With Friday kicking off the holiday shopping season, quite a few folks more than likely will have national parks on their minds. And so do we at the Traveler, and so we've decided to offer for your consideration our first Traveler Gift Guide.

* The America the Beautiful -- The National Parks and Public Lands Pass. This is a gift that keeps on giving, 12 months of the year. With it you can get into every single unit of the National Park System without paying an entrance fee. It also grants the holder fee-free access to other public lands that charge entrance fees. Actually, give an IOU to purchase this on January 1 and it gives 13 months, as these cards expire on the last day of the month punched, so those bought January 1, 2010, won't expire until January 31, 2011. Since most federal offices are closed on January 1, unless you're in a park that day you'll probably have to purchase this pass on-line.

* If you can't possibly figure out how to visit more than one or two parks in one year, consider giving an annual pass to just one or two parks. Most parks offer them, and some of these annual passes, such as the $50 pass for Yellowstone, gets you into Grand Teton as well for as many visits as you can squeeze into an entire year. Since you usually have to visit the park of your choice to purchase these annual passes, you can toss in a trip to that park as part of your gift!

* Join the National Park Foundation. This is the charitable arm of the National Park Service. It raises dollars to invest back into the parks in the form of interpretive programs, improvement projects, education and more. This is a feel-good gift, as your contribution will help further the National Park System.

* Give a book. There are plenty to choose from that have a national park angle, whether it's a coffee-table photo book or a book about the history of the National Park System. Some possibilities include:

Submerged: Adventures of America's Most Elite Underwater Archeology Team -- I always liked the acronym, SCRU, the best, I thought, in the federal government. It stood for the Submerged Cultural Resources Unit, a collection of National Park Service world-class divers stationed in Santa Fe, New Mexico, who also happened to be professional archaeologists, anthropologists, and illustrators. -- Rick Smith

A Natural History Guide to Great Smoky Mountains National Park -- Usually when I visualize Great Smoky Mountains National Park, what comes to mind are heavily forested mountains cut by leaping creeks, roamed by black bears, and packed with salamanders. But if you talk to Donald Linzey, he'll open your eyes to a lot more of the park's natural history. -- Kurt Repanshek

Yellowstone and the Snowmobile: Locking Horns Over National Park Use -- What is the role of a national park? How should we value what lies within the boundaries of a national park? Those are simple and yet provocative questions these days. Some answers -- perhaps the answer -- can be found in a new book that chronicles Yellowstone National Park's bittersweet history with the snowmobile. -- KR

Wind Cave National Park: The First 100 Years -- After deciding to write a memorable book about Wind Cave National Park, Peggy Sanders selected old photos with great care and then added skillfully crafted captions and explanations. The result is a photo-dense book that’s fun to read and hard to put down. Thank you, Peggy. -- Bob Janiskee

Hey Ranger! True Tales of Humor & Misadventure from America's National Parks -- Jim Burnett collected so many humorous tales during his 30 years as a ranger with the National Park Service that he couldn't resist the prospect of collecting them in a book. In Hey Ranger! True Tales of Humor & Misadventure from America's National Parks, Jim regales readers with anecdotes of park visitors and their run-ins with skunks, struggles with the seeming ease of camping, and the travails of navigating tranquil rivers. -- KR

Yellowstone Treasures -- Thank goodness there still are independents taking pen to paper to produce guides to national parks. Forget the cookie-cutter approach, toss aside worries about over-emphasizing one area, never mind about catering to one demographic. Janet Chapple's Yellowstone Treasures is a must for Yellowstone National Park visitors. -- KR

The Complete Guide to the National Park Lodges -- David and Kay Scott are still traveling the country to stay in as many lodges in the National Park System as possible. The latest edition of their book -- number six if you're counting -- is ready to take its place in your home library. -- KR

Adios Amigos: Tales of Sustenance and Purification in the American West -- "River time." It's that blissful oasis reached only by pushing off from terra firma, leaping board a raft, kayak, or canoe, and leaving the real world behind. Preferably for more than an afternoon. In the West, this generally is accomplished by heading for the Middle Fork of the Salmon, the Green, the Selway, or the Lochsa rivers. For those truly lucky souls, it means putting in from Lee's Ferry onto the Colorado River for two or more weeks of riverine solitude. -- KR

The Last Season -- I'm so impressed with Eric Blehm's "The Last Season," an accounting of the disappearance of Randy Morgenson, a backcountry ranger who spent 28 seasons in Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Parks before vanishing into a void. It's a mystery that perhaps will appeal largely only to parkies, but it's one masterfully told. -- KR

Preserving Nature in the National Parks: A History -- A decade after it first appeared on bookshelves, Preserving Nature in the National Parks: A History has reappearing in an updated version, one that follows the course of the national parks and the National Park Service up through the Bush administration and into the early days of the Obama administration. -- KR

The National Parks, Our American Landscape -- Is it possible to have too many large-format coffee table books on national parks? I don't think so. In The National Parks, Our American Landscape, photographer Ian Shive approaches the parks brimming with wonder, and comes away with rare moments in time from the parks. -- KR

* Give The National Parks: America's Best Idea, the 12-hour documentary by Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan.

* Give a needed piece of gear, such as:

A cook stove, such as JetBoil's new Flash or the compact MSR Pocket Rocket.

Some invaluable medical gear, such as Adventure Medical Kit's QuikClot bandages.

A pair of hiking sticks, which come in handy for easing the strain on the knees, shooing snakes from trails, and even pitching tents.

SPOT, for some peace of mind while friends or family are off in the wilds enjoying themselves. Another great electronic gizmo to help travelers either find themselves or keep track of themselves is a GPS unit.

A tent, or two. Quality is up across the board, whether you shop REI, Mountain Hardwear, MSR, Eureka!, or any of the other major brands, and prices are down.

For stocking stuffers, consider that Swedish fire stick, Light My Fire, or consider one of the national park maps from National Geographic's Trails Illustrated library. While NG doesn't currently package the compete set of park maps in a bundle, outside of their computer software, I've passed on the suggestion. Another stocking-sized item is the National Park Passport, a small, spiral-bound ledger to track your visits to parks.

To keep the kids busy in camp while you're working on dinner, the Jibline from Gibbon gives the youngsters a way to work on their balance. This 2-inch-wide slackline can be anchored a slight distance above ground between two stout tree trunks and then ratcheted tight. Then the kids can see who can walk the furthest on this swaying line.