at least now you have heard your partner and can approach the conflict from a place of better understanding.

“This exercise gives couples the opportunity to practice expressing their feelings and perspective, to practice active listening, for partners to have the experience of feeling truly heard, and to give and receive empathy and validation,” says Dr. Tari Mack, a speaker, author, coach, and clinical psychologist. “These are skills that couples need to master in order to grow and sustain healthy relationships.”

4. The 40-20-40 Process

The 40-20-40 process is a specific communications exercise designed for compassionate listening and constructive conflict resolution. The name comes from the division of attention in the conversation (40 percent to each party in the conversation’s feelings, and then 20 percent left in the middle to discuss the relationship).

Each person takes their allotted time to speak about their own feelings, with the goal being for each person to listen with the intent to understand and not defend themselves. To that end, accusatory statements are to be avoided, and the focus is solely on how each person is feeling.

“The shared goal is to practice hospitality with one another,” says Grant Brenner, psychiatrist and co-author of the upcoming book, Making Your “Crazy” Work for You, “developing over time a secure base of constructive conversations in which conflict is seen not only as survivable, but also an important and valued–if not always comfortable–part of growing together as individuals and as part of a couple.”

5. The Weekly (or Daily) Check-In

Life is busy and full of constant distractions. Sometimes, the best we can do as a couple is a quick, “How was your day?” as you’re both passing through the same room on your way to somewhere else. This might work for a little while, but ultimately, if you don’t schedule time to check in with each other on a meaningful level, you start to be ships in the night.

A simple exercise: set regular check-ins, or make it part of your regular routine (such as taking a walk together every night and checking in then). and they don’t have to be long. Just take as much time as you both need to catch each other up on what’s really been going on in your respective lives.

“In this space, they might engage in the listener/speaker exercise, share what’s going well with them and in the relationship, and finally express gratitude for whatever it is that they are grateful for,” says Molly Mahoney, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and the owner of True Therapy. “This method fosters greater connection and communication, even with a hectic life where time to talk is often overlooked.”

6. The Stress Reducing Conversation

It’s an easy trap to fall into: Your partner talks about their stress and you immediately start thinking of solutions to their problems. But sometimes the best thing to do is just listen without offering advice. That’s exactly what this exercise, which comes from Gottman Institute, helps provide. It simply asks partners to take 20 minutes a day to listen to one another’s stressors without offering advice.

“To show understanding, the listener must be present, ask questions, reflect what they hear their partner sharing and validate their feelings,” says License Marriage and Family Therapist Kimberly Panganiban. “This exercise is meant to be a daily ritual that couples do at the end of the day for about 20 minutes. It helps them learn about one another’s world and strengthens the bond between them,”

7. The Sandwich Method

The intent of this communications exercise is to practice sandwiching your request between two positive statements. So, rather than just coming at your partner with a blunt “I need you to do this!” you soften the blow by focusing on the good things in the relationship, making them more receptive to whatever it is you have to say.

For example, you might approach your partner with a specific request and say, “I really appreciate everything you’ve done around the house and all the help you’ve been providing lately.” Then, from there, you work in the request, “Is there any way you might be able to make sure that you [INSERT REQUEST HERE] as well?”

After that, you button it up with more positive words, “I know you’re already doing so much, but this would be so helpful and I appreciate it, and you, more than you know!” Because you’ve couched the request in these terms, your partner will be much more receptive to hearing it and also understand why you’re making it.

“This ensures your criticism is softened by positivity, so your partner is less likely to take offense,” says Ray Sadoun, a London-based mental health and addiction recovery specialist. “As a result, you will be able to communicate clearly and maturely.

8. The TV Show/Movie Exercise

Here’s a chance for a couple to communicate and have a little bit of fun together. During a set check-in time, each partner suggests a genre or a specific TV show or movie that answers this question, “If our life together was a show or film right now, what type would it be or which one would it be?” The answers that can come out of that question can be humorous but also insightful. Is it a comedy because of all the laughter, or a drama because of everything that is happening around us? Or are there some funny answers that can make you laugh at yourselves and your situations?

“This is worthwhile because it allows couples to talk about their wins in addition to talking about the problems,” says Shemiah Derrick, Licensed Professional Counselor and author of The Words Between Us: A 30-Day Journal for Couples to Get Closer & Communicate with Love, “but also helps them to look at occurrences from a different perspective.”

Can you rub my back? It’s a common request because whose muscles aren’t tight at the end of an especially long day of standing, sitting, stressing, chasing, and kid-carrying? But let’s face it, when we acquiesce to it, we’re guilty of doing little more than giving our partner a half-assed shoulder squeeze while craning our necks to watch whatever show is on the screen in front of us. And yeah, that’ll sometimes do. But for those times when your partner is really stressed or sore and you know you need to bust out the oils and really get down to business, it’s good to know how to give a good back massage. It’s a skill every caring partner should have.

For those times when you’re ready to rub your partner down, it’s smart to brush up on some basics — what kind of pressure is worthwhile; what areas deserve extra attention — because the last thing you want is to do leave your loved one with more stress and tight muscles than when they started. To help, here are six expert massage tips to keep in mind.

1. Have Your Partner Lie Face Down

Sure, you can squeeze their shoulders and neck when you’re on the couch together. But, according to, Beret Loncar, licensed massage therapist and owner of Body Mechanics Orthopedic Massage, massages are most effective when the person is lying face down. The reason is simple: “You want to avoid making your partner put in extra work by sitting upright and having to support their own body,” she says.

A flat surface — like a firm bed or a floor with a mat or blanket — is ideal and pillows can be used to offer more foundation when you begin to apply pressure. “You want to be able to move around,” adds Locar. “And you want your partner to remain in a neutral position to stay relaxed.”

If your partner is pregnant or otherwise unable to lie face down, Loncar suggests having them sit in a chair and lean forward onto a table while using their arms (crossed, lying on them like a pillow) to support their head, neck, and shoulders.

2. Use the Right Lotion or Oil

Massage lotion and oil serve to hydrate and nourish the skin while reducing friction, allowing the masseuse’s hands to move more easily over the skin. And given their scent, they also add a bit of extra aromatherapy to the experience. Massage therapists generally use lotions with clinical applications, but Loncar says that whatever lotion or oil you have at home is likely fine for a good rub down.

“The function of lotions is to allow your hands to glide across the skin,” says Loncar. “So whatever you use really comes down to personal preference.” (We like Shea Moisture’s Lavender and Wild Orchid Lotion & Oil) If you’re in a pinch, a general body cream will do just fine.

3. Provide the Right Pressure

Back massages aren’t a “no pain, no gain” situation. You’re rubbing someone’s muscles, not putting together an Ikea cabinet. Pressing too hard can cause bruises and soreness while stroking too lightly can cause tickle fits. The ideal: “Pressure can be confusing but, for a back rub, most people prefer a touch similar to how you’d gently wring out a towel,” says Loncar. “You’re looking for just enough weight to compress the muscle partially, rather than fully.” Everyone is different. But start with the wet towel technique Loncar described, then listen to your partner’s cues to grade your pressure up and down accordingly until you hit the sweet spot.

4. Pay Attention to Your Partner’s Signals

As you massage, focus on how your partner’s body is responding. Are they tensing or pulling away? Is their breathing becoming erratic? “These can all be signs that the pressure is too much or too little,” says Loncar.

A good rule: Combine deep pressure with slower strokes, using fists, knuckles, thumbs, or forearms — all of which have different, specific benefits. The knuckles have nice ridges that can be used to add texture. The thumb’s rounded surface can be used to dig. And your broad, flat forearms? They’re excellent for compressing large areas. In addition, Loncar says using a steady, broad hand — instead of only fingertips, for example — can help minimize inadvertent tickles.

5. Steer Clear of Certain Areas

Chances are, you know this already. But it bears repeating. “Anything with little padding over the bone — like the spine — will be uncomfortable when pressure is applied to it,” says Loncar. “You can touch and work around them, just don’t press down on them too hard as there is no give and you might accidentally hurt your partner.”

She also advises against pressing on areas with a lot of nerves, veins, or arteries — such as the areas above the clavicle, along the rib cage, or in the armpits — as they are extremely sensitive in most people, and can cause sudden sensations that might spoil your partner’s relaxation.

6. Fast Strokes = Stimulating; Slow Strokes = Calming

Massage therapists like Loncar go to school so they can learn the nuances of effective massage techniques. For amateurs, though, she suggests a few simple pointers that will help guide your magic hands.

“In general, fast strokes are stimulating, while slower strokes are calming,” she says. “Because the back has long, flat muscles, we tend to use long strokes during massages.” A “stroke”, Loncar says, is the span of movement before picking your hands or arms up again.

Long strokes like those most effective on backs require consistent pressure to be effective and can be practiced by dragging your palms from your partner’s shoulders down to their waist. If your partner asks for more compression or more direct pressure, you can follow the same path using the forearms or knuckles. Loncar adds that pointier applicators, like the elbow, or a single finger can be used most effectively in meatier areas — areas with enough muscle bulk to let them sink in — like the traps and glutes.

So there you have it. Pay attention to your partner’s signals, keep pressure in the right place, and learn a few strokes and your massages will be in demand.

If you break it down, the job of an Air Force pilot is to make decisions. To look at variables, understand systems, deal with myriad fluctuations, and make various split-second adjustments to complete their missions. And while the vast majority of us will never sit in the cockpit of an F-16, the methods pilots use to make quick decisions in extreme, high-stress environments can benefit us all. In his new book, The Art of Clear Thinking, Major Justin “Hasard” Lee lays out the various procedures that allow pilots to, among other things, keep themselves calm, correctly assess situations, and make quick choices without falling prey to certain psychological traps.

A decorated combat pilot who flew more than 80 combat missions in Afghanistan, Hasard was hand-selected to pilot the F-35, the most advanced weapons system in history. He was also the Chief of Training Systems for the largest training base in the world. Now a popular YouTube personality and speaker, his videos reach millions of viewers.

In The Art of Clear Thinking, Hasard weaves plucked-from-experience personal narratives with explanations and examples from psychology and business to explore the Air Force’s decision-making systems as well as his own methods of making informed choices. Eisenhower’s Four Quadrants of Importance is featured heavily, as is the Air Force’s ACE Helix and Colonel John Boyd’s OODA Loop. The result is a practical, exciting guide that serves as a genuinely useful roadmap for thinking through scenarios and arriving at the best choice, no matter the arena.

Fatherly spoke to Hasard, who is the dad of two young children, about making smart decisions, mental toughness, and the connection between fatherhood and flying fighter jets.

What is clear thinking and how do you define it?

Clear thinking to me is stripping apart all the noise out there. And this doesn't just apply to flying fighters. We're all inundated with a lot of noise. Emails. Slack notifications. Meeting invites. Clear thinking is stripping all of that down to the essential things you have to focus on and executing on that. To me, the greatest compliment someone can give another is not that they're smart, but that they're a clear thinker.

You've been in countless high-stress situations. Dogfights. Engine flameouts. Tough landings. I was hoping you could walk us through a particular moment when you were in trouble and needed to make a clear decision.

There is one that really stands out to me that I write in the book. For a time, I flew on the graveyard shift. I would take off around 11 at night and return around four or five in the morning. One time, my wingman and I had just executed a long night mission. We were getting ready to land when suddenly it looked like a glowing orange hose was going up into the sky.

At first, I thought sweat had run into my eyes. Then I realized that it was the base’s mortar system going off. We have Gatling cannons stationed around the base. This was in Afghanistan. We were getting mortared all the time. And so the Gatling cannons started going off shooting these large 20-millimeter shells that are like miniature grenades up into the sky.

There were two or three glowing ropes, and I was going right at them. So, I plugged the jet into maximum afterburner. A giant 30-foot flame came out of the back of my jet and I climbed above it. The problem was that the maneuver burned the remaining fuel reserve, so I was very low on fuel.

The Art of Clear Thinking: A Stealth Fighter Pilot's Timeless Rules For Making Tough Decisions

Your brain must’ve been working overdrive.

I had to go through a bunch of different decisions. I could have done what we call a sky hook of going high and trying to glide it into another base. Unfortunately, the nearest base was closed and the airfield that we were at had taken some damage from the mortars. So, we ended up doing this high-risk air refueling. We have airborne tankers, which are essentially airliners filled with fuel. I was able to refuel with just maybe a minute left.

How many decisions do you think you had to make in the span of that time?

The entire incident lasted maybe 15 minutes, and I had to make probably about 50 different decisions, including three or four critical life-changing ones. Because if we had gotten it wrong, me and my wingman would've had to eject.

The mountains around Bagram are truly spectacular. They're over 15,000 feet. It puts the Colorado Rockies to shame. But the problem is if you eject in the middle of the night above those mountains, there's a good chance that nobody's going to be able to rescue you because helicopters can't fly that high. And then you have the enemy chasing after you.

When you're in a situation like that, what are the things that you do to keep yourself focused and make the clearest decision possible?

There’s a saying we have in the fighter pilot community: “As soon as you put on your helmet, you lose 20 IQ points.” And I think we've all felt like that at the moment. When you're giving a presentation at work or standing up in front of a large crowd, I think we've all felt a little bit dumber. To counter that, it’s all about training.

In the Air Force, we rely on a structured approach to making decisions. We break down our decisions into what's called the ACE helix. It stands for assess, choose, and execute. By breaking down decisions into phases, we can then focus on the most important aspects.

What does that process look like?

The assessment phase is important. If you're not able to see the problem clearly, you're not going to be able to consistently make good decisions.

As pilots, we call it our crosscheck, but there are ways that everybody can increase their assessment of the problem. One of the concepts is finding different power laws for important variables because you really want to focus on the important things and get rid of the noise.

The second phase is choosing the correct course of action. One aspect of that is coming up with multiple solutions. In the Air Force, what we do to increase creativity — that's one thing that can give a high return for a little amount of effort — is come up with more solutions. A lot of people like to just jump to conclusions and start running towards a solution. But in the F-16, we have a thing that we teach new pilots: “There’s no problem so bad you can’t make it worse.”

To counter this, we have a little wind-up clock. Nobody ever uses it. It's a holdover from the 1970s when the jet was built. But whenever anybody has an emergency, the first thing we say is wind that clock. It doesn't do anything. Most of them are broken. But it just keeps you from pushing buttons and screwing up the situation. It gives you time to make an assessment and then to come up with multiple solutions.

What a smart way to help someone focus. And so, the last step of the ACE helix is execution.

Yes. And that step is going forward with the best course of action. Sometimes there will have been a thousand people that have touched this mission. People from spies on the ground to intelligence operators to satellite operators to cyber people hacking into different computers to tankers launching from other continents, all to be able to get us over the target on time. And with modern communication, you can imagine the joint operations center, your sensors are up on the giant board, and everybody's staring at what you're doing.

How does your experience making decisions in the cockpit translate when you are making regular decisions in your day-to-day life? Do you just feel this sort of calm and you're able to do it in a sort of reflexive way? Or are everyday decisions tough for you as well?

It depends. It depends on the amount of time you have. As fighter pilots, we'll sometimes make those split-second decisions because our closure rates are about a mile every three seconds. You have to make really quick decisions. But we'll also plan missions that are sometimes months or even years into the future. So, we must make these long-term decisions as well. It's a lot like project management in the civilian world.

What I talk about a lot is finding the few key decisions and going after those through a method where you're essentially graphing importance versus urgency. And that comes up with four quadrants and through what's called the urgency effect. We're all drawn toward what's urgent. The notifications on your phone, the emails — those are what are urgent. But I cite a study in the book that if you can just graph all your tasks on importance versus urgency, you can increase your ability to prioritize by over 60 percent. Those urgent tasks aren't necessarily important. They're drawing you away from that deep-focus work that will help you achieve your goals.

A crucial component in all of this, and which you cover extensively in the book, is mental toughness. By necessity and through training, you've cultivated a lot of it. What are some ways you keep yourself sharp?

The first concept is training. Everything comes back to training. There's no such thing as a shortcut to prevent the training. There’s a saying, “You don't rise to the level of your expectation, you fall to the level of your preparation.” So, you need to train yourself. You need to overtrain yourself because as I said before, when you put on the helmet, you lose 20 IQ points. Once you've trained for a scenario, now you can start adding these techniques that'll give you 2%, 5% gains in mental toughness.

What are some techniques?

An important one is visualization. So as fighter pilots, we will visualize through an entire sortie, and it's important to bring in as many senses as possible. And you want to visualize it perfectly the first time. If for whatever reason, your brain goes off on a tangent and you think about something not going perfectly, keep re-visualizing it until you get it down perfectly. Everything from how you're feeling, thinking, what it smells like — everything to make it as realistic as possible. That will not only prep your brain for interweaving all these different concepts together, but it will also increase your confidence because you essentially are telling yourself you've done it before.

