Author's posts
Apr 19 2025
Grand Canyon National Park: Best Viewpoints, Hikes, Things to Do & Visitor Guide
Grand Canyon National Park protects one of the most extraordinary landscapes in North America: a vast gorge carved by the Colorado River through layers of rock that record nearly two billion years of Earth history. Stretching for hundreds of miles across northern Arizona, the canyon reaches more than a mile deep in places and exposes …
Apr 17 2025
The Flowers of Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone National Park is famous for geysers, bison, wolves, waterfalls, and geothermal landscapes, but from late spring through summer another transformation takes place across the park. Meadows turn yellow with arrowleaf balsamroot, lupines bring swaths of blue and purple to open slopes, red and orange paintbrush grows along trails, glacier lilies emerge beside melting snow, …
Apr 16 2025
Zion National Park: Best Hikes, Scenic Drives, Things to Do & Visitor Guide
Zion National Park is one of the great landscapes of the American Southwest, a place where the Virgin River cuts through towering walls of Navajo Sandstone to create narrow slot canyons, hanging gardens, desert waterfalls, forested plateaus, and some of the most recognizable hiking routes in the National Park System. Located in southwestern Utah, Zion …
Apr 14 2025
The Best National Parks in Oklahoma for Hiking and Camping
Oklahoma does not contain one of the 63 places officially designated National Park, but that does not mean the state lacks federally protected landscapes worth exploring. The National Park Service manages several important Oklahoma sites, while the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Forest Service protect additional mountains, forests, grasslands, lakes, and wilderness areas …
Apr 12 2025
How to Become a National Park Junior Ranger
The National Park Service Junior Ranger program is one of the easiest and most rewarding ways for children—and often adults—to engage more deeply with America’s national parks. Instead of simply visiting a viewpoint or walking a trail, Junior Rangers complete activities that encourage them to observe wildlife, learn about history, understand geology, protect natural resources, …
Apr 09 2025
Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite National Park: Best Hikes, Scenic Views & Visitor Guide
Tuolumne Meadows is one of the most beautiful places in Yosemite National Park and one of the largest high-elevation meadows in the Sierra Nevada. At roughly 8,600 feet above sea level, this broad subalpine landscape is crossed by the winding Tuolumne River and surrounded by granite domes, lodgepole pine forests, alpine lakes, glacially carved peaks, …
Jan 01 2025
Bale Mountains National Park
Bale Mountains National Park protects one of Africa’s most extraordinary mountain landscapes: a vast highland wilderness of Afro-alpine moorland, volcanic peaks, glacial lakes, grasslands, bamboo forest, cloud forest, deep river valleys, and some of the rarest animals on Earth. Located in the Oromia Region of southeastern Ethiopia, the park rises from lush Harenna Forest to …
Jan 01 2025
Simien Mountains National Park
Simien Mountains National Park protects one of Africa’s most dramatic mountain landscapes: an immense highland world of sheer escarpments, knife-edged ridges, deep valleys, isolated volcanic pinnacles, grassy plateaus, waterfalls, Afro-alpine vegetation, and wildlife found almost nowhere else on Earth. Located in the Amhara Region of northern Ethiopia, the park forms part of the Ethiopian Highlands …
Oct 05 2024
The Top 10 National Parks in the World
The world’s greatest national parks protect far more than beautiful scenery. They preserve entire ecosystems, migration routes, ancient forests, glaciers, coral reefs, volcanic landscapes, rare wildlife, archaeological sites, and places with deep cultural importance to the people who have lived there for generations. Ranking them is inevitably subjective. A wildlife enthusiast might choose Serengeti or …
Oct 05 2024
Galapagos National Park
Galápagos National Park protects one of the most remarkable natural environments on Earth. Located roughly 1,000 kilometers west of mainland Ecuador in the eastern Pacific Ocean, the Galápagos Islands are famous for giant tortoises, marine iguanas, penguins, flightless cormorants, Darwin’s finches, sea lions, blue-footed boobies, and dozens of other species that evolved in long isolation …
