May 05 2026
The Big Room is the centerpiece of Carlsbad Caverns National Park and the underground experience nearly every first-time visitor should make time to see. Located roughly 750 feet beneath the Chihuahuan Desert of southeastern New Mexico, this immense chamber covers about 8.2 acres and contains an extraordinary collection of stalactites, stalagmites, columns, draperies, flowstone, pools, …
Apr 30 2026
Texas is so large that its national park landscapes can feel like they belong to entirely different parts of the country. In far West Texas, Big Bend National Park protects more than 800,000 acres of Chihuahuan Desert, rugged mountains, Rio Grande canyons, desert springs, historic sites, and some of the darkest night skies in the …
Apr 29 2026
Virgin Islands National Park is one of the most unusual places in the entire U.S. National Park System. Instead of towering western mountains, desert canyons, or vast mainland wilderness, this park protects tropical forests, white-sand beaches, coral reefs, seagrass beds, historic plantation ruins, Indigenous archaeological sites, and brilliant Caribbean water across much of the island …
Apr 29 2026
America’s western national parks receive much of the attention, but the eastern United States contains an extraordinarily varied collection of protected landscapes. Within a relatively compact half of the country, travelers can climb granite mountains above the Atlantic Ocean, drive through the Blue Ridge, hike beneath old-growth hardwood forests, paddle through blackwater floodplains, watch alligators …
Jan 25 2026
America’s national parks protect some of the most dramatic mountain terrain on the continent, from glacier-covered volcanoes and the immense peaks of Alaska to granite walls in the Sierra Nevada and jagged summits in the Rockies. For experienced climbers, these landscapes offer far more than scenic hiking. National parks contain glacier routes, alpine rock climbs, …
Jan 11 2026
Sagarmatha National Park protects one of the most extraordinary mountain landscapes on Earth. Located in the Khumbu region of northeastern Nepal, the park rises from forested river valleys to the summit of Mount Everest, the highest point on the planet. Between those extremes are glaciers, turquoise lakes, deep gorges, high mountain passes, Buddhist monasteries, Sherpa …
Jan 10 2026
The Appalachian Mountains form one of North America’s great natural corridors, stretching from the southeastern United States through the Northeast and continuing into eastern Canada. Unlike the sharp, youthful peaks of the Rockies, the Appalachians are ancient mountains shaped by hundreds of millions of years of uplift, erosion, rivers, glaciers, and changing climates. Several of …
Dec 14 2025
Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve is a place where the scale of Alaska becomes almost difficult to comprehend. Mountains rise directly from vast river valleys, active volcanoes tower above forests and tundra, glaciers flow for miles through wilderness, and a remote coastline meets the Gulf of Alaska beneath the St. Elias Mountains. Covering roughly …
Nov 16 2025
Amboseli National Park is one of Kenya’s most recognizable wildlife destinations, famous for large elephant herds moving across open plains beneath the distant summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. Located in Kajiado County near the Kenya–Tanzania border, the park protects a relatively compact core of a much larger ecosystem made up of dry lake beds, savanna, wetlands, …
Sep 04 2025
Hidden beneath the ponderosa pine forests of South Dakota’s Black Hills is one of the longest known cave systems on Earth. Jewel Cave National Monument protects an enormous underground maze of winding passages, narrow crawlways, chambers, sparkling calcite crystals, unusual mineral formations, and powerful airflow that suggests the known cave may represent only part of …
