Since many of us are staying closer to home this summer and postponing travel plans due to COVID-19, we've teamed up with our friends at Walker Family Goods for some tips on adventuring at home! WFG is a family-owned brand, with a focus on creating travel goods for other families. With lots of adventuring experience between the two of them, founders Lex and Loren have tons of insight into the dos and don'ts of travel. One of their missions is to squash the rumor that it's too difficult to travel with kids, or that you need to wait until they're older to go on adventures as a family. Read on below to get to know WFG and find out how they're adventuring this summer, featuring our new TT x Walker Family Goods Adventure Kit!
Q: Tell us why you started Walker Family Goods?
A: Loren and I started our marriage off (literally on our honeymoon) by combining our filmmaking backgrounds and turning it into a business. That business gave us the opportunity to travel consistently shooting commercials, weddings, etc from 2010-2017 (when we started focusing primarily on Walker). When we started having children everyone told us that we would have to stop traveling, but if anything, we started traveling even more and just bringing them along with us.
Before our first child, Arrow, turned one, he had been on over 50 flights and countless road trips. Throughout traveling we would always be approached by strangers wondering why would be lugging around our kids with us through all these major cities and public forms of transportation and we quickly discovered that we were becoming less and less filmmakers and more family travel advocates. On one of those many trips, Loren and I felt like we needed to start a brand that would encourage other families to travel and make memories with the people they love.
I grew up in a family with 6 kids and our parents road tripped us to all 49 states and ended with a celebratory flight to Hawaii. On these road trips, we were each allowed only one duffel bag in order to keep our load light and our travel simple. To pay homage to my parents, family and the thirst for travel that they instilled within me, we launched Walker (my maiden name) Family Goods back in 2017 with three different colors of the States Duffel Bags. Today, we have over 11 different duffel bag colors, inspiring families to travel simple and stay organized (each individual matching their personality to their bag color). We also have Arrow Packs (inspired by our son Arrow) and Louie Slings (inspired by our daughter Louie). We recently had a third child, Valley, so you can plan on an entire Valley Collection coming out for holiday 2020.
Q: How are you guys planning on adventuring with kids this year?
A: We had big plans to take a few international trips this year, but all of that has been put on hold for the time being. Instead, we are enjoying some adventures close to home. We recently moved to Idaho this year, so we have been taking a few days each week since the stay at home order was lifted and we have been exploring areas within a 5 hour drive of us. We’ve already been fishing and floating down the Snake River a few times, gone to the drive-in movies, taken hikes and scenic drives. Sometimes I forget how much beauty is available so close to home. There’s a sense of romanticism with foreign travel, but that romanticism is very much alive and present in your very own backyard if you just look for it.
Q: How have you come together as a family during the COVID pandemic?
A: By nature, I am a night owl. I normally stay up until 2-3 in the morning, because that is when the world is sleeping and can’t bother me. It is quiet, uninterrupted time where I can work, watch tv, meditate, etc. During the quarantine, it felt like those early hours of the night, all day every day (but with 3 kids yelling at me constantly).
We were a family coming together, uninterrupted, under our brand new roof (first time home buyers)! The world felt like it was sleeping and our only job was to protect and love on our children. I remember being in such a state of confusion and fear every day, but having to snap out of it in order to create a home full of peace and reverence. It is not normal for us to be in one place longer than 2-3 weeks at a time, so the stay at home order forced us to be still for the first time. Things are still far from normal, but these last 8 weeks are some that I will treasure forever.
Q: What is your fav Tubby Todd product to bring on the road with you?
A: Living in California for the last 9.5 years, lotion was not something that we ever owned. Our hands and feet were never dry, because of the moisture in the air. Now living in Idaho, our favorite Tubby Todd product in the travel sized lotion. We cannot leave home without it!
Shop the TT x Walker Family Goods Adventure Kit HERE.
