National Parks Traveler is the world's top-rated, editorially independent, nonprofit media organization dedicated to covering national parks and protected areas on a daily basis. Traveler offers readers and listeners a unique multimedia blend of news, feature content, debate, and discussion all tied to national parks and protected areas.
National Parks Traveler Podcast
We are not alone in this world. We share it, obviously, with wildlife and marine life, and the vegetation that grows on land and in the oceans. How we treat those landscapes can have detrimental impacts to those other life forms.
In this week’s show, we look at a nonprofit organization whose sole existence is to acquire, from willing sellers, private lands surrounded by official, or proposed, wilderness in national parks, national forests, and other publicly owned lands. Once those lands are acquired and transferred to the federal land managers, The Wilderness Land Trust will put itself out of business. But that’s not going to happen overnight, as the Trust’s executive director, Brad Borst, explains during our conversation.
In this week’s show, we look at one of the hottest places on Earth, Death Valley National Park in southeastern California and western Nevada. And this summer was especially hot. The park broke records in a number of categories as it experienced some of the hottest days ever recorded on Earth.
The National Park System doesn’t pause for the upcoming presidential election. Throughout the summer it has been surprisingly busy, in light of the coronavirus pandemic, at many units of the park system. Indeed, there are many issues across the parks to pay attention to and discuss. To help us with that task, we’ve invited Kristen Brengel, senior vice president of government affairs for the National Parks Conservation Association, and Sheridan Steele, who spent nearly four decades with the National Park Service until 2015, when he retired.
In this week’s show, we look at a national park site that celebrates distinctly American music -- the Blue Ridge Music Center along the Blue Ridge Parkway near Galax, Virginia. Traveler’s Lynn Riddick visits with Richard Emmett, director of the Blue Ridge Music Center, to find out what’s happening in the interpretation, presentation, and promotion of traditional American mountain music.
We welcome you to fall with a conversation with lodging experts David and Kay Scott on where best to relax and enjoy the fall foliage in the National Park System. And Lynn Riddick catches up with Seth Benz, the bird ecology director at the Schoodic Institute, to talk fall migrations at Acadia National Park.
We’re going to dream a little bit about places in the National Park System we’d like to visit with hopes we can help you discover a new park destination. To launch this audio bucket list, we’re looking towards Arizona and Parashant National Monument, which despite its more than 1 million acres seems to fly below most park visitors’ radar. Following that, we’re going to continue to ponder the topic of species extinction, and whether national parks can help slow the sixth mass extinction.
In this week’s show, we take a look at the outdoor recreation industry and how it has been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. Overall, the industry has been hard hit, but there are some bright spots. Jessica Turner, executive director of the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, and the organization's vice president, Lindsey Davis, discuss the state of the industry amid the coronavirus pandemic. We also take a look at the upcoming fundraiser for Outdoor Afro. Yosemite National Park Ranger Shelton Johnson will host the fundraiser for the organization that inspires and facilitates the connection of Black Americans to natural spaces everywhere.
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The Essential RVing Guide
The National Parks RVing Guide, aka the Essential RVing Guide To The National Parks, is the definitive guide for RVers seeking information on campgrounds in the National Park System where they can park their rigs. It's available for free for both iPhones and Android models.
This app is packed with RVing specific details on more than 250 campgrounds in more than 70 parks.
You'll also find stories about RVing in the parks, some tips if you've just recently turned into an RVer, and some planning suggestions. A bonus that wasn't in the previous eBook or PDF versions of this guide are feeds of Traveler content: you'll find our latest stories as well as our most recent podcasts just a click away.
So whether you have an iPhone or an Android, download this app and start exploring the campgrounds in the National Park System where you can park your rig.
