6 Outdoor Activities for Fall Family Fun

In Virginia, we are blessed to experience all four seasons in their entirety. We are just about guaranteed snowfall in winter and are welcomed into spring with new blooms. The temperatures can reach triple digits in summer, making us long for the cooler weather and crunching leaves of autumn. We are always looking for outdoor activities for fall family fun!

This year, fall has a different feel. We are trying to soak up every last minute of outdoor time, knowing our indoor choices will be severely limited by COVID-19 when winter arrives. With that in mind, we are cramming in every activity we can, reveling in all of our favorite outdoor fall activities as a family.

Leaf Peeping

I just love this silly little term for enjoying breathtaking views of fall foliage. I love the experience, too! Virginians are never too far from a great view and while I love the lush green forests in spring and summer, they are most beautiful in fall.

While its name suggests it is a resource for those of us east of the Mississippi, SmokyMountains.com maintains a fall foliage map for the entire continental United States! The interactive map predicts the changing colors by week, allowing you to guess the best time to travel for peak color displays. This excellent resource for travelers also includes downloadable coloring sheets and kid-friendly explanations of why leaves change colors and fall from trees.

Hiking

Hiking is one of our favorite outdoor activities for fun during fall because a trail is never the same. Part of the fun is looking for new flora and fauna and the rest is in admiring the seasonal changes. We can hike the same trail every few months with brand-new results.

When our children were very young, we stuck to shorter trails with easy terrain and allowed lots of time to explore. Most trails are marked or have guides that indicate both length and difficulty and we’ve learned what our kids can handle. Now that they’re older, we can pick trails with payoffs: streams, waterfalls, overlooks, rock formations, and gorges.

Hiking is often free or low-cost as most state and national parks in our area offer free admission or charge per car. We pack a picnic or snack (check park guidelines first) and make an afternoon of it.

Pumpkin Picking

Pumpkin picking is classic fall family fun. Whether you plan to paint them, carve them, or cook them, pumpkin-picking is a must in October! Find a farm that allows you to harvest them in the patch. While it’s hard work, our kids enjoy choosing just the right gourd and struggling to free it from the spiny vine.

Most of the pumpkin patches in our area also offer activities. At these farms, a fixed fee grants you access to hayrides, petting zoos, corn mazes, jumping pillows, and more. Many of these activities can be practiced with social distancing measures in place without detracting from the fun.

These days the farms are operating with reduced capacity and limited activities. Creative adaptations include self-driven hayrides and ticketless admission. Some farms are also renting neighboring land and spreading out their attractions so that patrons have more room for social distancing. Contact your local farms to see what changes they’ve made!

Apple Picking

In Virginia, we have plenty of apple orchards! While “pumpkin patch” brings to mind attractions and an afternoon of play, orchards are all about the fruit and the work!

We go with the expectation that we’ll spend a few hours walking and picking, enjoying each other’s company, and taking adorable photos. I’ll also spend at least some of the time trying to convince my children not to eat the apples until we’ve paid for them and to stop playing with the wagon we’re using to haul our apples back to the farm stand.

Once we return with our apples, we spend the next few days chopping, coring, and cooking. Our favorite dishes are apple crisp, cinnamon apples, and applesauce, which we can and eat all year long.

PickYourOwn.org maintains a database of farms. Search by state (and some other English-speaking countries) to find one near you. They also have resources on preserving!

Going to the Movies

The closest drive-in theatre is well over an hour away from us, which really puts a damper on our ability to see a movie there. We’ve made the trek a couple times, but it always ends in an overnight stay. That’s a long (and expensive) weekend!

Lately our local stadium has started showing movies drive-in style! This pop-up drive-in experience is only one of many that have recently appeared in our area as local organizations look for a way to fundraise and bring the community together. It has been a godsend for my husband who loves going to the movies and doesn’t care if it’s Back to the Future or Jaws because he’s there for the experience.

If your search of local pop-up drive-in theatres is a bust, host your own! Set up a screen on your driveway or in your backyard and invite neighbors or families in your pod to enjoy a distanced “drive-in” movie experience.

Building a Bonfire

Whether you build your own bonfire, use a pop-up fire pit, or simply use a grill, fire makes everything more fun in the fall! Before you worry you’re taking advice from a pyromaniac, hear me out.

We have a large, flat space in our yard that we use for fires. We’ve encircled the fire pit with stones and, surrounding that, we have outdoor chairs and tree stumps. This has given us a space to share with friends and neighbors while maintaining distance and we can use this space well into the cooler months because the fire keeps us warm and occupied.

Even when we don’t have company, we light it up and use it to make campfire dinners with our Dutch oven or in foil packs. My kids would eat hotdogs every night if they were able to roast them over an open fire first. We also roast marshmallows to eat alone or for s’mores!

What is your favorite activity for fall family fun?