Another is being able to calm yourself down so that you can be in the optimal zone of performance. As I said earlier, we have these airborne tankers that are filled with hundreds of thousand pounds of fuel. Throughout your career, you're taught not to ever touch another aircraft, and now you're intentionally doing it at 350 miles an hour with hundreds of thousands of pounds of fuel between you and the tanker. New pilots will get nervous, and they'll start flying a little bit erratically. Breathing is really the best thing to do to calm yourself down when you're in the moment. Box breathing — five seconds in, hold for five seconds, five seconds out, hold for five seconds.

Another is just wiggling your fingers and toes because when you get really uptight, you're squeezing, as we say, the paint out of the stick. You're not going to be able to focus on what you're doing and you're not going to have the fine motor skills that are needed to fly in close formation.

And then lastly is to try to get yourself out of tunnel vision. Literal tunnel vision. What I teach new students is you really want to look out of the corner of your eyes. That helps you to detach and allows you to look at the situation separately and that helps to calm you down, to be able to make more rational decisions.

You’re the father of two young kids. What are some big lessons you’re trying to teach them?

Two things. I want them to be confident and I want them to be clear thinkers. It's challenging because I think as parents, a lot of people's first instinct is compliance. Children are difficult to raise, but I always come at it through the lens of: how do I want them to be in 20 years or 30 years as an adult? I want them to be independent and I want them to thrive, not just when they are under my roof, but when they are outside in the real world. And sometimes those are two competing interests, so I always try to lean on what I want them to be when they are adults.

Looking at the big picture.

I try. And now that I think about it, being a fighter pilot's a lot like being a father. Its minimal sleep, a lot of chaos, a lot of incomplete information, and lives are on the line.

Even though they’re not nearly as important as many of us chalk them up to be, parents are ever on the lookout for developmental milestones in their child’s motor and communication skills. Have they walked yet? Made out a word? Is this normal? This last question is best left for a pediatrician to answer. The same cannot be said for sleep.

This is not because it matters when kids sleep for less than 12 hours, go for longer stretches of time at night, or take fewer naps. But it impacts parents’ lives in massive ways — and is something that requires quite a bit of planning around. Take that precious moment when a kid drops from two naps to one for example. The shifting of schedules will have to commence. But first: Exactly when do babies go to one nap?

Parents can expect their baby to be ready for one nap around 18 months of age, says Galena Rhoades, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at the University of Denver and director of the MotherWise program, a non-profit that provides support for pregnant people and new parents.

“But there’s a wide range,” Rhoades adds. Some 12-month olds might already be ready to sleep just once during the day. Other babies might do just fine with two naps as old as 24 months. Knowing when it’s time to make the switch involves paying attention to your baby’s cues. Signs a baby is ready to drop one of their naps include trouble settling down for their morning nap and sleeping longer in the afternoon, Rhoades says.

But let’s be honest: Sometimes it’s difficult to schedule work and childcare around a baby’s twice-a-day nap schedule. In that case, it’s perfectly fine to make the switch to one nap based primarily on what is practical for your family, Rhoades says. “Sometimes parents’ schedules need to dictate what happens.”

The important thing to remember at this stage: When babies drop to one nap, they’re not sleeping less overall. “They’re just consolidating,” Rhoades says. Between 12 and 24 months, babies should still get between 13 and 14 hours of sleep total, according to Stanford Children’s Health. A baby that normally sleeps an hour-and-a-half in the morning and again in the afternoon might switch to just one mega-nap after lunch. “Oftentimes babies almost make it to bedtime in that single nap,” Rhoades says. Parents need to wake babies up early enough that they have three or four hours to eat and settle down before bedtime, in which they should get a solid 11 to 12 hours of shut-eye.

It’s not an easy leap to make. “It can be a hard time for families, and it doesn’t happen in a short period of time,” Rhoades says. Expect the transition to take weeks, with constant stops and starts. One day, a baby might take one nap, none the next, then go back to two, she says. It’s a learning process, for babies and for families. “It’s about working to get to a schedule that works for you and your family, as well as your baby.”

Anecdotal and social scientific evidence suggests that men spend a disproportionate amount of time worrying about the size, shape, and fitness of their penises. Never mind that the average penis size is five inches and that the vast majority of women report that they are “very satisfied” with what their male partners are packing, men worry. It’s a source of anxiety that doesn’t seem to being going away for either growers or shower. But seeing the data firsthand might make the average man feel better — or at least convince him that he doesn’t have problem between his legs.

Here’s the real data on penis size, and it shows that having a 5-inch dick is very normal. Hopefully it makes men feel better. If not, we strongly recommend developing confidence in specific oral skills.

Average Size Is A 5-Inch Penis

Scientists long suspected that the average erect penis hovered around five inches in length, across nationalities and age groups. Then, in 2014, a team of British physicians all but proved it. They combined 17 studies involving 15,521 men to determine the average penis size once and for all, and their results are below. Beyond these average figures, researchers also found that erect penis length tends to be nearly identical to the length of a flaccid penis held stretched out.

More Than Half Of Men Think Their Penis Is Average-Sized

Most men rate their penises as “average sized,” and most women agree that their partners have average-sized penises, according to a 2006 study of more than 50,000 heterosexual men and women. Their self-reports are depicted below.

Interestingly, the researchers found a strong correlation between how men rated their penis sizes and how they rated their overall appearances. “Self esteem might influence their estimate of penile size,” the authors note.

Women Are Basically Satisfied With Their Partners’ Penises

Although that same study found that men were not content with their penis sizes (nearly half wished they were larger), women were largely fine with them. Only 14% of women wished their partners had bigger penises, and 84% told researchers they wouldn’t change a thing.

This final observation drives home a recurring message: There is a disconnect between what men and women want in a penis. Most men wish they were bigger; most women are glad they’re not.

We know these two things to be true: Babies hate grass, and the internet loves watching babies avoid touching grass. Over the years, several viral videos have shown grass-avoidant baby behaviors, but the one that first went mega-viral in 2019 is the masterpiece of the genre. A compilation of babies doing pretty much everything they can to keep off the grass, it features a baby in a pink dress who does a version of the splits that would make Jean-Claude Van Damme proud in order to avoid the green blades, and another kid doing that Tom Cruise stunt from the first Mission: Impossible. It’s all extremely adorable and funny. But why? Why do babies avoid grass?

There’s a relatively simple reason: Grass can cause a baby to experience sensory overload.

During the first few months of life, a baby’s nervous system is getting tuned up, developing quickly in a way that makes sounds, sensations, and sights intense and jarring. This experience has been compared by many experts — including Michael Pollan in How to Change Your Mind — to being high on psilocybin. So, if you would, think about grass for a second from the point of view of a man on mushrooms. There are so many blades! It’s so uneven! It tickles, but it’s somehow also rough! It’s wet! It’s just too much.

Now, imagine you’d never even seen grass before. That’s what it’s like to be a baby. The only reason not all babies react this way is that different babies process sensory experiences in different ways. This is also why older children affected by sensory processing issues often avoid grass too.

But the trippiness of grass is not the sole reason a baby might be inclined to keep off the lawn. Babies may be wary of vegetation in general. A Yale study looked at babies’ responses to a variety of objects, including everyday vegetation. The researchers found that when babies were presented with plants, they took a lot longer to decide to touch them when compared to other objects. What’s more, this plant hesitancy occurred in babies as young as 8-months-old.

“These results expand the growing literature showing that infants are sensitive to certain ancestrally recurrent dangers,” the study authors conclude. That is to say that babies’ wariness of plants is a natural behavior meant to keep them from getting poisoned. After all, the world is full of plants that have developed toxins as a means of defense against plant-eaters.

It’s possible that as humans evolved, we adapted to the toxicity of plants by becoming instinctually wary of them. That makes sense, particularly given the degree to which babies explore the world with their mouths. In a world thick with toxic — or simply inedible — plants, typical mouthing behavior would put babies at risk if they were not naturally averse to vegetation.

Can we say, for sure, what we’re watching when we see a viral video of a baby avoiding grass? No. But a natural disinclination to vegetation combined with an aversion to sensory overload from grass probably explains the acrobatics. It’s either that or the babies are just being weird. Studies also support the conclusion that babies do weird stuff all the time.

It was fitting it started in March.

The madness. Whispers of school closures turned to formal proclamations. The cable news pundits swinging between hysteria and dismissiveness. Going to the grocery store turned into something out of a science-fiction movie: empty shelves, lines of people, deserted streets, and, of course, stripping down before entering the house as if our clothes carried the potential to turn our family into zombies.

And, of course, the NCAA basketball tournament was cancelled. Professional sports were put on hold. All bets were off.

The high flying athletes had been grounded, so we found ourselves filling the air with either Netflix or the news. Board games. Long walks. Discovering what heat does to food under our care.

For some of us, the loss of sports might have been the most insufferable part of it all — no on-court theatrics, no off-court dramatics. No cheerleaders, no cheering fans, no cheerful cries of victory. No highly paid cohort to flex their individual physical prowess in the name of our fair cities. A prominent part of our collective identities had been taken from us, indefinitely, seemingly overnight.

And that’s how my eyes opened to the pervasive control sports had over my life.

Not that sports in themselves are bad of course.

I mean, I’d only indulge while cooking, or after dinner while washing dishes, or while trying to do work. Sure, maybe I’d steal some peeks while doing bedtime with my kids, or while sitting on the couch with my wife when we finally had some alone time, or while playing in the yard with my kids. Who could blame me: it was all around us and everyone else was doing it.

I told myself there was nothing wrong with setting fantasy football line-ups in church, or checking on sports while on the clock, or being emotionally effected by the outcomes of sporting events, or losing sleep to watch my favorite teams. Having people I’d never met, and whose performance didn’t directly impact me, cause mood swings and sleep deprivation is totally normal and acceptable, right?

Right?

And so, for that first spring of the pandemic, a little part of me couldn’t settle. I was constantly agitated. Those first couple of weeks, I would refresh ESPN obsessively. I’d watch sports documentaries and movies. I’d even watch old highlights on Youtube. But live sports weren’t coming back soon, and honestly, that’s what I really wanted.

I had to take the loss and move on.

And yet, in the first spring of a pandemic, I slept better than I had in a while, even with a newborn. I worked out more, ate better, and saw the brilliance of my 3-turning-4 year old daughter. I actually paid attention when my wife was talking to me. She’s delightful, too, by the way.

And I was happier. Consistently. Without the mood swings based on my favorite team winning or losing. Without the bouts of annoyance when life drew my attention away from my favorite pastime.

I was happy because life, my life, was it. Sans diversion. Stripped down to the basics.

It struck me first when I was in the backyard with my daughter playing hot lava. We hopped from chalk-drawn rock to chalk-drawn boulder to chalk-drawn fallen-tree, trying not to fall in the volcanic flow around us. My mind was clear, my attention only on her—her laughter, her imagination, the coolness of the shade, and the light illuminating the poorly etched rocks we had worked together to create.

It was a Saturday, late in March. The tournament would have likely been in the final stages. I would have been inside, on the tablet, compulsively sipping a beer and munching on something between cardboard and pure sugar. And my daughter would have been alone. Or looking at me, begging me to go outside with her.

And I would have said, “Tomorrow, later, I promise.” And I likely wouldn’t have kept that promise for long, if at all. My identity as a father would have been benched for my identity as a fan. I would have probably continued living a life poorly lived, with my relationships suffering as a result. And I would have been none the wiser, blind to it all.

Because it was almost Opening Day. And the Masters. And the draft. And the Stanley Cup. And the NBA Finals. And the Olympics. And NCAA football. And NFL football. And—

Sports are coming back, little by little. Where it is inevitable we will once again follow sports, teams, players, may we take this opportunity to balance our fandom with our families, weighing the attention we give to athletics with other aspects of our lives.

The pandemic showed me the ultimate things in my life, and ultimately, being a fan of sports isn’t, and shouldn’t, be one of them.

Most couples will experience ebbs and flows when it comes to sex. Certainly, that can be expected. But problems pop up when these breaks in desire become the bedroom standard. Even worse is when just one member of the couple takes issue with the way things are going. Of course, we can’t expect any two people to see eye-to-eye in every aspect, even when they happen to be married to one another. But issues of sex drive alignment can cause rifts in a relationship.

According to Dr. Ian Kerner, it’s not uncommon for couples to veer apart in the way of sex and intimacy in the context of a long-term commitment. Kerner is a nationally recognized psychotherapist and author of several best-selling books about sexuality and relationships, including She Comes First: The Thinking Man’s Guide To Pleasuring Your Partner. Differing levels of desire, he says, is one of the most common problems he encounters in his practice. Among other things, the various demands of life make it hard for many couples to stay in sync sexually and, often, the solution is to prioritize the relationship more and carve out time for spontaneous desire.

Fatherly spoke to Kerner about why couples can fall out of sync sexually and how couples can work their way back into a happy and healthy sexual routine.

How often do you encounter issues with libido your practice?

Certainly, especially among heterosexual couples, mismatched libido or discrepancy in desire is amongst the most common issue that I see, if not the most common.

Why is it so common? What are some factors that may contribute to discrepancies in desire?

As you move through a long-term relationship, what it means to be together in the context of the lifestyle really changes. Often, it becomes less about the two of you and about building a system together that involves friends, family, having kids, balancing jobs, thinking about future goals, and so on.

The demands of the changes in that lifecycle make it a lot harder to allocate the time and energy to being sexually connected. Many couples will fall into a sex rut, or notice a change in the frequency with which they’re having sex and they don’t necessarily have the tools to get themselves out of it. All sorts of lifestyle stressors create pressure and anxiety, and anxiety is not a friend of sexual desire.

Why are heterosexual couples more likely to develop this dynamic over other?

Many men experience desire spontaneously. They can think about sex, they can see something sexy, hear something sexy, remember something sexy, and that sexual cue kind of wires into the arousal platform and creates a desire to actually have sex. So for many men, desire is something that spontaneously happens. You don’t really work at it, you just kind of take in the cues that unfold around you.

But a lot of women experience something called “responsive desire.” It’s a kind of desire that emerges in response to something that comes before it. And the something that comes before it is usually some kind of feeling of subjective arousal; some kind of feeling of being aroused in your brain and your body.

So, if you are experiencing this, how can you help couples reconcile that difference?

A lot of the exercises I give couples revolve around creating what I call a “willingness window.” I give couples assignments where that spontaneous desire can be channeled; it can be used as a spark to kindle the cultivation of responsive desire.

If men can be more patient and use their spontaneous desire in a more proactive way and women can put themselves through a process of being more willing to engage in that cultivation of arousal, then they have a desire framework that works as a couple. They have something that’s replicable together.

Could you give us an example of the kind of exercises you ask them to perform?

I’m a big fan of reading really great erotica aloud, together. I also love the renaissance that’s happening with ethical porn, with porn that’s being made for women by women, for couples, and the quality that’s going into the storytelling and the diversity in the casting and all the different types of sexual experiences.

If couples are willing to spend maybe 20 minutes in one of these “willingness windows,” coming together with a laptop between them in a side-by-side way is actually a pretty great way to create some psychological excitement. A lot of couples who have been together for six months, a year, two years, ten years, they’ve never really shared fantasies. They’ve never talked during sex. They don’t even really comment on the sex they’re having. They don’t tell their partners what’s interesting, arousing, or hot. They don’t have a language to correspond with the arousal that they could potentially feel.

Is there a plan b in place, in case the exercises don’t help?

Sometimes, you really can’t move the needle. Sometimes couples are stuck in this gap. And then you have to figure it out from there. How important is sex to the couple? To what extent is masturbation a strategy to relieve some of the pressure of this discrepancy? Are you willing to explore consensual non-monogamy? Those are all options that may come up.

That seems a little depressing. Is there any encouraging news we can give couples that may be new to this sexual dynamic?

There are plenty of couples that are attracted to each other that get stuck in a pattern of bad or mediocre sex. But, when couples picked each other, they were at least partially thinking through the lens of ‘this somebody I’m sexually attracted to,’ I have a much higher chance of helping them recapture what was once present.

On May 27, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden announced they had reached a deal to raise the country’s debt ceiling before the looming deadline. At the time, Biden said reaching accord meant some compromise, which meant that while the agreement “protects my and congressional Democrats’ key priorities and legislative accomplishments... not everyone gets what they want.”

Now, the details of what that compromise looks like are being made clear, and there’s one central provision tucked into part of the debt-ceiling deal that will impact millions of student loan borrowers.

The debt ceiling deal — which hasn’t yet been made law but has cleared key hurdles in the House — includes a provision that requires that student loan payments resume 60 days after June 30.

Is this student loan payment pause provision different from before?

Yes and no.

In November 2022, Biden officially extended the pandemic-era student loan payment pause for the seventh time, what he announced would be the final time, until at least June 30th. The Biden administration also announced that should the Supreme Court case on student loan forgiveness still be pending, the payment pause would last until at least 60 days after the litigation was resolved. But if litigation weren’t resolved, payments would still begin 60 days after June 30.

