Jun 24 2026
If you plan to visit several national parks or other federal recreation areas within a year, the America the Beautiful Pass can be one of the simplest ways to reduce entrance costs. Often casually called the “national park pass,” it actually covers far more than National Park Service sites, providing access to thousands of participating …
Jun 11 2026
Three days in Glacier National Park is enough time to experience its famous alpine road, turquoise lakes, waterfalls, wildlife, mountain passes, and at least one memorable hike—but only if you plan the trip geographically. Glacier is much larger than it initially appears on a map. Lake McDonald anchors the west side, Logan Pass sits high …
May 30 2026
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 28 2026
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 27 2026
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 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
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 …
May 14 2026
Seven days in Yellowstone National Park gives you something most visitors never have: time. Instead of rushing from Old Faithful to Yellowstone Falls to Lamar Valley in a frantic attempt to see the entire park in two or three days, a full week allows you to explore Yellowstone region by region. You can spend several …
May 12 2026
Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park protects one of the steepest, darkest, and most dramatic river canyons in North America. In western Colorado, the Gunnison River slices through ancient Precambrian rock, creating sheer cliffs that plunge more than 2,000 feet in places while narrowing to only a few dozen feet near the river. The …
May 10 2026
Beneath the Chihuahuan Desert of southeastern New Mexico lies an underground landscape far larger and more complicated than most visitors realize. Carlsbad Caverns National Park protects more than 119 known caves, ranging from enormous systems extending for more than a hundred miles to small passages that remain almost entirely untouched. Yet most visitors experience only …
