7 Day Road Schooling Itinerary- An Indiana and Ohio Adventure

On our most recent trip to Indiana and Ohio, we discovered many places, including two national parks, a museum, and waterfalls. If you plan on traveling in these states, we hope this itinerary will help you find ideas to teach your kids! While we are not full-time RV dwellers, we do continue to do school when we travel.

RV Hall of Fame- Elkhart Indiana

Day 1: Set up camp at Lakeshore Camp Resort. Take the kids to the jumping pillow, pool, and playground. Dinner at Mexico Lindo Mexican Restaurant Bar & Grill. Evening writing before bed.

Day 2: Writing and math in the morning. Stop at the Indiana Dunes National Park visitor center and watch a park's history and ecosystem video. Drive to West Beach and view the dunes before dipping our toes into the water. We thought there was a no-swimming order due to rip currents, but that warning expired. We were unprepared for a beach day but made the best of it. Drive to Michigan City. We took a sunset stroll along the beach boardwalk to the lighthouse, then ate dinner at Matey's, where a live band was playing.

Day 3: Church at Hobart Assembly of God. Their worship team was excellent, and the pastor delivered a great message. Our boys are typically afraid to leave us in an unfamiliar place when we visit churches on the road, but they were excited to hang out with kids their age while we worshiped upstairs.

Day 4: Drive to Elkhart, Indiana, and boondock free at the RV Hall of Fame. Visit the Hall of Fame and learn about RV history, evolving designs, and improvements. Dinner on the water at Flipping Cows. Impromptu Bob Marley dance party in the Hall of Fame parking lot before going to sleep. We also see the Bird from one of our favorite RV YouTube channels, Keep Your Daydream.

Day 5: Today was a long drive to Streetsboro, Ohio, where we stayed at the KOA campground. Set up and grocery shop before going to bed.

Day 6: We visited Cuyahoga National Park, where we began with a stop at the visitor center. Here we picked up a set of cards that included a few activities to complete to earn a Junior Ranger badge. We headed to a picnic area by Tinkers Creel Gorge from here and had lunch. There was a creek and a small waterfall in this area where we discovered a recently shed snakeskin, and the boys tossed rocks into the stream.

Next, we ventured over to Bridal Veil Falls, where we saw another waterfall, and Watson collected sticks for making a fire when we returned. We also found a mystery seed pod, so we grabbed one to ask about when we returned to the visitor center. From here, we traveled just outside the park to Great Falls and found an incredible waterfall before returning to the visitor center. Watson and I ran to the center so he could be sworn in as a junior ranger before it closed for the day. We found out the mystery seed pod was something dogs could not eat. They call it Dog Pod, but that's not the official name. It was green and somewhat resembled milkweed but smaller and not fuzzy. Keep your pups away from it!

Day 7: We hiked Brandywine Falls and the Brandywine loop trail in the morning before visiting a farmers' market and a fun, red-covered bridge. It's called the Old Red Covered Bridge- clever. When we returned to camp, Watson was still wide awake while everyone else wanted to nap. I broke out the nature journal that he's working on for another patch, and we drew and discussed things we had seen so far on our trip. After that, he practiced writing in his dry erase writing book while I made fresh sweet corn from the market and heated some BBQ for sandwiches.

Day 8: Today, we begin to head home but camp in Hammond, Indiana, at Cabella's for the night. Cabella's has a bunch of stuffed animals and an aquarium that the boys loved to watch. We headed upstairs and discovered a target practice range for the kids.

Day 9: We decided to check out Holy Hill on the way home. We climbed 178 stairs to the top of the tower, and the view from the top was worth the climb. What a beautiful place! Watson almost made it to the top, but he started to get spooked by the spiral staircase, so Ben and I took turns going all the way up. He wanted to do it. Maybe next time! When we entered the chapel, there was a Quinceañera celebration going on. This is a coming-of-age celebration for girls turning 15. This celebration has pre-Colombian roots and is commonly celebrated in the Hispanic population. The family goes all out to celebrate this milestone, and it's not uncommon for families to spend $5000-20,000 on the event!