Author's posts
Jun 01 2026
Big Bend National Park
Big Bend National Park protects more than 800,000 acres of mountains, desert, river canyons, volcanic formations, fossil beds, historic ranches, mining landscapes, and Chihuahuan Desert wilderness along the sweeping curve of the Rio Grande in far West Texas. It is one of the largest and most isolated national parks in the contiguous United States, a …
May 31 2026
Badlands National Park
Badlands National Park protects one of the most otherworldly landscapes in the Great Plains: a maze of sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles, spires, ravines, colorful sedimentary layers, and open mixed-grass prairie stretching across roughly 244,000 acres of southwestern South Dakota. The formations seem almost dropped into the middle of the grasslands, where soft gray, tan, red, …
May 30 2026
Arches National Park
Arches National Park protects one of the most concentrated collections of natural stone arches anywhere on Earth. More than 2,000 documented arches rise from a high-desert landscape of red sandstone fins, balanced rocks, narrow passages, massive monoliths, pinnacles, mesas, and broad desert washes just north of Moab, Utah. Some openings are barely large enough to …
May 30 2026
Yellowstone Camping Guide: Best Campgrounds, Reservations & Where to Stay
Camping inside Yellowstone National Park can completely change the experience of visiting the park. Instead of beginning and ending every day with a long drive from a gateway town, you can wake beneath lodgepole pines, hear elk calling after dark, watch bison moving through nearby meadows, and reach famous destinations before many day visitors have …
May 29 2026
National Park of American Samoa
National Park of American Samoa protects tropical rainforest, volcanic mountains, coral reefs, secluded beaches, dramatic sea cliffs, and thousands of years of Samoan cultural history across some of the most remote islands in the National Park System. Located roughly 2,600 miles southwest of Hawaiʻi in the South Pacific, it is the only National Park Service …
May 28 2026
National Parks by State: Complete Guide to All 50 States & 63 National Parks
From glacier-covered mountains in Alaska to coral reefs off Florida, ancient desert canyons in Utah, Appalachian forests in Virginia, and volcanic landscapes in Hawaiʻi, America’s national parks protect an extraordinary collection of landscapes, wildlife habitats, historic places, and cultural stories. There are currently 63 sites carrying the official “National Park” designation, but that number tells …
May 28 2026
Acadia National Park
Acadia National Park brings mountains, forests, freshwater lakes, rocky Atlantic shoreline, islands, historic carriage roads, granite summits, and working coastal communities together within one relatively compact corner of Maine. Rather than protecting a single geological wonder, Acadia preserves an entire coastal landscape where pink granite mountains rise directly above the sea and glacial valleys hold …
May 27 2026
Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone National Park is a landscape of extremes: boiling geysers beside snow-covered mountains, enormous waterfalls cutting through volcanic rock, vast forests shaped by fire, high-elevation lakes, broad wildlife-filled valleys, and an active volcanic system still heating thousands of hydrothermal features beneath the surface. Spread across more than 2.2 million acres of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, …
May 26 2026
Glacier National Park
Glacier National Park protects more than one million acres of jagged mountains, glacier-carved valleys, turquoise lakes, alpine meadows, waterfalls, old-growth forests, and some of the wildest remaining landscapes in the northern Rocky Mountains. Located along the Canadian border in northwestern Montana, the park contains more than 700 miles of hiking trails, hundreds of lakes, extensive …
May 25 2026
Scotty’s Castle
Hidden in Grapevine Canyon in the remote northern reaches of Death Valley National Park stands one of the park’s most unusual landmarks. Scotty’s Castle, officially known as Death Valley Ranch, is a sprawling Spanish- and Mediterranean-influenced mansion surrounded by gardens, workshops, water systems, historic outbuildings, and the remains of an ambitious desert estate. Despite its …