With the passing of the debt-ceiling deal, the plan is functionally codified into law: student loan payments and interest on those payments will start 60 days after June 30, or by August 30, 2023, whether the litigation has been resolved or not, per USA Today.

Most crucially, the debt ceiling deal limits the ability of the Biden administration to extend any student loan payment pauses in the future. (Both the Trump and Biden administrations extended the pandemic payment pauses several times, even when they said they would extend it for the ‘final’ time.)

According to Politico, the debt-ceiling bill will prevent the Secretary of Education from using “any authority to implement an extension” of the ongoing pause on federal student loan payments. Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona, claimed on Twitter that the debt-ceiling deal “protects our ability to pause student loan payments should that be necessary for future emergencies.” What that means for borrowers right now is currently unclear.

But, the Biden administration seemed to already be ready to return to repayments, regardless of how the Supreme Court case turns out. They’re gearing up to “ensure a smooth return to repayment process,” Cardona added on Twitter.

What about student loan cancelation? Does this deal affect it?

The short answer is no. The student loan cancellation plan, which the Biden administration proposed in August 2022, will impact 43 million eligible borrowers with federal student loan debt. The plan would cancel up to $10,000 per borrower who makes under $125,000 if they are single filers, $250,000 if they are joint-filers, or $20,000 if they received a Pell Grant.

The legal authority of this debt cancelation is still under review by the Supreme Court. If the plan is overturned, this debt ceiling plan could mean that the student loan repayment pause will be over and payments will resume with interest anyway.

What are people saying?

Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley introduced an amendment to strike the provision in the debt-ceiling bill that would impact the federal student loan payments, warning of the harm it will cause to Americans.

“The student loan payment pause has been an essential lifeline for workers and families struggling to make ends meet,” Rep. Pressley said in a released statement. “My amendment would protect student borrowers while also affirming the President’s clear legal authority to implement payment pauses, broad-based debt cancellation, and other critical relief measures. Republicans continue to play games with our economy, with disregard for our most vulnerable families.”

Mike Pierce, Student Borrower Protection Center executive director, spoke out against the debt limit deal and its negative impact on student loan payments, throwing support behind Rep. Pressley.

“The pause on student loan payments remains one of the most durably popular pieces of economic policy because the American people recognize what Washington has long struggled to understand: the student loan system is broken, and the burden of student debt creates a barrier to economic opportunity for all of us,” Pierce said in a press release. “The debt limit deal raises the stakes even higher for millions of working people with student debt.”

The Debt Collective spoke out against the provision of the bill as well, saying it may have “huge and catastrophic financial implications for 50M+ people” and outlined the holes in the deal that could have a tremendous impact on people should payments be restarted without a confirmed go-ahead on the student loan cancellation plan.

OK, but the debt ceiling deal isn't final. Is it actually going to happen?

While Biden and McCarthy feel they have enough votes to pass the bipartisan debt-ceiling bill, it’s not technically finalized yet because it has to be agreed on by the House and Senate. Voting on the bill began in the evening hours of Wednesday, May 31. The bill cleared the House and is on the way to be voted on in the Senate, where the Senate will stay in session until a bill is passed.

The Senate has until Monday, June 5, to pass the bill; otherwise, the government will default on its debts, triggering a financial crisis that would impact more than just the U.S.

“A debt default would be a cataclysmic event, with an unpredictable but probably dramatic fallout on U.S. and global financial markets,’’ Eswar Prasad, professor of trade policy at Cornell University and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told PBS.

What does this mean in the long run?

In short, there’s not a lot going on with student debt cancellation right now, since the matter is in the hands of the Supreme Court. The Court has yet to make a ruling on whether Biden overstepped his authority in canceling student loans. The final decision is expected to be made sometime in June; however, an actual date hasn’t been defined.

Unfortunately, no matter what happens with student debt cancellation, borrowers may find themselves between a rock and a hard place come September — forced to pay down loans they can’t afford while they once again accrue interest, with or without any debt cancellation.

It’s early on a Saturday morning, the first weekend of May, and Kai Lenny — the Maui-born, 30-year-old professional big wave surfer — apologizes for cutting our conversation short. A massive storm in the Southwest Pacific is sending 55-knot winds over a narrow band of ocean on a nearly perfect track for the southern tip of Tahiti. That intense energy, traveling over 2,000 miles of ocean, had built a swell so massive that the island’s high commissioner has issued a rare Code Orange warning, closing Teahupo’o Harbor and shutting down all aquatic activities on the island. Kai Lenny needs to be there. The $1,000 fine for defying the Code Orange order is not enough to keep him away. The wave at Teahupo’o (pronounced Cho-pu) is a freak of nature. Steep, thick-walled death caverns breaking over fields of razor-sharp coral. Teahupo’o on a big day has been described as “a war zone,” the waves as “liquid napalm” that detonate on the reef. But this is what Kai does — and what he needs to do right now. The swell is set to peak on Sunday, promising the best waves of the season: 25- to 30-foot faces.

In the water, Lenny displays an awe-inspiring sense of freedom: He can do whatever he wants, go wherever he wants. His approach to XXL surf is characterized by creative lines of attack and aerial maneuvers previously only seen on snowboard slopes and skate ramps. Thanks to his skill as not just the world’s most exciting surfer, but also currently the world’s greatest waterman, with guts and a winning personality to boot, he’s a budding media juggernaut. That translates to countless viral videos, over a million Instagram followers, a reality web series Life of Kai, and a breakout spot on HBO’s docu-series 100 Foot Wave.

The growing legend of Kai Lenny and the foundation of his expanding footprint are tied closely to his sense of hustle. He is a master of the tight turnaround. A 15-hour stopover in Portugal to surf 70-foot waves at Nazare. A day in the Alaskan backcountry to snowboard vertical peaks with Travis Rice, for Red Bull. A quick stop in Southern California to shoot a boardshort ad for Hurley. It is the “professional” part of being a professional athlete, and Kai is both particular and ambitious. “I was always taught to stay humble, stay grounded, work on the basics. If your sponsor asks you to do a signing for a bunch of kids at a shop, you're always the first one there and the last one to leave. And you make sure that every kid leaves stoked.” And when there are scary red blotches on the weather radar crawling toward Teahupo’o, you go.

These days, Kai Lenny is looking over his shoulder more than usual. The waves still call, his greatness continues to peak, but he’s got two new projects at home that are making him think on the future, about what brought him here. “You become a product of your environment where you grow up,” says Lenny, talking about his twin girls who recently turned 1. “I don't know if in our group of people that we interact with, if there's any kid that doesn't love the water and love riding wind or waves.”

As Lenny’s friend (and also his surfing hero) Dave Kalama puts it, “As a young kid we looked to the guys ahead of us. Every following generation you want to outdo the generation before. It’s a dynamic progression that is unfolding as we speak, and Kai is leading that charge. He knows that he has to take risks, that he’s going to take lumps, that it’s going to be painful." And Lenny knows his kids, though toddlers, are watching too, the rising generation unfolding in real time.

Before we had kids, I never worried about what he was doing. Never second-guessed it.

Last April, Kai and his wife, Molly Payne, welcomed twin girls, Willa and Senna. Kai created a viral moment around the gender reveal: Towing into a 15-footer, he pulled the pin on a smoke canister and rode the wave in a cloud of pink.

Like Kai, Molly grew up on Maui. She is an avid surfer, and both her brothers surfed competitively. In fact, her brother, Dusty Payne, was the first Maui native to ever make the World Tour. Molly grew up immersed in the culture of competitive surfing. “I understood that when you chase swells for a living, trips come up on 12 hours' notice.” She understands the nonstop grind of trying to become the best. And she intimately understands the consequences and risks: In 2018, Dusty paddled into a 6-foot wave when the wave picked him up, sucked him into the lip, and drove him head-first into the shallowest section of the reef. He fractured his skull and broke his jaw. He spent weeks in intensive care.

The incident has yet to chip away at her unwavering support or participation in the sport. “It has been amazing to watch Kai step up and grow into the role of a father,” says Molly. “He’s so plugged in and present. As a pro athlete, he occupies such an ego-centric world. Pro surfers are a pretty self-centered macho bunch. But after adding two babies to the mix, Kai has this recognition that now there are three other people who depend on him. He’s become so much more calculated in his approach to risk. He’s thinking about cause and effect.”

Kai has said that having kids has only made him want to push harder. But he works at mitigating risk too. “I do breath-hold training, I go to the gym every day, all my equipment is so dialed in. I take care of all the things that I can control.”

That risk calculation is clearly in effect. After our call, Kai arrived at a bed in Tahiti by 2:30 a.m. He managed three hours of sleep and found himself on a jet ski, ready to surf, by 6 a.m. He spent the next eight hours in the water. The waves were in the 30-foot range, which is big for there. (It’s not so much the height of the wave at Teahupo’o as it is the volume of water.) And it was crowded. At least one surfer got seriously hurt. Kai surfed until mid-afternoon and decided he’d had enough. He checked the forecast and saw a swell on the wane and decided to cut his trip short and fly back to his family. Kai was already en route to the airport when a flash flood swept through the village, carrying away cars and homes, and destroying the restaurant where Kai ate his lunch just hours prior.

After 48 hours at home, Kai was headed back to the airport, bound for Bali, Indonesia — this time for a long vacation with the family. He had his usual assortment of watercraft with him, but also a double stroller. The Lennys survived the 24-hour door-to-door journey by booking the girls their own seats on the flight to make napping easier. They brought blankets and stuffed bunnies and extra bottles and an iPad fully loaded with songs by Ms. Rachel and old Barney & Friends episodes.

On vacation, Kai surfed, foiled, and stand-up paddled at Uluwatu. He spent a day with volunteers, removing hundreds of pounds of trash from a river with New Earth Project, a sustainable food packaging company. Kai gave Willa and Senna their daily swimming lesson in the shallow tide pools by the villa they rented. “With the girls, he’s Mr. Fun,” says Molly. “At nap time and bedtime, I have to put them down; he can’t be in the room. It’s you know, ‘Hey, there’s Dad. He’s fun. What are we going to do? Let’s go do backflips in the backyard.’”

Even with Molly being a booster of Kai’s pursuit in this extreme sport, there’s a natural tension between a settled home life and his ambitions. “I do worry about him more than I ever have,” she says. “Before we had kids, I never worried about what he was doing. Never second-guessed it. I do that a lot more now. I was nervous during his first session at Jaws after we had the girls. Luckily he hasn’t had to go to Nazare yet.” Nazare is the mountainous wave off the central coast of Portugal. Molly has jet-skied out to the breaks at both Pe’ahi and Nazare, to spend time out in the deep water channels and study the waves. Pe’ahi is scary. Nazare is unsettling. “That big Atlantic energy is so raw,” Molly says.

“At my peak, I thought all of the time about the ways that Kai’s generation would outdo mine,” says Dave Kalama, the Maui big-wave pioneer who has known the Lenny family for decades. “There is a perpetual push to go faster, higher, or bigger.”

As Robby Naish, the 24-time world windsurfing champion told me, “The whole genre of being an athlete is evolving because of the internet and social media. The demand for content is never-ending. Guys are starting to put their lives at risk for that 17 seconds of video. There’s a fine line he needs to walk.”

You become a product of your environment where you grow up.

When Kai and Ridge were kids, their dad, Martin, occasionally took them to a cliff overlooking Maui’s North Shore. From that vantage point, Kai watched as a bunch of men from his neighborhood — surfers his dad and mom knew! — shredded 50-foot waves at a reef break a point a half-mile off-shore called Pe’ahi.

This is the late-‘90s. By then the surf mags had introduced the place to the world as “Jaws.” Before that, locals knew the wave as “Atom Blaster.” It breaks roughly six times a year; the result of swell generated by really big storms in the North Pacific sending blasts of energy through ocean deep water for thousands of miles until it hits this fan-shaped reef of volcanic rock creating what might be the most perfect and fearsome wave on the planet. Pe’ahi remained mostly out of reach for surfers: prohibitively big, fast, and too windy to catch waves on a big gun. But these guys from Maui that Kai Lenny watched from the cliff used a Kawasaki jet ski to whip into giant waves with a tiny surfboard strapped to their feet. They called themselves the “Strapped Crew” and in his eyes they were heroic. For years, three of the men Kai watched that day — Laird Hamilton, Darrick Doerner, Dave Kalama — took turns capturing the record for riding the biggest wave. Already going 30 or 40 miles an hour at takeoff, the wave at Pe’ahi provided a transcendent canvas for surfing the kinds of bold, arcing lines that had been the stuff of daydreams previously.

The scene at Pe’ahi enchanted Kai. Around that time, Laird Hamilton moved to the Spreckelsville neighborhood on Maui, just down the road from Kai’s parents, to focus on his mastery of the wave. Every afternoon for weeks, Martin walked Kai and Ridge down to Laird’s house. They’d ring the doorbell, but for weeks, Laird was never there. One day, Laird answered. Standing in the doorway, Hamilton was a giant — 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds. He graciously greeted Kai and Ridge. During the walk home that afternoon, 8-year-old Kai announced to his dad that he was going to surf Jaws too.

“Kai was a super high-energy kid,” Martin tells me. “When he was a baby he looked like he was frustrated in his body — he wanted to move.” Martin started Kai in the water when he was a toddler, at Sugar Cove — a little beach about a golf cart’s ride away from the Lenny house, where Kai and Molly now take Willa and Senna. “He got clobbered in the shore break. So I taught him how to dive under the wave. And then we put a boogie board in front of him and in no time he’s riding waves. Kai was a sponge for learning.” At 4, Kai stood up and surfed his first wave. At age 6, he took up windsurfing because it’s what his parents did and the alternative was getting sand-blasted while waiting for Martin and Paula to return to shore. “He got the bug really bad,” Martin says. He rode a tiny rig with the Mickey Mouse’s dog Pluto on the sail.

Kai told me, “I had the best kite surfers, wind surfers, surfers in the world at the famous beaches that I live nearby. And so I got to see them in person, and I'd watch them on all the videos. I'd look through all the magazines and see them. And to me they were like, Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, you know? They were my heroes. It just sort of evolved to the point that I saw no other option growing up, but wanting to become that.”

“I was Kai’s first sponsor,” says Naish. “But before I sponsored him, I gave him equipment. Before seeing the potential, I could see that he was passionate about it. The appreciation he had for what he was doing was the first sign he was going to be something special. So I made a little business deal with him. I told him as long as he does his chores and is respectful to his mother, I would take him to the beach every day after school.”

Hoʻokipa — the best windsurfing spot on the planet — served as Kai’s playground. It’s not an easy place with the currents, razor-sharp reefs, underwater caves, the man-eating fish, territorial locals, and nearly unmanageable tradewinds. Even small mistakes — falls, missed waves, brief lapses in judgment or focus — carry heavy consequences. Survival is not a guarantee. Kai took his share of beatings. At the same time, Martin trained Kai to be as capable, adaptable, and resourceful as his heroes in challenging ocean conditions. “I knew the currents,” Martin says. “We would do drills on what would happen on a bigger day if he got washed up on the rocks.”

Kai seemed ready to do everything and all at once, but Martin took a more measured approach — he called it “baby steps.” He kept a close eye on Kai in the water. He preached a measured approach to boundary-pushing. “You don’t just start at the peak” — the most powerful part of the wave — he instructed Kai. “You start on the shoulder of the wave, where it’s more manageable. Build skill and confidence.”

He made Kai wait to learn kite surfing — a truly terrifying pastime — until he turned 9. At the age of 10, Kai found his way onto the cover of a German surfing magazine. At 12, Kai became the youngest-ever member of the Red Bull team. Kai turned pro in windsurfing in 2009. Around that time, Martin left his job managing Mama’s Fish House and started working in real estate. The flexible schedule allowed him more time to manage Kai’s ascendant career.

“We made a road map from age 14 to 50,” Martin says. “What do you want to accomplish? What are your goals? We created a timeline. Where do you see yourself at 17? Or 24? When you’re goal-oriented like that, you’re not just waiting for the next event to happen. If you want to accomplish the goals you set, you have to be accountable.”

He hit almost every destination on the road map ahead of schedule. Before his 28th birthday, he captured Rookie of the Year in professional windsurfing; KSP Kiting World Champion; the world record in the Molokai-to-Oahu prone paddleboarding race; eight world titles in stand-up paddleboarding (SUP); three international big-wave contest titles and the world’s most prestigious big-wave surfing award two years in a row. At 29, he became the youngest person ever inducted into the Surfer’s Hall of Fame.

Just as impressive was the way that Kai capitalized on these exploits.

Naish told me that it’s no surprise that the business that Kai has built around his surf career has all the hallmarks of a durable, lasting business. “He has a great team,” he says. “He’s surrounded by people who give him a framework for focusing on being the best athlete he can be.”

