The just-completed year of 2009 was a busy one for the Traveler, as our output grew exponentially compared to 2008. It also was heavy in reader traffic, as nearly 1 million stopped by to see what was going on in the national parks. That readership was more than twice what we counted in 2008, and we'd like to thank those who stopped by in 2009 for taking the time to visit and hope you'll both bookmark the Traveler and encourage your friends to check us out.
For all of 2009, we posted 1,619 articles, or roughly four on an average day. That total was an increase of nearly 83 percent over 2008, when there were 887 articles posted.
Understandably, quantity isn't always an indicator of overall quality, and reading tastes differ greatly in terms of what you'd like to see on the Traveler. While there certainly is an audience interested in some of the more heavily news-oriented posts surrounding the managing of the national parks and the National Park Service, we recognize that many readers are more interested in learning about what they can do in the parks or testing their brains on Bob's quizzes and puzzlers or chuckling over Jim's anecdotes from his 30 years rangering in the parks.
So, where will we head in 2010? We hope to offer a redesigned Traveler that is a bit crisper appearing and somewhat easier to navigate. We also plan to bolster our travel-related coverage of the parks, delve more into the natural and cultural history of the parks, and, hopefully, integrate more multi-media content in that regard.
To those in the National Park Service reading this, please keep us in mind with what's going on in your parks. While we receive a number of emailed releases from a handful of parks, and take RSS feeds from about a dozen or so, we'd like to hear from more parks, particularly with news of tours such as the one at Petersburg National Battlefield that we highlighted on Sunday and monthly activity calendars such as the one from Saguaro National Park that we posted today.
We'll also continue to leave the door open to guest columnists. We'd love to hear from park superintendents who have something to say, whether it focuses on a unique aspect of their parks or tips visitors can use in exploring their parks; to friends groups that want to explain their latest campaign; folks such as Dr. Tyler Nordgren, an astronomer and associate professor of physics at the University of Redlands in California, who has written a book about dark skies over national parks, or; even our elected politicians who have something to say about the national parks or National Park Service. And we're always looking for new voices to add to the Traveler (although there currently is no budget to afford them other than "thanks!" and a great and growing community to share your experiences with.)
If you want to take us up on this offer, simply use the "contact us" link in the Visitor Center box in the upper right-hand column.
To our readers, we hope we continue to meet your expectations and, as always, remain open to suggestions and comments regarding our coverage. What do you like, what don't you like? What type of stories would you like to see more of?
We also encourage you to check out our sponsors, as they provide some of the means that enable us to bring you a daily dose of commentary, news, and life in America's parks.
Comments
I think you're doing a fine job. I hope the website is making money or, if not, that a way can be found for it to do so.
I would request that, like New West, the website enable posters to request that an alert of subsequent responses in the thread be e-mailed to them. I might write something but then not check back for days if not prompted.
imtnbke,
There is indeed a notification system. If you go to edit your profile, across the top there's a series of buttons, one which says "notification settings." Within that you can select the option to be notified of comments that follow yours.
Thanks for the National Parks Traveler. Each day I look forward to reading it.
OK, well, there are two things about NPT I'm not fond of:
1) Captcha. It fails 50% of the time, no lie. Both on Firefox and Safari.
2) I don't like "tragedy of the week" stories, stories that talk about accidents and what-not. Too much like the nightly news. I don't see the need for it. Sometimes they are related specifically to the uniqueness of the park (like the deaths in Denali of mountain climbers), but sometimes they're just mundane things that can happen anywhere. Mind you, I skip those stories in my own local paper as well. I'm just not much of a "tragedy voyeur".
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My travels through the National Park System: americaincontext.com
Ah, ha! Kurt, thank you for telling me that. I will change the notification setting for my account.
Kurt and All of the NPT staff,
An online poll or multiple choice survey might increase your feedback participation. Readers could give you some quality quantitative data to work with to improve the site.
That being said, my suggestion is for a regular poll on the NPT that gauges reader opinions on a variety of NPS news, controversial issues, best parks to visit, etc. The NPS use to have an internal weekly poll on their InsideNPS portal that was quite popular amongst employees.
Keep up the good work.
-Ranger in Massachusetts
I understand that Captcha can present a small challenge, however I've never had a problem with it on NPT in either Safari, Chrome, or Firefox. Captcha provides a great service to the ongoing effort to digitally transcript public domain books and periodicals. I sincerely hope the NPT keeps the current system.
I usually skip the "tragedy of the week" articles too, but because they tend to quote verbatim from the NPS Morning Report, which I'll be reading anyway. I wish the Traveler might approach these stories a little differently. Rather than repeating the official brief as breaking news, why not wait a few days, monitor local newspaper websites, and come in with a more detailed examination of the story? Often these articles appear before important details are known, like names or motivations or outcomes. I'd like to see Traveler consolidate and expand on information available elsewhere, rather than parrot it.
Oh, and one other thing I would appreciate immensely. A way to navigate to the next or previous article besides backing out to the main page.