10 Awesome Ways River Trips Make You Feel Like a Kid

River trips, whether single-day excursions or weeks-long expeditions, make you feel like a kid. It’s that simple.

And the magical thing about feeling like a kid?

Time falls away and you are left with only the moment. It’s a vacation for the body AND the mind, which is something we all can use.

Here are ten ways river trips put you in the kid headset:

1. Fresh Air – Just like your mom always wanted. Breathe it in and savor it.

2. Boats! – Floating and bobbing, rowing or paddling, “nothing is half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” Lewis Carroll, he of Wind in the Willows fame, knew his stuff.

3. Fire – The smell. The heat. The comfort. From watching the embers dance to unwrapping your s’mores, we’ve been drawn to it from the beginning.

4. Rocks & Water – These are the core elements that make your trip possible, the distillation of your experience. From curving side canyons to mammoth boulders, it’s like a geological candy shop.

5. Games – Bocce, ladder golf and hacky sack–perfect before-dinner activities–take on a whole new flavor on the river bank.

6. Stories – Stay out on the river long enough and you’ll hear everything from ghost stories to guides’ tall tales to bonafide history.

7. Dessert – Cooking a tasty treat in a giant pan over hot coals brings the wonder back to something that’s already wonderful. How cool is that?

8. Hiking – Just getting out there and tromping along the trail, seeing the sights, getting the blood flowing. The only reason you do it is because you want to.

9. Music – From the humblest strumming to the voice of an angel, there’s something about music that slows time and engages us on a different sensory level.

10. Laughing – You awake to it. And fall asleep to it. Even the river laughs if you listen just right.

All it takes is one river trip to understand. And you’ll carry that feeling with you forever on the best river of all, the river of life.