Kai’s brother Ridge runs the media operation and functions as Kai’s workout and surf partner. His mother, Paula, helps Kai with vital considerations like diet and recovery. He has a trusted fitness and surf coach, Scott Sanchez. Martin plays a million roles in the Kai Lenny organization, everything from manager, publicist, and coach, to water safety director on big wave days. “Martin has taken the mechanics of the promotional side off of Kai’s plate,” says Naish. “That allows Kai to focus on his part, which is being the best athlete he can be and a fun, approachable, lively character.” According to Naish, who is 6o and still a sponsored athlete, this is the blueprint for a durable career. “He appreciates what he’s got — puts fertilizer on it and lets it grow. He lives clean. He doesn’t drink, smoke, or do drugs. He’s done incredibly well. He could probably walk away now.”

It's really a lifestyle. It's a pursuit of happiness. It’s part of what we do as humans in our little world on Maui.

Kai has moved on from the road map he created at 14. He still writes down goals in a journal and on a whiteboard. He’s still on the hunt for the next crazy ride and still after greatness. But he’s equally focused on getting his daughters in the water. Kai says he is not going to push the professional athlete thing with Willa and Senna, even though he’s aware they have the genes to be all-time greats. Molly joked with me that Kai is already teaching the girls “air awareness” by “training” them to do backflips. “Willa is definitely going to be the adrenaline junky,” Molly says.

“With the girls, everyone's asking me like, ‘When are you getting 'em on the surfboard?’ ‘When are you doing all these sports?’” Kai says, “But I don’t think starting earlier is necessarily better.”

Kai thinks the right time to start them riding waves is 4 or 5. “That’s when you can actually introduce them to some of these sports and push them and they won't have the shock factor of being thrown off a board. It’s about timing. Knowing when to push and when to back off. This is what both my mom and dad were really good at. They'd know when to give me that nudge, even if I was scared, but they knew that if I just crossed over that line, I would get to that next level and that next place and I'd be better for it.”

Molly told me she plans to home-school the twins. The flexibility will allow them to be together as a family as when Kai goes on extended trips.

At the same time, growing up around world-class waves will give Willa and Senna a world-class education in wave riding.

“I think it'd be hard for them not to love the water just because of where we live,” Kai told me the last time we talked. “It’s a cultural thing. It's less about sport; it's really a lifestyle. It's a pursuit of happiness. It’s part of what we do as humans in our little world on Maui. They'd really have to try to not be into it, to not want to do it. And even if they were into something else, I know better than anyone that, you know, you gotta do stuff that you really love to do. It gives you purpose and it gives you motivation and it makes you wanna wake up early and it makes you wanna be a better person. I don't expect them to become professionals, but I would imagine them just being in love with riding waves and wind.”

Harrison Ford has solidified himself as an iconic actor, playing some of the best characters of iconic movie franchises. From Han Solo in Star Wars and Indy in Indiana Jones (a character he recently revisited for Indiana Jones 5 at the whopping age of 80), Ford has excelled in his decades-long career. But, in a new interview, the seasoned actor admitted that his success in acting came at the expense of being the best parent he could be.

Ford recently sat down with Esquire to “talk about what really matters is life,” and he got really candid about the toll his career took on his success as a dad. Ford has five children: Ben Ford, 56, Willard Ford, 54; Malcolm Ford, 35, with his ex-wife, Mary Marquardt; Georgia Ford, 32, with his second ex-wife, Melissa Mathison; and Liam Flockhart, 21, his wife, Calista Flockhart’s son whom he legally adopted.

“I want to ask you not about your children specifically but how becoming a parent changes a person,” Esquire writer Ryan D'Agostino posed to Ford, noting that in his long career on the big screen, he didn’t often play the role of dad. Ford’s answer was very personal and very candid.

“I can tell you this: If I’d been less successful, I’d probably be a better parent,” he admitted. “I accept my flaws and my failures—I don’t accept them, I own them,” Ford continued. “And certainly, the more constant gardener is the better parent, and I’ve been out of town, up my own ass, for most of my life.”

Ford’s struggle isn’t something he bares alone, though he might be on a larger (and way more affluent) scale due to the nature of his career. Parents everywhere try to find a balance in a similar struggle — achieving enough at work to provide a stable life for their kids, but still somehow managing to be a present parent who their kids can rely on.

It’s rare we hear Ford speak about his life as a dad, and even rarer for a person with such a big spotlight to admit to failing in some respects. His brutal honesty is good for parents to hear, not just as a cautionary tale but as a valid, wise perspective on a life full of hard-learned lessons.

You can read the full interview with Harrison Ford on Esquire.

Some families load up the minivan for camping trips to the beach, others jump on planes and jet to Florida beach resorts, while others make their way to historic amusement parks built on boardwalks above the sand like the Steel Pier in Atlantic City and California’s Santa Monica Pier. But we all do it. The beach vacation is as American as tater tots — and the variations on it are endless.

More than the surf or storms, winds or tides, the force that most shapes American beaches is access. Of the 95,471 miles of coastline in America, less than half of 1% are National Seashores, a designation you probably weren’t even aware was a thing. The largely privatized American beach experience has had huge ramifications throughout history and shapes the way we experience the sand and surf today.

Take Bruce’s Beach in Los Angeles County. During a time when racial segregation kept Black families from enjoying most beaches in the area, Charles and Willa Bruce opened the beach resort in 1912 for Black families in the area to enjoy.

Black families flocked to Bruce’s Beach, but in 1924 the City of Manhattan Beach Council used eminent domain to close it down with supposed plans to redevelop the area as a “public” park. Instead, it became a de facto move to strip beach access from Black families.

Packaged as paradise, sold as freedom, in reality beaches have been a battleground of the constant struggle for access and equality for all families. The five famous beaches outlined here tell their own stories of development, ownership, and local vision shapes a beach’s story. It’s all part of the dreams and pursuit of the Great American Beach Vacation

Cannon Beach, Oregon: Public Beach Access Since 1913

In 1913, a push by one progressive governor set the path for the entire Oregon coast to be accessible to all, from the water to the vegetation line.

The result: Destinations like Cannon Beach, one of the most popular tourist beaches on the Oregon coast.

This place is remarkably chill in nearly every way imaginable. Shoot, even the local coffee roaster is called The Sleepy Monk. A cool climate and water temperatures that tend to be at least 10 degrees lower than those in Southern California keep Cannon Beach busy but uncrowded. Even in the summer months, beachgoers sport hoodies and fleeces most days — many walking the wet sand portion of the beach and those who don’t mind numb extremities braving the Pacific Ocean’s chilly waters.

Low tide at Cannon Beach temporarily unveils tidepools, captivating kids with a display of starfish, anemones, coral, sponge, and other sea life. And it also makes it possible to walk right up to the iconic Haystack Rock, where One-Eyed Willy was said to have hidden his pirate treasure in the 1980s blockbuster The Goonies.

One of the things that keeps Cannon Beach — and the rest of the Oregon coast for that matter — so pristine and laid-back is a relative lack of development near the shoreline, even when the town is packed with people enjoying the many local shops and restaurants.

Former Oregon Gov. Oswald Wes resolved to protect public access to the state’s beaches in the 1910s when property owners began fencing off sections of the shoreline for private use. West convinced the Oregon Legislature to designate the state’s 362 miles of wet sand coastline as a public highway. It wasn’t as long of a reach as one might imagine since car owners had taken to driving along the packed wet sands since passable roads to and from the beach were a rarity then.

Broad public desire for a proper road for easier beach access led to the construction of what would become the Oregon section of U.S. Route 101 that now spans more than 1,500 miles from Los Angeles to Tumwater, Washington.

Today, you’ll find about as many cars on Cannon Beach as you will pirate ships. Driving is now allowed only along about a quarter of Oregon’s beach line. But the entire Oregon coast remains accessible to the public despite losing its highway designation thanks to the 1967 Oregon Beach Bill, which established public ownership of all land along the Oregon coast from the water to the vegetation line.

Atlantic City, New Jersey: Rising Above The Sand

Before Atlantic City’s casino glow-up of the 1980s and subsequent gross-out in the 1990s, it long held a reputation as a wholesome family beach destination.

The crown jewel of southeastern New Jersey’s Absecon Island, as early as 1870 Atlantic City was an incorporated resort town boasting beautiful ocean views. But the one rub was that visitors did not care for sand. Thus was born the first iteration of the famous Atlantic City boardwalk, providing proximity to ocean waters without the perceived inconvenience of finely crushed rock — paving the way for countless other beach towns to develop similarly, above the sand but in view of the surf.

At that time, the boardwalk wasn’t accessible to everyone. Starting around 1900, Black beachgoers began congregating on a stretch known as Chicken Bone Beach just south of downtown Atlantic City as hotel owners pushed them out of areas directly in front of their properties.

It was at Chicken Bone Beach that Black Cool made Atlantic City an entertainment destination. Sammy Davis Jr., Jackie “Moms” Mabley, the Mills Brothers, Louis Jordan, and the Club Harlem showgirls all made their way to Atlantic City during the summer to entertain both locals and visitors.

But Atlantic City started to fall on hard times in the 1960s following desegregation, the beaches were opened to everyone, Chicken Bone Beach disappeared, and tourists started to find other, perhaps less developed beach destinations.

Much like Las Vegas, Atlantic City experienced a casino boom followed by an era of seediness that kept it from reaching its potential as a family beach destination for nearly half a century. And while it hasn’t been able to reinvent itself quite as fully as its kindred spirit in the desert, the Steel Pier Amusement Park keeps the good times rolling on the old boardwalk with 1,000 feet of carnival midway fun extending over the boardwalk for those who love the ocean but don’t care for the feel of sand between their toes.

Martha’s Vineyard: A Community Hidden In Plain Sight

We all think we know the story of “Martha’s Vineyard.” This is an oasis for the wealthy and powerful. Beyoncé and Jay-Z have vacationed there, as have Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, and the Clintons. The owners of a 6,892-square-foot house that sits on nearly 30 acres, the Obamas are free to come and go at their pleasure. You can nab a nondescript three-bedroom there these days for a cool $1.5 million.

But the money covers the deep history that still resides in the vineyard. While it’s estimated that some 11% of the island’s year-round residents are black (some 700 people), Martha’s Vineyard has remained a popular destination for Black families for more than 100 years, as it now welcomes an estimated 100,000 people of color each summer.

The island’s status as a summer sanctuary for Black families dates back to 1912 when Charles Shearer — the son of an enslaved woman and an enslaver — opened Shearer Inn in the Oak Bluffs neighborhood, which at the time was one of the limited lodging options for Black travelers. Since 1947, Ebony magazine has drawn attention to the Black history and sense of inclusion at the island, declaring it “a vacation mecca” in 1989.

As the area became increasingly popular among Black travelers, a real sense of community arose amongst the tourists as they returned summer after summer. Even today, a daily morning swim circle known as the Oak Bluffs Inkwell Polar Bears continues nearly 75 years after visiting swimmers first started the ritual as a safe space for Black swimmers.

To some Polar Bears participate in a water aerobics class, though others join the circle simply to casually float with others while accomplished swimmers make their way to the area to warm up for more strenuous swims.

To brave those chilly morning waters is a baptism of sorts — into the rich history of Black pilgrimage, an ever-extending family, and the feelings of freedom and connectedness that keep people coming back for more.

Southern California: Driving To The Beach

A drive to the California beach may be the quintessential American vacation. For much of the country, there’s always been something enticing about heading west; crossing the mountains; and arriving in the land of sun, surf, and palm trees.

Since the rise of the automobile, it’s a trip that’s been packaged as both exotic and attainable. I Love Lucy included a multi-episode California road trip arc in 1955, The Beach Boys pioneered the California Sound pop genre that got California surf culture tunes stuck in everyone’s heads. Baywatch eventually beamed a version of California beaches as a place so glorious that time nearly stood still onto every television in the country.

U.S. Highway 101 was established in 1926, making travel to Southern California’s beaches relatively easy for any family on the West Coast with a car. The Pacific Coast Highway, as it’s now known, begins near Seattle and extends 1,650 miles south to the United States-Mexico border, and it simply provide a route to the beach but it provides a drive along the coastline, complete with some of the most beautiful road trip pit stops around.

Businesses have chased this hallowed shoreline road. From Disneyland, just 20 miles from the Pacific Coast Highway, to the San Diego Zoo, an easy and magical detour for beachgoers can be found all along the Southern California coast.

If nothing else, the Southern California beach vacation felt firmly within the construct of the American middle-class dream. You didn’t need a passport to get there. You just needed a car. And there was always the dream of bumping into someone famous. Or at the very least, someone who looked famous.

All of which isn’t to say Americans have abandoned California beaches. Plenty of them still make the trip to try their hand at surfing, watch folks play volleyball, and lay out on the same beaches they’ve seen on screens big and small for all those years. It’s just not the only place to park your car and have some fun anymore.

Cedar Point Beach: Amusement On The Shore

A landlocked lake beach simply isn’t going to have the same allure as its coastal counterparts. Let’s just concede that point up top. But the fine people of the upper Midwest are an industrious bunch and not ones to give up without making the best of their situation.

Ohio’s Cedar Point Beach is a prime example.

The shores of Lake Erie don’t provide optimal surfing conditions. The logical solution? A waterpark built right on the shoreline that includes an attraction that opened as the tallest and fastest water ride in the world in 1993, with a drop of 80 feet. Surf that, you coastal elites.

But believe it or not, the Cedar Point Shores waterpark is only a sideshow to the amusement park it accessorizes. Opened in 1870, Cedar Point is the second-oldest operating amusement park in the United States. With the park’s 15 world-class roller coasters, visitors can get tossed and turned until they cannot distinguish where the waters of Lake Erie end and the horizon begins.

It’s a far cry from Cedar Point’s humble beginnings in 1870 as a public sunbathing beach. It was a bit of a trek, however, requiring a steamboat ride from Sandusky to the peninsula. To up the entertainment value, Louis Zistel, a Sandusky cabinetmaker who also operated the Young Reindeer steamboat, opened a small beer garden, complete with a dance floor, a bathhouse, and children’s activities on Cedar Point.

And from there, it was off to the races as Cedar Point constantly grew and evolved to maintain its reputation as the go-to beach vacation spot in the Midwest. Shortly after the turn of the century, it was home to the 600-room Hotel Breakers, which at the time was one of the largest hotels in the region. A new midway would soon follow, featuring rides, games, a skating rink, shops, and a massive Coliseum that functioned as a concert hall, theater, and convention center.

Many of Cedar Point’s historic structures and rides still stand today amidst the modern resort amenities, well-maintained beach, and cutting-edge roller coasters. For instance, the Coliseum houses the largest amusement park collection of vintage arcade games and pinball machines. And it’s now possible to drive out to Cedar Point, though there are also still options to boat to the peninsula for the classic beach vacation experience.

You could say that for Corey Arnold, the simple pastime of fishing with dad pretty much set his whole life in motion, including two hugely successful careers — as a commercial fisherman in Alaska, and an award-winning photographer who has been on exhibit all over the world. (His latest for National Geographic features wild animals living in uncomfortably close quarters with humans in cities.)

Chris Arnold was an avocado grower and nurseryman, in Southern California, who bought a fishing boat when Corey was a toddler. He was reeling in baby sharks while still in diapers.

“My dad was obviously busy with work and running a business, so fishing was a hobby for him,” says Arnold. “But I was 100 percent on fishing.”

It was on a summer fishing trip to Alaska with his dad that Arnold first observed a commercial fishing operation — by 19, he had his first fishing job. He went on to work for seven years as a crab fisherman in Seattle, and eventually made his way to Alaska fishing for king crab on the f/v Rollo (featured on Season 2 of the Deadliest Catch) in the depths of winter, on the Bering Sea.

In between his shifts on deck, Arnold photographed the crew at work. “I’d keep two cameras on my bunk at all times, wrapped in Ziploc bags and duct tape, and shoot in between work and sleep. Many of my best photographs were never made as all hands were needed on deck during the fiercest storms,” has said of his photographs in his first book, Fish-Work: The Bering Sea.

Today, Arnold still spends his summers fishing in Alaska, captaining a commercial gillnetter in Bristol Bay, where he fishes for wild sockeye salmon. During the six- to seven-week season, he lives with roughly 130 others in a remote seasonal camp at an abandoned salmon cannery called Graveyard Point. Next summer, Arnold and his wife, wilderness filmmaker Aly Nicklas, are planning to bring the kids — 3-year-old Wolfgang, who already shares his dad’s passion for fishing, and 16-month old Shiloh, who’s next on deck.

This summer, Arnold’s focused on getting his camp at Graveyard Point ready for family life. He’s less worried about the huge brown bears that wander through camp than he is the lead paint and exposed rusted metal. His hope is that his kids “can play in camp and come out on the boat a little bit and just at a really young age, start to see what we’re doing up there.”

Just a few weeks before Arnold was set to depart for Graveyard Point, we talked to him about why fishing is so often handed down in families, and whether he wants them to follow in his footsteps.

When you first started going out on the water with your dad, what got you so excited about fishing?

