What to Bring to White Sands National Monument: Travel Tips Tuesday

Welcome to Travel Tips Tuesday! Please stick around and share your best travel tips!

275 square miles of glistening white sand dunes sparkle in the New Mexico Desert and beg kids of all ages to climb to the top to rollick and roll to the bottom.  White Sands National Park is not only the largest gypsum dune field in the world, it is also quite possibly the world’s largest sandbox. Playing in the desert sand takes a few special tools to make it a perfect day on the dunes.

What to bring to White Sands National Monument?

• A sand sled: These can be purchased from the gift shop for between $14-16 and bought back for $3. If you want to save some cash, though, you can buy the same sleds at grocery stores in Alamogordo or Las Cruces for $6. The grocery store sleds can even be donated to the gift shop after sledding if you don’t want to carry them home.
• A Rope: Sledding down the hill is effortless, but climbing back up is not so much. Throwing a rope down to help pull up their brothers was a fun way to make the climb back up the hill.
• Sunscreen: Even if it’s winter, even it’s morning. The sun reflects very brightly off the white sand and can make a fairly quick sunburn.
• Layers of clothing: The desert weather often starts out cool in the morning and warms up as the day goes on.  Add to that, the sweaty work of climbing up and down the hills and you will want to be able to peel some layers and cool off.
• Water: There is no water available once you are past the gift shop and the dry weather catches up to you pretty quickly. Bring your own bottles or thermoses and make sure you are drinking often.
• Lip Balm: Dry air+ wind + sand= very chapped lips. Be prepared.
• A bag for valuables and cameras: The powdery sand has a way of getting into everything, which is not something that makes phones and cameras happy. Bring a bag to hold electronics when they are not in use so they do not need to touch the ground.
• Baby Powder: Not just for babies, this magic powder is perfect for loosening sticky sand from sweaty bodies. Plus, it smells a little like heaven.