The Hike it Baby club/movement is very lovely, but I found the book disappointing, and more like "a list of doable trails for baby-havers in major US hiking areas." Which seemed to just mean short hikes, from what I could tell reading. Next time I'm planning a hiking trip I'm not sure I'd consult this over conventional local hiking guidebooks or the internet in general, which almost always cover short, easy hikes because they are popular with everyone.

The most valuable content was non-trail content, like "10 Essentials for Backpacking with Babies," "Bottle Feeding on Trail: Always Be Prepared" (I'd never thought about the difficult logistics of hiking with pumped breastmilk) and "Hiking Safety During Hunting Season," but all this valuable content was relegated to side bars dispersed randomly throughout the book. The vignettes about families in the Hike it Baby movement were also very inspiring and nice to read. I'd have appreciated a smaller book just dedicated to this sort of material, without any trail information, which is easily found elsewhere, unlike methods for merging the difficult particulars of life with child with hiking.

Certainly worth a pick up at the library, and if you're a baby-haver and a hiker you should certainly check out the website to see if you can meet some fellow travelers, but not one I think I'd ever come back to for planning hikes.

Such a great resource for outdoorsy families. I loved the structure and how easy it is to find a nature area for specific geographical locations, including if there is a cost to enter and how accessible the area is for children and those with special needs. The photography was wonderful.

I was hoping for this book to feature more hikes. I did enjoy all the stories, but I wanted it to be a bit more useful.

A helpful guide for different hikes around the US that can be done with very young children and their parents. There's a lot of description of the hikes and why they were chosen so people can really get a feel of what they're getting themselves (and their kids) in to. While it's helpful to have suggestion all across the country, it does feel like there are just whole swaths of the country that are missing out on recommendations. Or just large parts of states. For instance, living in New York State, most the suggestions for the state wouldn't really work for someone living in Western New York. But the hikes themselves aren't what make this book for me. It's the other things that the author and contributors write about. Why they chose the hike, the appeal the sights etc.. and also the impact it had to have such a hike.

While a good overview, it definitely should be expanded for just more hikes in every state. Also, a map of each hike would be nice as well.

<i>Hike It Baby</i> is a great place to start if you want to go hiking with your little but you don't know where to start. It contains some simple hikes for folks with babies and toddlers, at least one in every state. I was disappointed at the small representation of Massachusetts hikes listed (Only 1!), but some of the others looked really neat and I would totally pull this book out for reference when heading out of state.

I really liked the asides in the book on baby carriers, food on the trail, potty on the trail, etc. They gave some good advice, though I do wish they were arranged in their own section instead of interspersed among the trail guides.

Now that it's finally spring, I'm getting excited to grab my three year old and hit the trails!