There’s something instinctual — the strategy of stalking and hunting prey that I think is deep in us from our ancestors. And there’s something about fishing that really grabs hold of a kid’s curiosity. You’re dropping a line into this endless void, and you never know what’s going to grab onto that hook.

I was a very curious kid. I grew up in Southern California; there’s pictures of me wearing diapers on our boat catching little baby sharks. When we’d go on vacations, there was always a river or a lake that was the destination. My mom wasn’t excited about that, but that’s how it worked.

I was really into using light line and having these epic battles that felt a little more fair for the fish. My dad would just put on a big old reel and heavy line and be cranking up some tiny fish. But I was always more into the strategy of fishing, rather than just hauling up meat.

Did your interest in photography grow up alongside your obsession with fishing, when you were a kid?

When I was little, it was all about fishing. My dad was a hardcore amateur photographer, and as he got older, his interest grew and grew and grew. He made a living as an avocado grower and a nurseryman. But photography and fishing were his hobby passions. So, I turned both those things into more than just a passion, but a way to make a living and a total lifestyle.

Did your dad grow up fishing with his dad?

My dad picked it up on his own. He was a working-class business owner. I think a guy that worked at a pipe company — his pipe rep because he bought so many pipes for all the agriculture stuff — and that guy started taking him fishing and then they ended up going to Mexico. And then my dad bought a boat, and he got me into it.

My dad and I talked about making our own fishing TV show. People that aren’t into fishing think watching people fish on TV has got to be the most boring thing on Earth, which is how golfing is for me to watch. But my dad and I loved watching fishing shows, and he’d suggest, like, “Yeah, we could do that.” And I’d be like, “Oh God, that sounds great, except, Dad, you’re like ...” I was just thinking how unfunny he was. How embarrassingly dad-joke, not funny he was.

How did your book Fishing With My Dad, which you co-authored with your dad, come to be?

I had just published myBering Sea book with Nazraeli Press — they asked me if I had any other ideas. I always wanted to do this thing, as a tribute to my dad, showing the roots of how I got interested in photography and fishing. I went through all my dad’s old albums and scanned photos and eventually put together this series. We had a show in Portland, and it was great.

My relationship with my dad was really strong when I was little, like pre-puberty. That’s the time when I just wanted to hang out with him all the time. I wanted to go fishing with him all the time, and when I started to become an adult … our relationship wasn’t as strong. I didn’t want to go fishing with him as much because he kind of made the situation stressful. So, I think as I got older, I realized, I felt kind of bad. I know my dad had spent his whole adult life kind of missing and longing for that experience he had with me when I was little, that connection we had, and I wanted to bring it back and do something where he felt more involved.

How was time on the water with your dad different from the day-to-day of being father and son? Beyond fishing, what did you get out of it?

There’s something about the shared experience on the water, the feeling that you’re doing something that not a lot of people do. For example, in Alaska, we’re living in a remote encampment of 130 or so people, and we’re experiencing crazy weather, and there’s no help. So, there’s a certain camaraderie, this feeling that we’re all in this together, we’re doing this unique thing that no one else fully understands.

When I grew up on the water with my dad, it was the same kind of feeling. I’d go tell my friends what we’d caught, or I’d bring stuff to class for show-and-tell, and everyone was like, “Oh, my God, what is that thing? You brought a shark to class?"

It was foreign to other people; it bonded me and my dad. I’ve always liked to try to find paths that are not quite the norm. Try to find interesting ways to live my life. And I think fishing has brought me unique experiences and challenges that you just can’t find on land.

Was fishing a family thing where you’d all be out on the water together, or were you and your dad would the ones who were fishing?

It was usually just me and my dad. My sister wanted to, but she would get seasick. Or my mom and dad would get into a fight. My dad took fishing very seriously in a way that was not fun a lot of times for people on board. It wasn’t until I became a teenager and started rebelling against it and realizing that my dad was making work out of something that’s supposed to be fun. He was just super pissed if he wasn’t catching fish. And it was like, “Dad, we’re out here to have a good time. Don’t be so upset about not catching fish.” I was a little bit more of the adult in that way a lot of times.

When did you start commercial fishing?

In 1995. So how long is that now? Dang, 28 years or something? Yeah, so I was 19 years old. And that’s when I got my first job. I walked the docks and found a job set netting in Bristol Bay, which is anchoring gill nets out of little open skiffs. I did that for four years while I was going to college. It was right after I graduated from high school. And then I took a couple years off, worked as a photographer assistant. And then I decided I wanted to try to find a high seas job where I could make more money. I found a crab job in Seattle, and I did that for seven years.

I loved salmon fishing, but I would make no money when I started. One summer, I made $800. So, I decided to go back and buy my own boat. And I did that in 2009. So yeah, going on 14 years that I’ve owned my own operation. And in that period, we’ve had three of the biggest runs in salmon returns in the history of Bristol Bay. So, it’s absolutely booming. Last year, 70 million salmon returned to the area. Which is shattering any record in the last 120 years.

Now, as a dad, you’re out fishing with your own son.

Yeah, he caught his first fish last summer, which was a surfperch.

We were on rocks with waves crashing against them and sometimes getting us wet. He was a little bit freaked out and he was having nightmares after that. He thought waves were going to take him away while he was sleeping. So, I realized we need to go do some simple trout fishing from the shore with a bobber. Start easy.

He was super stoked ultimately to have the fish. He’s taken this massive mental and physical leap in the last just two months. He’s like a whole different person. He was going through tantrums, everything was scary all the time — and now all of a sudden he’s brave and super cognizant.

Your daughter, Shiloh, is 16 months old — is she getting excited about any of the same stuff?

Whatever Wolfie does, she wants to do. We went trout fishing from the shore the other day. I was with my two buddies that don’t have kids, and they were casting from the shore, and I’m trying to cast the line, trying to keep Shiloh from just walking straight into the water, which was really hard, and trying to keep Wolfie from falling off these steep rocks that he just kept climbing. He found an old half of a fishing pole, a broken fishing pole, that someone just left on the bank and the whole time he was just running around slapping the water saying how he’s fishing. We ended up pulling in one trout finally.

How do the kids respond when you pull in a fish and suddenly there’s a wild animal flopping at their feet?

Well, they kind of giggle at first with excitement. Then they’re just kind of confused. Shiloh was giggling when the trout came up, and she was reaching for it, a little out of control. And I have all these pictures of Wolfie. His first fish, that surfperch that we caught in September… he cranked it all the way in. Once he got it, he was just staring at it dumbfoundedly. Like, what just happened? And we’re all super excited. I was almost in tears, and he’s just totally zoned. He didn’t show that much excitement. But then later, all he does is talk about it. All he does is talk about the fish he caught.

He’s just still a little too young to fully understand life and death. We’ve been really trying to teach our kids empathy and care for animals.

What did you teach them at that moment?

In fishing, you love the animal that you’re killing for food. You can have a passion for fishing and fish conservation and a love of the beauty of the creature itself. But at the same time, you’re killing it, and you’re giving thanks to it for giving its life to you so that you can eat it. I think when we pulled up that trout and it was flopping around and dying, it swallowed the hook, so we were definitely keeping it to eat it. And Wolfie was excited at first, and then it’s like, “Oh.”

I could see his little brain thinking: We’re hurting it. I think it’s important to try to really explain to them right then what’s going on here.

I just remember as a kid, my dad was a little more barbaric about fish. He didn't seem to think too much about the fish’s feelings. I want to be able to explain [more to Wolfie], and hope that he has empathy for these creatures and understands that it’s still important that we have this protein.

That night I was cooking it up, I’m like, “Do you want to eat it?” He’s like, “No.” And then I lathered it in butter and salt and gave him a mouthful, and he was like, “Oh, I like fish.”

You obviously got a lot out of fishing with your dad — what do you hope your own kids will get out of the experience?

One of the things I’m most interested in as a father is creating a resilient child who can deal with adversity. And how do you do that without just manufacturing fake adversity? You don’t want to do that. Obviously, you want there to be a reason to suffer if there’s some kind of suffering to overcome. And going out and having the drive and the excitement to go seek out fish is powerful enough to help you overcome these comfort barriers. So yeah, I’m talking to Wolfgang about fishing all the time. And he knows I go to Alaska [to fish] — six weeks, six to seven weeks, I’m gone.

He thinks when I’m in Alaska, I’m just fishing with a pole. He has no idea what I’m really doing up there. But he’s excited about it. And he is always like, “I want to go fishing with you in Alaska, Papa.” He knows this thing I do is mysterious, and he can see the excitement I have for it, and he wants to be a part of what I’m doing.

There’s obviously no limit to what fishing can be — you’re the perfect example of that. And for kids, it seems like a skill that can take them in any direction, as far as they want to go.

Fishing gets you outside and exploring places that maybe you wouldn’t think of going to. If you have a destination at a certain lake or a stream or are exploring miles of a river that’s bushy and people don’t ever go to, that’s part of the adventure: finding new territory to fish. And then all the other natural things you see along the way, all the birds and the wildlife and that whole experience. Photography has been an excuse for me to get out and meet people and see the world. My reason for going to a place usually has to do with photography. And it’s the same with fishing when you’re a little kid. It gets you out of your tiny little world.

Chances are when you go to the beach, you’re playing on someone else’s property. American shorelines are largely a private affair. Of the estimated 95,471 miles of U.S. shoreline, less than one-half of 1% have been set aside under the protection of Congress. The 63 National Park sites, by comparison, make up some 3.6% of all American soil. What’s so great about public shores? They’re open to all, of course — that goes without saying. But they’re also better protected, more wild, more pristine, and you can find a better travel deal than that spare “beachside” motel that sets you back $300 a night.

Fortunately, if you dig a little, you can find plenty of public places by the water in America. They’re just not necessarily where the caravans of families are headed. You’ll find them on remote lakes, wild rivers, inside National Parks, or all around Hawaii (where beaches are by law all public). Each comes with its own distinct flavor and rules, but they’ve got a few elements in common — inviting waterways that are open to all, plants and animals that thrive within, and scenery that will make you feel both at home and miles from day-to-day life. Now, get packing!

America’s 10 National Seashores Show What A Beach Can Be

In the 10 National Seashores that Congress has set aside, you will find beaches in their most pure state. These sandy shores are far flung, sparsely populated, and largely free of development. To navigate the National Seashores, you need to be ready to rough it — to varying degrees. Sure, you can stay in San Francisco, Martha’s Vineyard, or even Manhattan by night and find yourself in a National Seashore within two hour’s time. But that’s missing the point. The swift weather, slow persistent eroding forces upon the beaches, the hourly struggle of plants and animals, the never-ceasing wind — these alien places are worth spending time in. To witness such wild beaches is, as Thoreau said of Cape Cod, “a most advantageous point from which to contemplate this world.” Pack your camp gear, lay the sunscreen on this, bust out the bins and prepare for a truly wild beach experience with these 10 American gems.

Assateague (Maryland)

If car camping on dunes with wild horses sounds like your cup of tea, Maryland’s Assateague National Seashore is your spot. The small protected area of dunes and the large open beaches feel wild and open because of the limited number of campers allowed and, of course, the wild horses that roam freely. Do make sure you lock up your food — the horses are known to thieve.

Canaveral (Florida)

Home to the John F. Kennedy Space Center, this National Seashore often contends with space launches. But when the rockets are on ice, this nearly 60,000 acres of seashore is a wilderness — host to hundreds of birds and thousands of plant species. Grab a backcountry permit and be sure to pack in and out since there are no official campgrounds here.

Cape Cod (Massachusetts)

Henry David Thoreau seemed to be happiest on the shores of Cape Cod (“a most advantageous point from which to contemplate this world” he called them) and the 4 million or so people who visit the resort towns each year would agree. To get a sense of the shore as Thoreau saw it in the middle of the 19th century, however, head to the 40 miles of protected seashore, free of the pomp and vanities you’ll find at the nearby Martha’s Vineyard. Still, this is Cape Cod, so you get a more standard beach vacation thanks to nearby access to ice cream, pubs, and the occasional tanning tourist.

Cape Hatteras (North Carolina)

Part of the Outer Banks of North Carolina, Cape Hatteras National Seashore is one of the most popular National Seashores in terms of people coming to see the lighthouses, heading out into the waters to kitesurf or sport fish, or to visit the many restaurants and historical landmarks (the Wright Brothers Memorial is but an hour north). It’s an area that has drawn people to its rich shores long before the Constitutional Convention — and as a protected tourist destination, will continue to do so for ages.

Cape Lookout (North Carolina)

The second Outer Banks National Seashore is located on the southern end — on a barrier island that is a bit more wild than its northern twin. This is where you visit to do horse watching, fishing, birding, lighthouse climbing, and general exploring. Without easy access to the culinary spoils of the OBX, be sure to pack your own food and water.

Cumberland Island (Georgia)

This barrier island off the coast of Georgia is steeped in history, including 16th century Spanish missions, an 18th century fort, large plantations from the mid-19th century, and the first African Baptist Church in the U.S. As the island is only accessible by boat, you’ll need to pack everything in and bring it out and make reservations in advance. There are multiple camping sites here with fire rings, bathrooms, grills, and drinking water. If you’re going this way, shoot for the Stafford Beach campground, which requires a 3.5-mile hike (with all your stuff; backpacking required), but makes it worth it thanks to the (basically private) beach access.

Fire Island (New York)

A remote beach you can get to from Penn Station? It’s true. A Long Island Railroad and a ferry ride bring you to the remote dunes of Watch Hill, the entry point to Fire Island National Seashore. A little over one mile from quiet luxury summer getaways and at the opposite end of the island from the party people in the south, this National Seashore is a miraculous getaway from the most populous city in New York. You’ll want to make a backcountry reservation well in advance for a nominal fee, but then you will have seven miles of beach to share with little more than a dozen people in tents.

Gulf Islands (Mississippi, Florida)

This massive National Seashore stretches across the Mississippi/Florida border along seven barrier islands bragging 160 miles of wild coast line among them. Populated only with historic forts, birds, and beachgoers, the the Gulf Islands are a sea kayak paradise, where you can paddle from one white sandy beach to the next.

Point Reyes (California)

Less than 40 miles north of San Francisco, Point Reyes is a seaside hiking paradise with more than 100 miles of trails that skirt cliffs, descend into grasslands, amble around ponds and bays, and never meander far from the Pacific. When you’re finished with the hikes, if you can get a backcountry permit, you may camp in the park. But why do that when just outside the park are a slew of charming inns around Marin County — seemingly unchanged since the ’60s when Point Reyes first came into existence.

Padre Island (Texas)

Come for the sea turtle Hatchlings, stay for the unparalleled Gulf Coast camping. Camping is first-come first-served with five campgrounds available to cars (one only AWD). There are more than 60 miles of beaches on Padre Island, and 380 different species of birds within the park, but it’s the sea turtles most people come for. The hatchling releases typically occur from mid-June through August early in the morning, taking the little ones some 20-45 minutes to make their way across the beach and into the water.

These 3 National Lakeshores Are True Hidden Gems

Like National Seashores, National Lakeshores have been set aside by Congress to remain Federally protected areas. To date, there are only three national lakeshores: Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, Sleeping Bear, and Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. All are worth visiting.

Apostle Islands

The 21 islands that make up the Apostle Islands are spread across 12 miles of its mainland coast of Lake Superior. The beautiful cliffs and beaches are home to more than 240 species of birds, as well as other wildlife. The islands also host nine different lighthouses across six of their islands. The water is perfect for paddling, sailing, or a relaxing boat ride through the calm waves. You can even get an up-close look at old shipwrecks by scuba diving in the clear water. If you are wanting a break from the water, explore the more than 50 miles of hiking trails or camp on one of the 19 available islands.

Sleeping Bear Dunes

Michigan is home to the five Great Lakes, but also several hidden gems scattered throughout the state. The Sleeping Bear Dunes is located near the popular Traverse City, by Glen Arbor and Maple City. It was named “The Most Beautiful Place in America” by Good Morning America. Climb the famous sand dunes to see the breathtaking views of Lake Michigan. There are lots of shops and restaurants for visitors, as well as festivals, music, and art. A must-see within this national lakeshore are the Manitou Islands, great for hiking and camping. Explore the different shipwrecks along the Manitou Passage.

Pictured Rocks

Another famous landmark in Michigan is Pictured Rocks, located in the state’s Upper Peninsula. It is between Munising and Grand Marais, along Lake Superior. The unique rock formations within the cliffs showcase a variety of different colors and minerals, and stretch across 15 miles of the 42 miles of the lakeshore. Aside from the cliffs, there are waterfalls and sand dunes to explore. Pictured Rocks became the first national lakeshore in 1966 and has attracted thousands of visitors each year. To explore the sandstone cliffs, boat tours are a great option to learn the history of the rocks and even see the different naturally-formed caves.

