A Mother-Daughter Getaway to Forest Springs Resort.

Disclosure: My stay at Forest Springs Resort was hosted/complimentary as part of a collaboration. All thoughts and feelings are entirely my own. Check out an overview video here.

I’ve been a travel mom for a long time. We’re talking carrier-on-my-back, snacks-in-every-pocket, let’s-turn-a-rest-stop-into-an-adventure kind of travel mom. For twelve-plus years, every trip I planned had some sort of educational angle and a mostly kid-friendly itinerary. I’ve always believed that travel doesn’t have to stop once you have kids, it just morphs and changes as they grow and change.

When I started planning a trip to Forest Springs Resort in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, I did something I don’t always do: I thought about what would make this trip special just for my daughter and I. Not for an educational or adventure schooling experience, not what would perform well on social media, what would be memory-making and connection building just for her and I. She’s currently in 7th grade and Mom and daughter travel has always been a favorite of ours, it’s just leveling up now that she’s older. Forest Springs Resort in Eureka Springs is the perfect getaway for a relaxing trip with older kids.

Quick facts about Forest Springs Resort:

• It’s conveniently located close to downtown Eureka Springs.
• Recently renovated, not a new build.
• Features a heated pool.
• Fire pit for s’mores with fires every night.
• Sauna and cold plunge.
• Rooms are well appointed but are regular motel rooms.
• 2nd floor rooms are not ADA accessible.

The setting.

Forest Springs sits on ten wooded acres just five minutes outside of downtown Eureka Springs. It’s billed as a boutique forest stay, a place for couples and solo travelers in need of a reset. It features a sauna and cold plunge, a heated pool with ample seating around it, forest trails, a fireside lounge, and pickleball. The whole vibe is quiet, intentional, and a little bit luxurious in the best possible way. The rooms are newly renovated, but the property itself is actually an old motor lodge type motel. The bathroom and shower was a bit small, but it was beautifully decorated with all new fixtures. We both loved snuggling in the cozy, king size bed. The room also came with soft, fluffy robes! We had a little spa night and had so much fun!

Honest confession: it’s not marketed for families. It’s marketed for people who need a real break from the world, which, as it turns out, describes us perfectly. It was actually the perfect place for a slow, intentional, Mom and daughter getaway.

Where we ate, what we did.

I’ll share a full round up to things to do in Eureka Springs soon. For now, here’s what we did while we were there. Disclaimer: I have Alpha Gal Syndrome and Celiac Disease, so some of our options were just so that I could eat too.

Where we ate:

• The Grotto
• Haunted Grounds Coffee Shop
• Java Dudes Coffee Shop
• Local Flavor Eureka Springs
• Pizza Hut
• McGarity’s Pub

What we did:

• Ozark Mountain Ziplines – here’s the video of our experience.
• Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge
• Caroline’s Collectibles – to see the working bunnies!
• Thorncrown Chapel

There is also great hiking around Eureka Springs but we decided that this trip was about new and different experiences paired with some rest and relaxation.

Why this trip.

We’ve done big trips and we’ve done bucket-list trips. We flew to New York City at Christmas, stood in a crowd of thousands at Rockefeller Center, and ate pizza on the sidewalk at midnight. That trip was everything. I cried about it for days afterward because it was so big and special. This trip was something else entirely.

I didn’t have a big itinerary for our stay at Forest Springs or for things to do in Eureka Springs. No spreadsheet, no color-coded schedule, no “we have to be there by ten or we’ll miss the thing.” We woke up when we woke up, wandered the forest trails without a destination; we took turns in the sauna and then gasped our way through the cold plunge and laughed at each other and sat in silence afterward and that silence was so good. *I limited how much she used the sauna and cold plunge, because of her age.

This trip mattered.

My daughter is twelve. She is wildly funny and deeply perceptive and increasingly her own person in ways that take my breath away. She is also, still, completely content to sit next to me in a quiet room and say nothing for long stretches of time, which feels like a gift I don’t take for granted. We stayed up later than we should have. We talked about things we don’t always make space for in the middle of (home)school days and sports schedules and the ordinary forward motion of life. She told me about a creative project she’s been thinking about. I told her about a chapter in my own story I’ve been sitting with. It was the kind of conversation that could only happen in that kind of stillness, without an action packed itinerary with loads of distractions. In a nutshell: it was perfect.

Unexpected joys.

Eureka Springs is a town built for wandering, and we did a little of that too. The winding streets and the galleries and the kind of quirky, artsy spirit the whole place has. But what I didn’t expect was how much I needed the return each time. The walk back through the trees and the fire pit at dusk. The feeling of arriving back to something that was ours for a few days and knowing, without saying it out loud, that we were both exactly where we wanted to be.

I have done a lot of travel in my life. I have planned a lot of experiences for my family and poured a lot of energy into making them meaningful. But there’s something about stepping back from the doing and just being present with your child. No agenda, no lesson plan, no next thing; that all hits differently when you start to count how many of these trips you have left while they’re living at home.

My daughter is twelve. My son is fifteen. I’ve been adventure schooling for twelve years. I am not in the thick of it anymore. I am, slowly and undeniably, in the last act of it. That’s not entirely sad. I want to be really clear about that. It’s extraordinary. It’s the whole reason I’ve been writing here for as long as I have. The adventure schooling chapter of my life has been the most formative thing I’ve ever done, for my kids and for me. But standing in an Ozark forest on a cool evening with my daughter, watching the light drop through the trees, I felt something shift. Like this trip was a comma. A breath. A quiet bridge between who we’ve been and who we’re becoming. And, I’m pretty excited about what’s ahead.

On traveling differently.

Something has been changing in how I want to travel. I still want adventures. I still want national parks and road trips and things that teach us something about the world and our place in it. But I’m also starting to want more of this; the slower pace, the restorative quiet, the trip where the experience is the whole point rather than the scenery or the checklist.

Forest Springs was the first trip that gave me a name for that feeling. This is the kind of travel I want more of, as my kids grow up and eventually go off into their own lives; which hopefully still includes travel with me. Forest Springs provided the kind of experience where there’s nothing to see, really, and everything to notice.

If you want to do this too.

If you have a daughter, or a son, or a friend, or even just yourself, who needs a few quiet days in the trees, Forest Springs in Eureka Springs, Arkansas is worth considering. It’s genuinely lovely: the sauna and cold plunge, the pool, the trails, the fireside lounge, the easy proximity to downtown Eureka Springs when you want it and perfect seclusion when you don’t. The resort has the feel of something thoughtfully built and well-cared-for. It was a really good place to land.

For the full rundown on the property, including rooms, experiences, what to expect, I’ve written a more detailed post over on ArkLaTex Adventures, my regional travel blog. Read the Forest Springs Resort Review on ArkLaTex Adventures

Forest Springs Resort is located at 2044 E Van Buren, Eureka Springs, AR. You can learn more and book your stay at forestspringsresort.com.

More family travel.

• Broken Bow and Hochatown with Kids
• Exquisite Creatures at Crystal Bridges and Things to Do in Bentonville
• Outpost X Immersive Resort in Utah