Intrigued by the idea of taking your kids whitewater rafting, but don’t know where to start? Even if you have some experience with putting river trips together on your own—but especially if you don’t—booking a trip with an experienced commercial rafting outfitter is a smart way to explore an unfamiliar river together while dialing up the safety factor and leaving the logistics to the pros.
Choosing the right commercial rafting company for your family’s situation takes some research, as your kids likely have different appetites for whitewater, dicey weather, and unfamiliar food. But the effort is worth it: No matter your previous outdoor experience, a river trip will open your kids’ eyes (and your own) to a magical world of sand, waves, and stars. In my opinion, nothing beats a river trip for setting the buzz of civilization aside, restoring peace of mind, and forming lasting bonds with other humans—especially your children.
Here’s a guide to choosing the best one-day or multi-day rafting trip for families with little or no previous river-running experience, including some expert tips from commercial raft companies with decades of experience in running kids’ trips. And if you’re an experienced river runner but new to taking kids on trips, check out our Essential Guide to Rafting with Kids.
Target a river, outfitter, and date
Your first task is to figure out what kind of river trip experience you’re looking for and your target location and dates. If you’re from the flatlands but are planning a weeklong family trip to Colorado in July, for example, you can search online for Colorado river outfitters that offer family-friendly trips—your search will yield dozens of results on rivers across the state. You’ll need to consider a number of questions to narrow your options: How old are your kids? How much outdoor experience do they have? How comfortable are they in water? Would you rather do a one-day trip or go all-in on a multi-day trip where you camp out every night?
If you’re truly starting from zero on your research and don’t have a particular river or type of experience in mind, take a look at our River Info section, which gives detailed descriptions and photos of dozens of river sections throughout the western U.S. Commercially run multi-day river trips that are particularly well-suited to families include Desolation and Gray Canyons on the Green River in Utah, the Rogue River in Oregon, and the Yampa River in Colorado and Utah.
Then check out outfitters that run those sections, look at their websites to get a sense of whether kid-friendly trips are a core offering, and make a list of questions. Start making calls directly to the outfitters. I don’t recommend booking online without talking to the outfitter: Nothing beats a live conversation to get a feel for which company will be the best fit for your kids. If you’re interested in some of the rivers discussed in this post, following are quick links to the outfitters who contributed their guidance.
Contact an outfitter
Contact the outfitters mentioned in this post to learn more about their kid-friendly trips:
- Adrift Dinosaur (800-824-0150, Jensen, UT) offers single-day and multi-day trips on the Green River and the Yampa River in Dinosaur National Monument
- Echo Canyon River Expeditions (800-755-3246, Cañon City, CO) runs family-friendly and advanced single-day and multi-day whitewater trips on the Arkansas River
- Northwest Rafting Company (541-450-9855, Hood River, OR) focuses on multi-day trips in the Pacific Northwest, including the Rogue River in Oregon, the Middle Fork of the Salmon in Idaho, the Owhyee in Oregon, and more
Know your kids’ tolerance for new experiences
The next step is deciding between a one-day or multi-day trip, which comes down to your goals, time constraints, and the type of experience you’re looking to share with your kids. Kids who have never been on a camping trip might find the wilderness immersion of a multi-day rafting trip too much, too soon. If you have any hesitation about how your child will fare in an unfamiliar environment with new people for several days, consider starting with a day trip rather than a multi-day trip.
Courtney Sweeney, office manager and guide at Northwest Rafting Company based in Hood River, OR, said it’s probably a good idea to spend a few days camping—the more inclement the weather, the better—to give kids some exposure to the outdoor elements before you book them on a multi-day trip.
“Kids are resilient, but it’s nice to not have their first experience with adversity be a long multi-day trip,” she said. Sweeney said they often take kids who haven’t done any rafting, but have had other outdoor experiences that signaled to their parents that they would embrace a river trip.
Also consider your child’s ability to take responsibility—and listen to adults who aren’t their parents. Kids do well on rafting trips when they’re willing to step up for tasks like keeping track of their own gear and embracing safety measures. It’s helpful when parents can strike the right balance between helicopter-parenting and ignoring their kids on the river.
“We have some parents that are way too involved and don’t let their kids out from under their wing,” said Sweeney. “And we have some parents who expect the guides to be babysitters.”
The goal, Sweeney said, is to meet people where they’re at, “letting them push themselves, but to the point where they’ll be successful, not where they’re pushing their boundaries too much in the wilderness.”
Scheduling downtime is also an important part of ensuring a great experience for kids, Sweeney said.
“We’re careful not to push activities too far, just letting go of expectations and letting the trip become what it is,” she said. “Instead of trying to push the hike, if that’s not where the kids are at that day, maybe we’ll skip it and hang out in the water.”
Annie Westbury, river manager at Adrift Dinosaur, which runs the Green and Yampa rivers in Dinosaur National Park, said she would not discourage even families who are new to the outdoors from signing up for a river trip.
“Honestly sometimes the most successful guests we have are people who haven’t even set up a tent yet,” she said. “What I ask guests is, ‘Do you have a positive mental attitude? Is that sustaining in your life and are you craving your adventurous spirit to come alive? If you have those two things, you’re probably not going to lose.”
On their family trips, Adrift encourages kids to take advantage of opportunities to practice skills such as the defensive whitewater swim position, swimming to the boat, or trying to pull themselves in.
“We balance creating safe places where kids can have fun but also do a lot of learning,” she said. “We want to empower the kids to have respect for the river—this living thing that we’re traveling downstream on.”