The 7 Best National Parks For Their Shoreline

America’s 63 National Parks get a lot of pen for their incredible peaks (Tetons, Yosemite, Zion), valleys and gorges (Grand Canyon, Death Valley) and their wildlife (Yellowstone, Denali, Glacier). But what about their shores? Every last National Park has waterways, lakes, or coastlines that maybe don’t draw quite as many crowds as vistas and Bison — but they should. These seven locations prove that going to a National Park for a beach vacation is the best reason.

Acadia

For more than 104 years, Acadia National Park has drawn tourists in the Northeast to see the Puffin-filled rocky shores of Maine. The crashing waves at Thunder Hole, jagged cliffs of Monument Cove, and 8-to-12-foot daily tides show off an inhospitable shore that is awe-inspiring and beautiful. It also makes the many beautiful hidden swimming beaches like Sand Beach or Echo Lake Beach all the more inviting.

Channel Islands

The California coast is one of the world’s most incredible shorelines. Full stop. But when you get to the Los Angeles area and its 13 million residents, it loses a bit of the wild, natural energy that makes the coast so magnificent. That is, unless you keep going west, out to the Channel Islands, a series of five pristine islands trapped in time, home to 60 plants and animals found nowhere else on earth. It’s the best California has to offer. Oh, and you can only get there by boat or plane, so be sure to plan ahead.

Crater Lake

A volcanic crater lake that is the deepest in the U.S. and covered in snow for most of the year might not be your idea of an enticing sure, but trust us, it is. Due to the temperatures, swimming in this pristine lake in central Oregon it only for Polar Bears, but hiking, biking, snowshoeing, or cross-country skiing around the rim is an experience like any other. Be sure to bring your pole for a bucket-list fishing experience.

Dry Tortugas

Go to the tip of Florida and head west, over open water (accessible only by boat or seaplane) and you’ll find the island gem of American National Parks. Dry Tortugas National Park is known for its see-through blue water, coral reefs, and oh so many sea turtles. Getting there is a trek, but worth the effort.

Everglades

Wetlands get a bad rap. Not only are they among the most important types of land for flood prevention, carbon retention, and water purifying, they’re also brimming with life. The Everglades, a huge subtropical wetland system, offers a density of birds (more than 360 species have been recorded there), mammals (more than 40 mammals live there), and more than 50 distinct reptile species (yes, alligators included). While your best best is to rent a boat and take a pair of binoculars, hiking, biking, and fishing are all perfect activities for this pristine piece of Florida.

Indiana Dunes

On the south shore of Lake Michigan just 90 minutes from Chicago, Indiana Dunes was at first designated a National Lakeshore and in 2019 officially made a National Park. The whole 23 square-mile park sits on one of the biggest dunes off Lake Michigan and is brimming with activities. Hiking, horseback riding, biking, birding, swimming, fishing, camping, and in winter months, cross-country skiing and snowshoeing are major draws for the midwestern city dwellers.

Voyageurs

On the northern tip of Minnesota, a 218,055-acre plot surrounded by lakes, Voyageurs is known for its fishing, the Northern Lights, and its countless islands (there are more than 500). This is a place to see every possible kind of waterway — from lakes to streams, wetlands, and island shores — as much as it is a borderlands to get away from it all. All of it except, you know, the moose, wolves, deer, Bald Eagles, perch, pike, and walleyes

3 Ways To See Alaska, America’s Reservoir

Alaska is a humbling place. The land is big, wild, and frankly rather deadly. Nothing can make you feel smaller than standing on top of a glacier or peak to see that there are glaciers and peaks, similar in kind to the one you’re standing on, for as far the eye can see (even geologists stopped counting at 27,000 glaciers and the USGS notes that it’s a fool’s errand to try).

But the vastest resource of Alaska, despite the visual feast of the Alaska Range and the Brooks Range and Aleutian Range or the Grizzly Bears and Wolves, and Caribou, is its waterways. According to the Alaska Department of Fish & Game, Alaska contains more than 40% of surface water in America including more than 12,000 rivers, 3 million lakes greater than 5 acres, and so many creeks and ponds that they don’t bother to count. Its coastline runs for an astounding 6,640 miles — some 7% of the entirety of the United States coast.

Of course, like much of Alaska so much of these waterways are daunting — unreachable but to the most intrepid explorer. Even relatively tame and civilized cruises or camping or stays at luxury lodges require some fortitude — to get through the inclement weather, to take care near the Grizzlies, to get out and into the wild. It’s worth it. Alaska should be on everyone’s bucket list and the waterways are the way to truly explore it. Here are three places to start:

Canoe On the Stikine River

The fastest flowing navigable waterway in North America, the Stikine River flows from British Columbia toward Wrangell, an island in Alaska which acts as a launching point for many rugged adventurers. It’s one of the most spectacular canoe trips on the planet. Glaciers are everywhere, along with glacial lakes that are worth a portage to.

You can book a trip through Nahanni River Adventures.

Kayak Around The Seward Peninsula

Who wants to see some Bald Eagles? How about such a density of them that you would think you’re in a much more horrifying version of Hitchcock’s The Birds. The masses of Bald Eagles in the area naturally mean epic fishing. So using Seward as your launch pad (the town is 127 miles from Anchorage), you can crawl the coast or hope island to island checking out the birds, the fish, or get a sea view of the 30 glaciers in the nearby Harding Icefield.

Book one of numerous guided and unguided kayak tours from out of Seward.

Cruise To The Far Away Central Coast

You really can see Russia from Nome, Alaska. But also, the Iditarod (it’s home to the finish line), roaming Musk Ox, hot springs, the Bendeleben Mountains which act as the divide for drainage for the Pacific and Arctic Oceans. So why go to Nome? For all the above reasons, but also because so few can make it there. Cruise Lines like this tour from Holland America are one of the only ways to see such rare coastlines — and you also a epic tour of coastal Alaska from Wrangell to Juneau, Seward to Nome

You can book a cruise from Holland America Line.

Getting Away From It All In The Adirondacks

The Adirondacks, in northeastern New York, contain some of the most dramatic and determinedly rugged landscapes in the United States. It’s truly vast, big enough to fit the Everglades, Yellowstone, and the Grand Canyon with room to spare. It’s home to more than 3,000 lakes, old growth forests, dozens of high peaks, and some 30,000 miles of river and stream. Adirondack Park, created in the late 19th century, encompasses nearly the entire region with a unique conservation model that mixes public and private use. Roughly half the land is privately owned, mostly for agriculture and forestry — but the heart of the region is the Forest Preserve, created by Congress in 1885: 2.6 million acres that “shall be forever kept as wild forest lands. They shall not be sold, nor shall they be leased or taken by any person or corporation, public or private.”

The Saint Regis Canoe Area of the Adirondacks is the largest wilderness canoe area in the Northeastern United States. Nothing motorized is permitted here — so you can paddle in woodsy quiet over its chain of 58 lakes and ponds, backcountry camping along the way, and do it all for free.

14 National Wild And Scenic Rivers To Ford, Float, And Fish

The continental United States is a jigsaw of expansive watersheds that convey every drop of flowing water from its highlands source out, eventually, to sea. Those networks of creeks, streams, and rivers give us our drinking water, fill irrigation channels, create routes for inland shipping (some 550 million tons each year), and provide inestimable opportunities for peace, fun, and adventure on the water. The 3.5 million or so miles of river and stream that crisscross the country are the lifeblood of the nation.

But that’s a lot of pressure on a finite resource, and only a tiny fraction of our rivers and streams — about one-half of 1 percent — is federally protected under 1968’s Wild and Scenic Rivers. The bill, written largely in reaction to the impacts of the heroic phase of river engineering and dam construction — beginning in 1935, with the Hoover Dam, and going full steam into the 1960s — sought to preserve wild and free-flowing rivers, and the complex ecosystems they support.

Allagash Wilderness Waterway, Maine

The only Wild & Scenic River in the state, the Allagash Wilderness Waterway was first protected by the Maine state legislature, in 1966, and then added to the National System in 1970. Not a singular waterway, but a wild chain of lakes, ponds, rivers, and streams, the Allagash water trails run through northern Maine’s historic logging forests. While not for novices, the Allgash offers a range of paddles (up to Class II rapids), abundant hiking, fishing, and camping opportunites (by permit). Above all, the Allagash is determinedly rugged and remote — it’s accessible only by a few gravel roads. In the words of the official guide, “internet connectivity and cell phone coverage is nonexistant.”

Allegheny River, Pennsylvania

The Allegheny flows for roughly 325 miles from its source on the Pennsylvania/New York, beginning as a shallow river over a rocky river bed that gain speed and volume as it moves west to Pittsburgh, where it merges with the Monongahela to form the mighty Ohio (and eventually the Lower Mississippi). It forms the northern boundary of the 514,000-acre Allegheny National Forest. The lower Alleghenny has been made navigable by a string of locks and dams, the largest of which — the Kinzua Dam — created the 24-mile long Allegheny Reservoir, by flooding roughly a third of the Seneca Nation’s tribal lands (some 10,000 acres). Below the Kinzua Dam begins the Wild and Scenic Allegheny, with long smooth-pebble beaches, a few gentle rapids, and a string of islands that are open to camping, first come, first serve. The perfect place for a first (for fiftieth) family canoe-camping adventure.

American River, California

The North Fork of the American River begins in the Tahoe National Forest and flows on through whitewater channels and redwood forest, over waterfalls and past the site of an abandoned dam, now the 40 acre-extreme sport capital of the Auburn Dam Recreational Area, a haven for everything from mountain biking and horseback riding to whitewater rafting. Among the most famous rapids is Tunnel Chute — a wild cutoff that miners hand-blasted in the 19th century (they were trying to drain a gold-filled horseshoe bend in the river, and succeeded!) that's now a popular rafting destination. Iconic Western vistas, abundant wildlife, serious hikes, and cool, clear pools in which to leap, this portion of the American River is thankfully preserved for generations to come.

Buffalo National River, Arkansas

The Buffalo survived years of plans to dam or alter portions of the river, before being preserved as a National River by Congress in 1972 — it was the first in the country. The Buffalo flows from the high Ozarks, across two great plateaus and through national and state parks, ultimately merging with the White River in Missouri. Popular (and sometimes crowded) put-ins along the river are the launching pad for everything from mile-long inner tube drifting trips to days-long expeditions by canoe and kayak. Either way, you’re floating through some of the most iconic landscapes on the continent — high bluffs, hidden hollows, waterfall coves, and sweeping riverbanks beaches that make traveling the Buffalo perfect for families. You can camp just about anywhere in the backcountry (with some important exceptions). Next year’s full solar eclipse will be visible from the Buffalo.

Cache la Poudre, Colorado

Colorado’s lone protected river in the National System, the Cache la Poudre is protected from its headwaters in Rocky Mountain National Park and downstream for 76 miles along its south fork, passing through Fort Collins. In 1820, French trappers, hit by a massive blizzard, buried their gun powder along the banks of the river to preserve it — hence the river’s name (“powder cache”). The river is a destination for fly-fishing destination — wild trout are abundant — and for whitewater rafting through the Poudre Canyon.

Delaware River, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey

You might know the Delaware as a watershed that provides drinking water to millions. But it’s also a well-protected wild river that run from the Catskills in New York along the border of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey until it flows out in the Delaware Bay and to the Atlantic Ocean. For recreation, the Delaware Water Gap can’t be beat — the perfect point to put in a kayak or canoe and to float down the river, past the Appalachian Trail which crosses it on a bridge and into some of the most untouched places in the Mid-Atlantic.

Missisquoi & Trout Rivers, Vermont

Some 46 miles of the Missisquoi and its tributary the Trout were designated as the only Wild and Scenic in Vermont, in 2014. Long a fishing ground of the Abenaki, portions of the river system flow through both Vermont and Quebec. Famous for clear water in deep bedrock swimming holes, such as Three Holes; Big Falls (the largest natural waterfall in the state) crashes down into a 225-foot gorge with 60-foot high walls, at the end of this high-rock wall corridor is a large pool, ringed with beaches. Rare species and rocks, from the spiny softshell turtles, blue schists, and serpentinites. The largest concentration of historic covered bridges in the U.S.

New River, West Virginia

The New River is an adventurers’ playground. It has some of the best whitewater on the east coast, especially in the Upper Gauley with Class V water that draws pros and thrill-seekers alike during the seasonal flows. Same for the rock climbing, unparalleled in the east. There’s Bridge Day, basically a BASE jumping convention that takes place over the river every year. Did we mention mountain biking, trail running, and, for us slower-paced folks, bucket-list birding and fly fishing? The New River is the center point of these activities, accessible in the New Gorge National Park, one of the most recently added National Parks.

Missouri River, Montana, Nebraska, And South Dakota

The Missouri River flows for more than 2,500 miles, from the Rocky Mountains, in Montana, to its confluence with the Mississippi River in St. Louis, making it the longest river in the country. Together, the Missouri and Mississippi form the fourth largest river system in the world; both have been profoundly altered by dams and other engineering to facilitate commercial and industrial use, especially in the lower sections. Which makes it all the more remarkable that portions of this majestic river, passing through some of the most dramatic landscapes on the continent, have been preserved as wild and scenic: 149 miles downstream from Fort Benton, Montana were designated in 1976. Float, fish, camp, hike, find solitude.

Rogue River, Oregon

One of the “Original Eight” rivers designated for preservation, the Rogue River flows 215 miles from the ancient caldera of Crater Lake (see above), through national parks, former gold rush towns, and some of the wildest portions of the Pacific Northwest, ultimately flowing out to the Pacific near Gold Beach. During the 19th century Gold Rush, miners found so much gold glimmering in the beach near the mouth of the Rogue River, they named the whole town Gold Beach. Like much of the coast, it went through subsequent heydays in salmon fishing and canning and timber, before becoming a mecca for whitewater rafting and fly fishing.

Rio Grande, Texas

For 1,250 miles, the Rio Grande forms the border between the United States and Mexico — almost 200 of those miles are wild and scenic as they wrap around the southern boundary of Big Bend National Park, in West Texas. While you can plan an epic float around the entirety of the “big bend,” most visitors shorter paddles through some of the river’s dramatic high-walled canyons, striated with the rich reds, yellows and grays of the Chihuahuan Desert, an essential habitat to thousands of bird, animal and plant species, including the golden eagle, jaguar, and the Mexican wolf. It’s home to a quarter of the world’s cactus species. Most popular: day or overnight trips through Santa Elena, the deepest of the canyons, with 1,500-foot walls, or Boquillas Canyon, for a mellow 2-3 day float.

Salmon River (Middle Fork), Idaho

One of the original eight rivers in the National System, nearly every mile of the Middle Fork is designated and protected as wild. It flows, in its entirety, through the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness, the ruggedness of which essentially saved the Middle Fork from development — it’s among the only free-flowing sections of the Salmon River system. From high alpine forest to desert, and dropping down through high-walled canyons, the river supports abundant wildlife, including elk, cougar, and bighorn sheep. A worldclass rafting destination, the Middle Fork draws thousands of adventurous families each summer, with wilderness camping along the riverbank. Permits are available by lottery each year, and river use tightly regulated to preserve its pristine state.

Smith River, California

The Smith River, in the Northwestern corner of California, was added to the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System in 1981, and has since been expanded into the Smith River National Recreation Area, encompassing more than 300 wild and scenic miles. The free-flowing jade-green waters of the Smith flow unimpeded — the only major river in the state that has been dammed — all the way to the Pacific through Redwood National and State Parks, steep canyons, and rugged, deeply forested terrain. Sought out for its whitewater sections, the Smith mellows out for long stretches — you can snorkel and swim in the deep, clear pools of emerald-green water, float, and fish.

Wekiva River, Florida

One of two designated rivers in the state — and the only waterway protected in its entirety — the crystal-clear Wekiva flows for 16 miles, just north of Orlando. The Wekiva and its natural springs and tributaries are among the last untouched stretches in Central Florida, surrounded by roughly 110 square miles of protected wilderness — hardwood swamps, wetlands, orchid, and fern — that’s home to abundant wildlife, including black bears, sandhill cranes, and alligators. Hike for miles or drift along dreamily for the day.

Say Aloho To These 3 Hawaiian Beaches

In Hawaii, you can’t own the beach, no matter how much money you have — it’s part of the public trust and open to all, a communal tradition deeply rooted in both Hawaiian culture and legal precedent. In 1995, the courts recognized native and public rights to access the beach, up to the vegetation line. Which, unfortunately, didn’t stop various outside money from trying to effectively block the public from beaches by exploiting the law and goosing vegetation down to the waterline. In 2006, the Hawaiian Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the “beach” reached the “the highest wash of the waves” and condemned the use of artificial vegetation.

That Hawaii has some of the most beautiful beaches on the planet is beyond argument. That native Hawaiians and others have fought successfully to keep the world’s most desirable beaches in public hands, is a miracle and a gift to everyone who lives and goes there.

