Our sojourn summer 2019 will be taking us to many incredible parks, memorials, and monuments across the United States and Canada. This might be the only time our children will embark on such a journey, so we want to do our best to pick up souvenirs at each location to both mark the stop and jar our own memories of the time we spent there.
The US Park Service offers an excellent program geared towards school age kids called the Junior Ranger Program. The motto of the 
program is “Explore, Learn, and Protect” and this oath is giving by the children to a local ranger after they complete a small activity book focused on the park they are visiting. The program is free teaching the child (and family!) some key details about the park and what they can do to help protect the environment and wildlife while visiting. A small pin is given to the new Junior Ranger to show the world they are helping keep our parks clean and safe for generations to come. Kenzie and Aiden both LOVE this program. I believe the first one they remember completing was our trip to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park when they were five years old. During our trip to Alaska a few years back, we learned the program was also offered for National Forest. What a great way to provide both a learning experience and souvenirs to children across the world at no cost. To learn more about this program please visit this website: https://www.nps.gov/kids/jrrangers.cfm. A handy list of links are provided for each park / forest service across the US offering the program.
Something we learned when visiting Denali National Park in 2017 was the creation of these beautiful silver tokens. Available for national 
parks, monuments, and memorials, these very small coin like collectables are a great option for someone looking for something small, yet classy. The price tag 
cannot be beat, with most parks offering them for $1. We opted to get the coin case which did cost $5, but so worth it as I am less likely to lose the tiny tokens if they have a home. We did end up taping the Denali token in the case, because it kept falling out. Still, it doesn’t look bad and allows us to mark a moment in time for a reasonable cost. If you are interested in picking up some tokens from parks you have visited in the past, this website is the best resource I have found. Click on the state, then select a location. It will redirect you to the correct website so you can purchase your token. http://www.collectibletokens.com/
One of our family go to items in the past has been the hiking stick medallion. These metal collectables are rendered in color, with lovely details, and unusual shapes and sizes. There are several problems with this option. Aiden broke 
his hiking stick pretending to fight off rabid bears while banging it on a tree a few years back. I had to pry the medallions off and attempt to not damage them in the process. Another issue is I prefer a collapsible carbon fiber walking stick, which doesn’t really work with this application. If you use a wooden walking stick, the medallions are reasonably priced at around $6 each. If you have a wooden hiking stick and want to start collecting, you can purchase online at this location. https://www.eparks.com/store/
Lastly, I have ordered several passport books for both the kids and adults. This is something I have been meaning to purchase for a long
while. What an ideal time to pick one up and start a new tradition of gathering cancellation stamps for all our major stops! From my research I have found that some of the Canadian National Parks have cancellation stamps at their information and visitor centers, with Banff being one of them. This sealed the deal and spurred me to act. The stamps are free and mark the date you visited each park. There are several styles of passport from the large collector and explorer editions, to the junior ranger and original travel versions. It was a hard call on what exactly to purchase, but in the end I decided the smaller original travel version would meet all our needs and not weigh us down while exploring. The cost was significantly less than the two larger versions, allowing me to pick up three copies (two for the kids, one for Keith and I). Aiden and Kenzie are getting older, and while the junior ranger program is fabulous I wanted these passports to grow with them and be something they used for the rest of their lives. The cost for a basic passport is currently $9.95 and can be ordered online. https://www.eparks.com/store/
There are so many wonderful way to document your travels, yet still not spend a fortune or weigh yourself down with dust collecting items like salt in pepper shakers, refrigerator magnets, etc. The last thing I want is to fill the limited space of our travel trailer with tee-shirts, mugs, and baseball caps. We might spring for something like this occasionally, but mostly I want us to collect memories and small tokens to help us remember the trip years in the future.
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