Ask the outfitter good questions
“If you’re not asking good questions, you’re selling yourself short,” said Andy Neinas, owner of Echo Canyon River Expeditions, based in Canon City, CO. “And if you’re not getting good answers, you may not be talking to the right person or the right organization.”
Most outfitters talk about their guides’ safety certifications, such as Wilderness First Responder and swiftwater rescue training, on their websites. But don’t hesitate to ask about that if it isn’t clear. If an outfitter dismisses your questions or downplays safety concerns, that’s a red flag that they aren’t doing a good job of what Neinas calls “qualifying the guest.”
“We try to talk people out of rafting, not into rafting,” he said. “What I mean by that is we’d rather you have a great first-time experience with your family, especially when children are involved, and then move up the ladder from there.”
One line of questioning that the outfitter should bring up is the time of year you’re planning to go rafting, which will determine the expected river water flow. In general, the higher the water, the harder the whitewater rapids (although some rapids get more technical and hazardous at lower water). In mountainous areas in the West, river flows peak with snowmelt in late spring or early summer. The rafting company should drill down on your group’s experience level to make sure that situation will be a good fit, Neinas said.
“If you said, ‘Hey, I’ve got an 8-year-old and I’m going to be there on June 10th,’ I’m going to have a very different conversation with you than if you say, ‘Hey, I have an 8-year-old and I’m going to be there on August 10th,” said Neinas. His company primarily runs the Arkansas River in Colorado, which peaks in early June.
Sweeney said that they often steer families to the Rogue River in Oregon, which has reliably consistent flows through the fall.
“You can go later in the summer when there’s still good flow, but the water’s warm, the weather’s warm—it’s a great intro trip,” she said.
Especially for multi-day rafting trips, outfitters will post a checklist online of clothes and gear your kids will need. (Check our guide to Kids’ Rafting and Paddling Clothes for essentials to buy new or used.)
Another question to ask the outfitter is how many other kids will be on the trip. Kids want to be with other kids on a raft trip. Even if you’re just bringing one child on your trip, ask the outfitter whether they can place you on a trip with other kids.
Sweeney said, “We’ve found that five- and six-year-olds do a lot better when there’s another pack of kids around them.”
Asking about the ratio of kids to adults on the trip will yield some details about how family-friendly the company is in general. Rafting outfitters that cater to families and kids will talk about how their guides love to help kids set up their tents, build sand castles on the river bank, and gently encourage them to push their boundaries.
“I love being the captain of the kids’ boat,” said Westbury. “Just seeing it from the lens of an 8-year-old. You could be going down the same river for the 40th, 50th time and then you get a boat full of kids and you’re like, What is this place? How is it so different and magical?”
Anticipate and embrace the tech withdrawal
One of the best reasons to take your kids on a rafting trip is the gift of being technology-free for most of a day—or even a week, in the case of a multi-day trip in a wilderness area with no cell service.
Although some kids experience withdrawal, Westbury said that she’s just as often seen them just forget about their phones.
“This might be one of the first times in a long time that the kids—and adults—are experiencing the slow lane, which is just eye-opening,” she said. “It’s apparent in kids especially that their senses are tuned to a different level.”
Neinas said he encourages families to leave their phones behind and enjoy the river experience for what it is—an unprecedented opportunity for family time. Although kids and adults have some anxiety at first, they start to realize that their phones are not the most important things in their lives.
“You’re moving at the speed of nature, not at the speed of civilization,” he said. “And that can be a very, very good thing. It’s river time. We eat when we’re hungry. We sleep when we’re tired.”
Although any device with an on/off switch is generally discouraged on river trips, most rafting companies now bring satellite communication devices on multi-day trips for medical emergencies or to relay urgent news to or from folks back home. But those devices are typically checked infrequently.
Westbury said she’s seen that some families are starting to bring their own devices, which can disrupt the wilderness experience and sometimes bring some unintended consequences, as when emergency services are summoned accidentally and helicopters unexpectedly land in camp.
“It’s a little tricky navigating that whole new world,” she said. “Sometimes guests’ InReach devices will make noises while you’re sitting at the campfire. We’ve just started building into our safety talk some language encouraging our guests to please keep the use of devices to a minimum or just away from community areas.”
Ask—but don’t fret—about the food
Rafting companies that are experienced in offering family trips are typically accustomed to serving food that appeals to kids. Although that means they might have less adventurous menu options, Neinas said he’s observed that adults are typically pickier eaters than the kids.
Westbury said that Adrift doesn’t do separate meals for parents and kids, but they take an all-encompassing approach to menu planning so both adults and kids are satisfied. They also pay special attention to their snack bags for kids, packing them with a mix of quick-energy items such as Honey Stinger waffles and high-protein jerky sticks.
Sweeney emphasized that it’s important for food not to become an issue on a multi-day trip.
“If you’ve got a picky eater, and they’re already pushing their boundaries on the river, it’s nice to have some food that they’re going to eat at the end of the day,” she said. If you know your kids will be miserable without a certain type of food, Sweeney encourages parents to bring it along.
Be prepared for transformation
One outcome of your family river trip might be immediate requests for more river trips.
“At the end of every trip, even as we’re unloading the gear, we hear kids are already asking, ‘When do I get to come back? Are we going to get to do this again, Mom?,’” said Westbury. “You get back to the concrete ramp at the takeout and see the looks on their faces, the parents, the kids. They’re stepping into that realization of, wait a second, this whole bubble is about to burst.”
The only thing to do is start planning your next river trip. If you have the time and freedom, maybe you and the kids can just drive back to the put-in and do it all again.