Mākena State Park, Maui

In an archipelago of otherworldly beauty, the 165 acres of Mākena State Park stand out. A large white-sand beach arcs for a mile and a half on one side of Puʻu Ola — the cinder cone of a dormant volcano — and the smaller and generally more crowded Puʻu Olai Beach extends on the other. There are no concessions here, so visitors need to come prepared with plenty of water, sunscreens and portable shade. Generally calm enough for swimming and snorkeling, the surf break here — as with nearly all beaches in Hawaii — can become treacherous, depending on the conditions. Afternoon clouds roll in and hang between Haleakala and Kaho’olawe peaks, offering a near-magical respite from the sun and heat.

Lanikai Beach (Kaʻōhao Beach), Oahu

Consistently ranked among the most beautiful places in the world, the beach is adjacent to a residential area of Kailua, so visitors reach the half-mile stretch of soft, white sand via public-access paths. Swim, chill, watch outriggers launch from the beach, or kayak out to Nā Mokulua, a pair of small islands roughly a mile offshore. The islands are part of the Hawaii State Seabird Sanctuary and largely off-limits, but the paddle out is its own wilderness experience, in the company of sea turtles, rays and other creatures.

Pu’uhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park, Hawaii

A stretch of coastline that’s both rich with natural beauty and a culturally sacred and historic site in Hawaiian history. In ancient times, Pu’uhonua o Honaunau was a “place of refuge” for those sentenced to death for breaking one of the kapu (or “taboos”) that was strictly enforced. The convicted would be fully absolved if they were able to navigate the treacherous reef and currents, and swim to the safety of this shore. Centuries-old structures on the Royal Grounds still stand — once a stronghold and safe haven for families during times of war. First and foremost, the park offers excellent opportunities to learn about Hawaiian culture, history and craft; local experts demonstrate weaving, carving, and traditional fishing techniques.

Four-time Olympic medalist Cullen Jones would love for kids to follow in his footsteps — or his wake, if you will — and fall in love with swimming. He just doesn’t want them to have as traumatic a start to their love for aquatics as he did.

Jones medaled 13 times for the United States at major international competitions, taking the golden top spot on the medal stand seven times. He’s the first African American swimmer to hold a world record and swam on the legendary world-record-setting 4x100 freestyle relay team at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

Was Jones destined for swimming greatness from the start? Who knows. But he didn’t start swimming lessons until he was 5 years old, after nearly drowning at a water park even though his parents were keeping a close eye on him and there were lifeguards on duty.

After following his dad down a water slide, the young Jones flipped upside down when he hit the splash pool at the end of the run. He got scared, started to panic because he didn’t know how to swim, and ended up submerged for almost 30 seconds, the threshold after which kids can experience brain damage. Lifeguards were able to resuscitate Jones, but not a moment too soon.

The experience was a wake-up call for his parents and the encouragement they needed to get Jones signed up for swimming lessons.

Since retiring from competitive swimming three years ago, Jones has kept busy advocating for water safety and providing kids — especially Black and brown kids — access to organized swimming lessons. It’s work he started doing while swimming competitively, but he’s now been able to dedicate more time and effort to as the senior manager of sports marketing and philanthropy at Speedo.

“There’s an 88% chance that a child will be safer on the water and not drown if they have formal swimming lessons,” Jones says. “Sixty-four percent of Black and Latino American kids don’t know how to swim, compared to just 28% of white kids.”

“Water can be dangerous, but [you can’t] treat water like fire, [and] encourage kids to stay away and not go near it.”

That trend continues past childhood and becomes a vicious cycle of swimming illiteracy. A survey from the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago that analyzed responses from 1,283 parents of 2,148 children aged 4 years and older found that less than 4% of white parents reported never learning to swim, compared to 26% of Black parents and more than 32% of Latinx parents. And the CDC reports Black children ages 10 to 14 drown in pools at rates more than seven times higher than white children.

“The overarching reason people of color don’t enroll their kids in swimming lessons at higher rates is fear,” Jones says. “They correctly recognize that water can be dangerous, but they treat water like fire, encourage kids to stay away and not go near it.”

Some fear has been passed down generationally as water spaces played a central role in the story of racism and segregation in the United States. Even in Northern states like New Jersey and Massachusetts, Black families gathered in locations like Chicken Bone Beach in Atlantic City and Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard as they were pushed off or kept off other beaches.

And Civil Rights leaders received intense pushback when they targeted pools as opportunities for desegregation in the South. For example, when Black and white protesters jumped into a whites-only pool at the Monson Motor Lodge in St. Augustine, Florida, in 1964, the hotel’s owner poured acid into the pool. And when a federal judge ordered the desegregation of public swimming pools in Birmingham, Alabama, city officials closed all eight pools in the area rather than allow Black swimmers to use them.

Jones understands how access to water spaces and swimming lessons echos through current swimming statistics, and he’s empathetic as to why people of color don’t more broadly pursue swimming lessons for their children.

But in working with kids, Jones has found that encouraging avoidance isn’t effective because kids love playing in the water. Be it in pools, streams, lakes, or rivers, the draw is too strong to expect they’ll simply steer clear.

“I’ve been doing this work with kids for 13 years,” he says. “So my first question is, ‘How many of you like to be near the water?’ There’s not one hand that’s not up. So it’s really, really important that we give our children the proper tools to be safer underwater. And adults as well, because it’s never too late to learn.”

Once you learn how to swim, you never forget.

At the moment, Jones is most excited about a new initiative he has in working with his fraternity brothers from Kappa Alpha Psi and members of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority to provide swimming lessons through the organizations and their members. He sees college students as a prime group that can drastically decrease swimming stigmas in the Black community. Not only do college students carry tremendous sway with kids and teenagers, but they’ll also soon be parents with a decision to make about whether or not to enroll their kids in swimming lessons.

“I’m so grateful to my friend Talia Mark, who helped me get U.S. Swimming connected with Sigma Gamma Rho, because having a swimming initiative in a predominantly Black sorority is a beautiful thing,” Jones says. “When it comes to swimming and Black ladies’ hair, I completely understand it. When my mom gets her hair done, one touch of water can undo the whole thing. So I understand.”

Jones continues, “But one of the things that we talked about combating is once you learn how to swim, you never forget. So I encourage ladies to put their hair in braids, get in the water and learn to swim, and then you can do whatever you want. It takes about two weeks to learn how to swim, but swimming is a skill that lasts a lifetime and can literally save your life.”

Jones is also focused on making sure two of the people he’s closest to learn how to swim — his mother and his nearly 4-year-old son, Ayven.

“My dad knew how to swim, but my mom did not, and she’s still actively trying to combat her fears,” he says. “But she’s facing that fear. It can bring her to tears at times, but once she actually gets in the water, she crushes it every time. It’s just getting the consistency with that lady is the hard part.”

With Ayven, Jones is taking his own advice and enrolling his son in swimming lessons even though he is more than qualified to get his kid up to speed in the pool. Looking back on what made him fall in love with swimming, Jones credits personal relationships with teachers and coaches, which is something he wants to provide for his son.

“Swimming is like a lot of things in life where one of the things that can really make it click for a kid is that student-teacher bond,” Jones explains. “I had a coach, Coach Brad. That was my guy. I felt comfortable with him. He was funny. He was very personable. It was a mix of play and, at the same time, learning. It was just how he taught that made me feel comfortable enough to start seeing all of the progress I was making and could still make if I kept at it.”

Taking kids on a hike can go one of two ways: either it’s a journey of discovery enjoyed by the whole family, or it’s a very slow stroll from hell. And while which one you end up on may feel sometimes like a coin flip, you don’t always have to take your chances. There are ways to ensure that your family makes the good kind of memories when they venture into the wilderness. The simplest way: Pick the right trail.

Depending on the age of your kids, and their level of experience, it’s important to avoid going too aggressive with either mileage or elevation. Distance, difficulty, and exposure (to the elements) can make or break your family’s fun. So to uncover some of the best family-friendly hikes in the United States, we turned to Heather Balogh Rochefort, founder of Just A Colorado Gal, author of Backpacking 101, and mother of an avid 8-month-old hiker, Liliana. Here are her top 10 picks broken down by miles, difficulty, and what type of family the trail suits best.

Trail of Ten Falls Loop

Silver Falls State Park, Oregon

Distance: 8.7-mile loopBest for: Families with an infantRating: Easy The Trail of Ten Falls — located just an hour outside of Portland — winds its way through the old-growth forests of Oregon and leads hikers to (as the name suggests) ten awe-inducing waterfalls. The loop is long, but there are no major climbs or technical sections — and there’s plenty of shade and cool mist to keep you moving along a nice, flat, dirt trail.

Emerald Lake Trail

Rocky Mountain National Park, Estes Park, Colorado

Distance: 3.1 miles roundtripBest for: Families with teensRating: Moderate This 5K trail is the perfect introduction to the Rocky Mountains. It’s got an elevation gain of 700 feet (on the lower side for these parts), which is just challenging enough for the juice to be worth the squeeze when you top out at the pristine Emerald Lake. It’s a good trail for teenagers because, while they might not be entirely motivated early on, the payoff vista at the end will close the deal. This trail could make a hiker out of anyone.

Pirate’s Cove Trail

Marin County, California

Distance: 3.8-miles roundtripBest for: Families with school-age kids (5-12)Rating: Easy Five-year-olds ain’t fast, but they can make it three miles with a little motivation and a lot of snacks. This trail is an ideal Bay Area getaway and the name should draw kids in as much as the actual hike. Cruise along rugged ocean overlooks down to hidden beaches at low tide to bring the mystery and wild of the Marin Headlands to life.

Avalanche Lake Trail

Glacier National Park, Montana

Distance: 4.5 miles roundtripBest for: Families with more than one babyRating: Easy to moderate When you have more than one carrier between the two of you, things can get logistically challenging. The trailhead for Avalanche Lake is less than five miles from the nearest lodge (in case of emergency) and the trail itself quickly winds into the wild of Glacier National Park. It’s the best of both worlds. There’s only one small climb on the entire 4.5-mile jaunt, and you’ll be rewarded for your efforts with vistas of mountains, lakes, waterfalls, and all the goodness Glacier is known for.

Miners Fall Trail

Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Michigan

Distance: 1.2 miles roundtripBest for: Families with toddlersRating: Easy We know, your toddler wants to walk. So let them. Even if they stagger along at the toddler pace of one mile every two hours, that makes this jaunt to one of the most picturesque waterfalls in the Midwest the perfect two-hour adventure.

Glacier View Loop Trail

Exit Glacier, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska

Distance: 1-mile loopBest for: Easy “extreme” adventureRating: Easy It’s not often that anyone under the age of 16 visiting from the lower 48 would get the opportunity to see Alaska at it’s most untouched and beautiful, but that’s what makes Exit Glacier great. It’s accessible, but it’s pristine. Plus, this one-mile loop hike offers panoramic views of the glacier and the opportunity to talk to kids about climate change and the world’s rapidly melting glacier ice.

Ocean Path in Acadia

Acadia National Park, Maine

Distance: 3.9 miles roundtripBest for: Everyone hiking with their own two feetRating: Easy What better way to keep kid’s mind off of moving their feet for four miles than scrambling up rocks and pointing out the ocean, mountains, wildflowers, and sandy beaches? The Ocean Path is hands down one of the most magical hikes on the east coast — and will get kids excited about discovering new places on their own. Even better, the drive up the Maine coast to get there is gorgeous.

Hoh River Trail Washington

Olympic National Park, Washington

Distance: 17.4 miles one-wayBest for: Introducing the kids to an all-day outingRating: Moderate Olympic National Park is one of the country’s most stunning gems, and the Hoh River Trail is a prime example of the park’s diversity. The trail winds 17.4 miles through temperate rainforest, subalpine meadow, subalpine meadow basin, and montane forest ecosystems from the trailhead all the way up to Glacier Meadows — where you can catch glimpses of Mount Olympus and the Blue Glacier. The variation is the landscape — and the option to go as far as you want and then turn around — is nice for your first all-day adventure as a family.

Billy Goat Trail

Potomac, Maryland

Distance: 7.8 miles roundtripBest for: Little ones who want to learn to scrambleRating: Moderate This trail will certainly get everyone’s adrenaline pumping. With views of the Potomac river and plenty of rocks to hop/scramble around on, this trail is good for showing kids that the world is indeed, a jungle gym. This hike can get crowded on sunny weekend afternoons, so aim to hike early in the morning or on a weekday.

Kule Loklo Trail

Point Reyes National Seashore, California

Distance: 1.2-mile loopBest for: Educational exerciseRating: Easy This short path can be tackled by kids of any age, but we suggest reading age and up. All along the trail, there are educational and interpretive signs that describe the culture and lifestyle of the Coast Miwok Native Americans who called this land home centuries ago. At the end of the trail you’ll even discover a replica of a Coast Miwok Indian village.

Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point

Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming

Distance: 1.3-mile loop (plus boat ride)

Best for: Epic Family PhotosRating: Easy+ While the full Jenny Lake Loop in Grand Teton National Park, which includes the much-sought Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point, is a moderately difficult 7 miles. Parents looking for a hike that fits between naps need look no further than a ferry run by the National Park Service that cuts straight across the glacial lake to the trailhead. Hidden falls are an easy, flat 1/2-mile hike from the dock, and then it’s onward and upward to Inspiration Point, which looks over the lake and Bison-packed National Park. It’s a photo opportunity that is guaranteed to make your family holiday card.

Whether they’re sucking their grimy thumbs after digging in the backyard, or taking the whole “mud pie” thing too far, kids eat dirt. This means that parents spend outdoor play time yanking clods of the stuff from their children’s hands and wiping it off their children’s faces. That’s fine. Eating dirt isn’t a great look. But the truth is that, unless the ground is covered in animal feces or chemicals, soil is safe to consume. In fact, a healthy serving of untreated dirt can contain more than one billion bacterial cells per gram—just the sort of microbial boost that every healthy child needs to train their immune systems to respond to real threats.

“Your immune system needs to be trained. It needs to constantly be working and turning over and, if it doesn’t have that kind of attention, it can cause more disease,” Dr. Jack Gilbert, director of the Microbiome Center at the University of Chicago and coauthor of the book Dirt Is Good, told Fatherly. “Your kid will benefit from increased microbial exposure from animals and plants more than the infinitesimally small chance they’ll get an infection because of that association.”

Besides — at least kids who eat dirt are probably getting outside. “It’s healthier than sitting in front of a TV or an iPad,” Gilbert says. “On the whole, being outdoors in nature is a good idea.”

When we talk about eating dirt, we’re usually talking about soil, which consists of decaying animals and plants, along with roughly 25,000 species of bacteria. None of these soil components are particularly worrisome, from a medical perspective. “If you’re healthy, it’s extraordinarily unlikely that there’s anything in soil that will make you sick,” Gilbert says. “But there are no absolutes.”

Of course not. There are children with compromised immune systems and open wounds, who probably should not even play in dirt, for fear of contracting serious infections. Lawn companies may spray dangerous chemicals on the soil, or your house may have been built atop an old landfill or medical waste dumpsite. Animal feces hidden in tall grass may contain parasites. Soil itself may be perfectly safe, but that doesn’t mean every child should eat every mud pie. “Use your freaking common sense!” Gilbert says. “If you don’t, someone is going to get sick.”

When eaten responsibly, however, dirt may even have health benefits. The hygiene hypothesis, which Gilbert explains at length in his book, holds that exposure to farm animals, plants, and many of the key ingredients in soil can reduce the risk of allergic sneezing, food allergies, and skin allergies. One fascinating study in the journal Pediatrics found that children who suck their thumbs and bite their nails (essentially placing bits of dirt and millions of bacteria in their mouths regularly) are significantly less likely than their peers to suffer from dog, cat, mold, dust, or grass allergies.

Despite dirt’s relative safety and potential health benefits, however, Gilbert acknowledges that there’s nothing wrong with a good handwashing session after outdoor play. Your kids need not bathe in filth to enjoy the health benefits of playing in—and yes, eating—dirt, he says. “Unless you’re scrubbing your kids’ hands psychotically, overzealously, there’s no harm in washing their hands in warm, soapy water after they play,” Gilbert clarifies. “It’s just common sense, right?”

To “unplug” used to mean taking a step away from a worn routine and forgetting about life’s worries. Now it means something a bit more literal — to pull the cord on the electronics in your life, turn off your damned phone, stop checking email, and get off the ’gram. This all is increasingly difficult to do, but it’s critical. Our digital life connects us in ways never before seen, but it also has health ramifications, from psychological addiction to disrupted sleep.

The simplest path from anxiously wired to carefree and happy is simple: Turn off the phone and get outside. While the answer is easy, people still sometimes need a push out the door, a reason to step into the great wide open. We’re sympathetic. It is, after all, nice to relax with some good air-conditioning and a long movie. That said, there are plenty of reasons to go play outside. Yes, 100 seems like a lot, but it’s just the tip of the glacier.

Why should you unplug and get outside?

Because a picture of the Grand Canyon will never do it justice. After all, hiking down into the canyon, while not the classic photo op, is the real experience. Instead of just looking out at the vistas, kids can get up close and personal with how the river carved out this epic landform. The Point Imperial trail, a four-mile round-trip that passes through the northern tip of the park, is an easy hike, so it’s solid for families. It reaches the highest overlook on the North Rim and offers great views of Nankoweap Creek.

Because petrichor, the smell of rain after a long period of warm, dry weather, is one of humanity’s favorite smells. Geosmin, the main molecule behind the scent, has even been used by perfumers. But there’s nothing like the real thing.

Because kids are spending an average of six hours a day in front of screens, as opposed to only three hours, in 1995. (Teenage boys are spending up to an astounding eight hours.) They’re isolating themselves from social activities with friends. A recent study showed that 61 percent of teens would rather text or video-chat with friends than socialize in person with them.

Because it’s fun to play paleontologist. If you visit Caesar Creek State Park in Waynesville, Ohio, you can get a permit from the visitor’s center to collect trilobites, brachiopods, gastropods, and marine fossils.

Because even a movie as badass as Free Solo can’t do the grandeur of Yosemite’s El Capitan justice.

Because it can make your kids better at sports. If you’re raising an athlete, there are any number of outdoor activities that can help their skills more than everyday drills. Take slacklining. It’s an inexpensive, easy hobby that can help kids improve their balance and core strength — things essential for every kind of sport.

Because the blue light from screens royally messes with a kid’s sleep schedule. According to Harvard researchers, just over six hours of blue light exposure can delay sleep up to three hours; the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends limiting screen time to two hours a day as a result.

Because hot springs are way less boring than hot tubs. One of only two legal swimming spots in Yellowstone, the confluence of the Boiling River hot spring and the Gardner River lets you swim around to find the right mix of hot and cold water from the two sources.

Because they’ve probably seen the epic New Zealand expanses in The Hobbit movies, but the kids have never had their breath taken away by the clouds that shroud Mt. McKinley in Denali National Park. Check it out in the summer — it offers over 6 million acres of backpacking, hiking, and even RV tours.

Because kids who spend time outside are more likely to protect the environment as teenagers and adults.

Because being in nature improves eyesight — unlike being in front of a screen, which can harm it. A report from Optometry and Vision Science found that “kids who spent more time outside during the day tended to have better distance vision than those who favored indoor activities.”

Because if you teach a kid to fish, you’ll have a partner for life. If you take the time to teach them to cast, you’ll never fish alone again — and have an outdoor activity you’ll both love for years to come.

Because too much screen time leads to more snacking and less sleep. They’re so distracted by screens that “[kids] aren’t paying attention to clues that tell them they’re full,” says Dr. Tara Narula, in a segment released on CBS This Morning, “and the blue light from the screen affects their ability to go to sleep.”

Because a mild suntan is actually the body’s best effort to fight the cancerous effects of UV light.

Because kids love leaves. And there’s no better place to celebrate them than the White Mountain National Forest, particularly in fall, when the leaves are turning and the sunset peaks through them to end a crisp New Hampshire day.

Because you should see the look on your kids’ face when freaking sharks swim over their heads in the Gatlinburg aquarium. Don’t stop there, though; Gatlinburg, Tennessee, is a foothold into the Smokey Mountains and a host to off-roading, hiking, biking, and other adventures.

Because the only thing better than a flurry of birds is a blizzard of birds. Oregon’s Klamath basin is bombarded by Snow Geese every year, as they stop in on their way to breed in Siberia.

Because screens flat-out make kids unhappy, and nature does the opposite. A recent study found a 71 percent increase in psychological distress in young people over 10 years, and the authors partially blamed the omnipresence of digital media and lack of sleep (which, naturally, go hand-in-hand). Another study found that the happiest teens use their phones for less than an hour a day. And a 2014 survey in Frontiers in Psychology found that nature just plain makes people significantly happy.

Because summer camps know what they’re talking about when it comes to outdoor experiences, and they don’t allow cellphones.

Because zip-lining high above the forest floor is infinitely more exhilarating than a video game. Adventures on the Gorge, in Lansing, West Virginia, has zip lines that give you great views of the most biodiverse spot in Appalachia along with the thrill of traveling high up at high speeds.

Because vitamin D, the “sunshine” vitamin, lowers the risk of asthma.

Because it’s easier to bond without distractions. Meaning when the TV, phones, and tablets are off the table, your family will grow closer.

Because the pastel-colored rocks in Antelope Canyon in Arizona are very beautiful indeed.

Because jumping off cliffs is fun. The Hamilton Pool in Texas is a swimming hole worthy of a long weekend with the family. Once you jump, you won’t want to leave.

Because tiny screens are omnipresent — even for the youngest kids. One report found 42 percent of young children now have their very own tablet device, up from 7 percent four years ago and less than 1 percent in 2011.

Because trees are an anti-psychotic. A 2014 study concluded that being surrounded by greenery had a positive effect on mental health.

Because there are places on Earth that look more alien than a rover tour of Mars. Take the Grand Prismatic Spring at Yellowstone, with its deep blue in the middle, and green and yellow on the border, rich umber swirling around the edges.

Because kids in nature do better in life. Studies show they perform better in school, have higher levels of self-discipline, are more cooperative with others, better problem-solvers, more creative, feel more connected with nature, and become tomorrow’s conservation stewards.

Because birding in Red Dead Redemption 2, while cool, doesn’t come close to the real thing.

Because screens can become literally addicting. One report found that 78 percent of surveyed teens check their phones at least once an hour; 50 percent self-reported they were “addicted” to their phones.

Because nothing will bring more pleasure to a kid than watching Old Faithful blow its top at Yellowstone State Park. The geyser erupts roughly every 35 to 120 minutes, for a minute-and-a-half to two minutes at a time. Take an afternoon to hike Yellowstone, wind up at the geyser, and see what happens.

Because your dog wants you to.

Because nothing screams “Screen break!” like the empty coasts of Amelia Island in Florida. Visit this underrated beach gem for splash hour in the gorgeous surf or quiet reading time on the pristine shore.

Because caves double as museums when they contain ancient drawings. The Native American pictographs found in northern Alabama offer detailed, spiritual depictions of what life was like 6,000 years ago. And seeing it in the exact place it was drawn is an experience no museum can touch.

Because there’s no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes. At least that’s what they say in Sweden, where outdoor time for kids is a way of life. Preschoolers take naps outside even during the winter, and there are even some preschools where kids are outside almost exclusively.

Because screen time and school performance are inversely related. A 2006 study in Pediatrics studied 4,508 kids and found that poorer school performance increased as weekday television screen time went up.

Because the iconic San Diego zoo is filled with over 3,000 animals representing about 300 unique species, offering an awesome opportunity for the whole family to learn about whole new sides of nature. Plus, the nearby town of Escondido has a safari park, giving you guys even more chances to animal-watch.

Because a paintball match on a real range makes even the most intense Nerf battles feel quaint.

Because screen time increases a kid’s chance of being sexualized too early. A study in Psychological Science found that kids exposed to sex in the media were more likely to have sex at an earlier age — and not be responsible about it.

Because ghost stories by the campfire will always trump horror movies.

Because Greek myths are just awesome. Teaching your kids the constellations — and trying to find them in the sky together — is the best way to stargaze.

Because there’s no wrong way to spend time outside. Kids can run around to their hearts’ content, hang out by the fire playing cards, or anything in between.

Because, bonfires. Beaches and parks like Asbury Park in New Jersey have regular bonfires professionally started and managed so you and the kids can just sit back and enjoy the flames.

Because stationary bikes don’t go anywhere.

Because lots of apps claim to be educational — but few have evidence to back it up. In fact, a 2018 report showed that very few apps teach preschoolers the way they need to learn.

Because learning to work with your hands starts outside. Build a fire, ride a bike, catch a ball — these basic outdoor activities are all building blocks for lifelong DIYers.

Because there are still parks from Maine to Hawaii that don’t have cell service. They’re among the few places where it’s easy to get kids to put away their devices naturally and happily.

Because birds are more closely related to dinosaurs than crocodiles.

Because the sun sets every day. But if you make a little effort, like hiking around Land’s End, San Francisco, you can witness the vast Pacific ignited by the setting sun from a private vista.

Because geocaching is a real-life treasure hunt that gives kids a connection to nature and the people who left those treasures behind.

Because climbing new trees is a challenge the local jungle gym just can’t replicate.

Because screen time isn’t good for adults either. Market research group Nielsen found that adults spend a gob-smacking 11 hours of the day in front of screens. That’s a ton of blue light exposure that harms your sleep cycle and social life.

Because those who spend time in nature are happier. Science says so.

Because gathering in Arches National Park will be your best family photo opp, ever. Don’t skip the Windows Section of the park, the heart of the whole area. Frank Bethwick, leader of a 1933–34 scientific expedition to Arches, once said, “These arches are of thrilling beauty…one marvels at the intricacies of nature.”

Because too much gaming can lead to real-life aggression. A wide survey of more than 17,000 kids, aged 9 to 19, found that kids who played a little too much Grand Theft Auto were more likely to be sent to the principal’s office for fighting. They’re better off on the playground.

Because you’ll sleep better. More sun means more stable melatonin levels which means more sleep. Spending your day traipsing around the woods doesn’t hurt either.

Because outdoor activities become lifelong hobbies. Skiing, rock-climbing, off-roading, and surfing — these are just a few of the activities kids start doing on vacation with the family, and then keep up for the rest of their lives.

Because kids are spending about half the time outside that their parents did. A study from the U.K.’s National Trust found that children are playing outside an average of just over four hours a week — compared to the 8.2 hours their parents spent outside when they were kids. The change starts with parents.

Because natural rock slides beat water-park slides any day. There’s an element of risk that comes with flinging yourself down a rock formation that just isn’t there at the water park.

Because street lights and screen lights are both a form of pollution.

Because too much screen time could literally stunt a kid’s development. A study in JAMA Pediatrics found that children who spent an excessive amount of time in front of screens advanced slower on average, by the ages of 3 to 5, than kids who had less exposure. The inverse effect is generally found in kids who went outside often.

Because there’s no better place to get lost in an incredible forest than in Montana’s Glacier National Park. Not to get literally lost, though — there are over 700 miles of trails for you to find your way back to civilization. If you should so choose to.

Because simply being outside with your kid can improve your relationship with them. A 2013 study showed that camping with your kids could both improve your parenting skills and reinforce a strong, familial relationship.

Because being outside is full of teachable moments. Where else can you learn to overcome a fear of, say, spiders? Or squirrels? (Some of us were afraid of squirrels…)

Because screens can mess with our kids’ sense of reward. In fact, a study in Psychological Science showed that kids who viewed Instagram photos with more “likes” had greater brain activity in “neural regions implicated in reward processing, social cognition, imitation, and attention.”

Because if your parents didn’t take you to the Grand Canyon as a kid, to go pontoon-boating down the river, and to gasp at the red rock surrounding you everywhere, your childhood was incomplete.

Because another episode of Spongebob Squarepants will make them no less bored.

Because you can (and should) eat what you grow outside. Gardening definitely counts as spending some time outside, and growing a garden with your kid is a good way to teach them responsibility (and make a tasty, all-natural meal at the end).

Because even the kids think screens are a problem. A 2018 finding from Pew Research found that 54 percent of teens think they spend way too much time on their phones. Seems like only a few gentle nudges outside might be all it takes to get them out there.

Because there’s a right way to make a s’more. And it takes trial and error to find it.

Because stalactites and stalagmites like those found in New Mexico’s Carlsbad Caverns are fascinating. The cavern was formed between 4 million and 6 million years ago, when water with hydrogen sulfide started seeping through the cracks in the limestone, which was once the bed of a vast lake that covered New Mexico.

Because too much screen time is having a profound effect on our kids’ brains. A 2014 study found that preteens who spent just five days without screens were better able to read emotional cues.

Because snapping a pic of your kid next to the General Sherman Tree in Sequoia National Park is just too good an opportunity to pass up. That big guy is over 275 feet tall — and estimated to be 2,500 years old.

Because building a fire is a far cooler skill than mastering a character’s special move in Super Smash Bros.

Because you don’t have to go far to experience the natural world. In addition to the National Parks system, there are state and local parks everywhere, not to mention the hundreds of acres of parkland in the middle of even the biggest cities in the country. If you’re wary of going somewhere super remote, a walk and picnic in the park is a great way to easily introduce your kids to the outdoors.

Because playgrounds are better than couches, boulders are more fun than jungle gyms, and rock walls tower above them all.

Because being outside can improve attention spans in kids. A 2009 study found that kids with ADHD focused better after a short nature walk — even better than walking around a neighborhood.

Because nature builds resilience. Getting caught in the rain or hiking on an unseasonably hot day sucks, but experiences like that can equip kids to deal with problems as they come up in their normal lives.

Because the best place to read about the outdoors is in the outdoors. It turns out Hatchet is best experienced backlit by headlamp.

Because backyard camping counts, and your kids can still run inside to use the bathroom.

Because survival skills are empowering. Knowing how to use a compass and start a fire may not be necessary for our daily lives, but knowing they can do things like this makes kids feel empowered in a meaningful way that tech simply can’t.

Because too much time spent inside — and in front of screens — can lead to vitamin D deficiency. A 2009 report found that an astounding 7.6 million U.S. children were vitamin D-deficient. Vitamin D deficiency in children can have effects on their bone health, metabolism, and more.

Because traveling by airboat is loud, fast, and fun. An airboat (aka fanboat) tour of the Everglades is one of the best ways to explore the “River of Grass.” You’ll be in a craft that’s small enough to get up close to alligators and other wildlife and fast enough to thrill kids who would’ve preferred a visit to a theme park.

Because being outside is a great way to de-stress. A 2004 study found that even the sight of some natural green significantly decreased the stress levels of stressed-out kids with ADHD.

Because everyone needs to experience true darkness. Texas’ Big Bend, the darkest park in North America, is a great place for stargazing. Seeing the Milky War and stars that are normally blocked by light pollution is a great way to wow kids and help them start to understand the vastness of the universe.

Because spending time outside instead of in front of a screen can make kids more caring, empathetic, and decent in the long run. A 2009 report found that people who were more immersed in natural environments were more social — and less selfish.

Because foraged berries taste way better than the store-bought variety.

Because being outdoors can build a better sense of community than being on an online forum. A 2015 study showed that Canadian kids living in greener environments have a stronger sense of place and feel they belong to a healthy community.

Because too much screen time can actually change a kid’s brain for the worse. A large study from the National Institute of Health looked at brain scans of kids who spend more than seven hours a day in front of a screen and found they have a thinning of the cortex, or “the outer layer of neural tissue responsible for processing information from each of the five senses.”

Because being a more active kid leads to being an active, healthy adult. A groundbreaking 2014 study of World War II veterans found that people who were active when they were young visited the doctor less throughout their lifespan.

Because it’s not just nature kids can learn about. Take Valley Forge National Historical Park: You and the family can visit the site of a pivotal Revolutionary War battle and explore huts built to George Washington’s specifications. All while exploring 3,500 acres with 315 animal and 730 plant species.

Because being outside encourages healthy risk-taking. In Harvard Medical School’s blog, Dr. Claire McCarthy noted that if parents keep their kids inside and don’t let them take risks, “they won’t know what they can do — and they may not have the confidence and bravery to face life’s inevitable risks.”

Because water fights are the best. Whether they’re fought with water guns, water balloons, cannonballs, or a garden hose, there are few things kids love more than some aquatic combat. And given the non-waterproof nature of most of the stuff in your house, it’s an activity best left to the great outdoors.

Because bombing down a fire road on an off-road vehicle is far superior to driving in a minivan to the movies.

Because natural wonders have stories to tell. Take Devils Tower, Wyoming, which is full of American Indian stories like this one: Two little girls climbed on top of a rock to escape a bear. The Great Spirit saw them and made the rock grow high so the bear couldn’t reach them, his claws leaving grooves in the side of the rock.

Because four presidents aren’t the only figures worthy of a giant rock sculpture. Mount Rushmore is great, but you’d be remiss if you didn’t drive the half-hour (or hike the seven hours) to see a feat of artistic engineering. If completed as designed, the Crazy Horse Memorial will be the second-largest in the world (yes, even bigger than its neighbor). As it stands now, it’s still an awe-inspiring sight you should definitely visit the next time you’re in southwest South Dakota.

Because gardening is good, messy fun.

Because you don’t have to go to Australia to see a coral reef. The 221-mile reef along the Florida Keys is the only living coral barrier reef in North America. There are shallow reefs for snorkeling and deeper reefs for scuba diving, and in addition to the wildlife, there are plenty of shipwrecks to check out.

Because it’s where the strongest memories are made. Your kid won’t remember the YouTube they watched at 4 p.m. by the end of the day. But they sure as hell will remember the time they crawled into the tent after falling asleep stargazing outside.

Illustrations by Alycea Tinoyan for Fatherly. Cameron LeBlanc and Ben Radding contributed to this article.