Browse Through the Traveler Content

With Tropical Storm Issac taking aim on the Gulf Coast, national parks and seashores in its path are battening down and getting ready to ride out the storm.

Roughly 70 miles off the tip of Florida, Dry Tortugas National Park is not the easiest place to get to. But plan your trip with the following suggestions and you likely will be able to justify the expense getting there.

That national parks inspire artists is no surprise. And if you're heading to Biscayne National Park between September 16 and late November, you can see the results of that inspiration at the park's Dante Fascell Visitor Center.

There's good news and bad news for historic Fort Jefferson in Dry Torgugas National Park: Visitors to the park won't be directly affected, but a "recent report on instability of a section of the fort's wall indicate this side of the fort could collapse at any time."

How do you hoist and move a 25-ton cannon? These days, the answer usually involves a crane or other heavy equipment, but those aren't options at one of the most remote national parks in the country. The staff at Dry Tortugas National Park solved the problem with a combination of old-fashioned technology, ingenuity and teamwork.

For some park travelers, winter trips conjure up images of snow-covered landscapes, but for others the season means sun and sand. Here are some suggestions for NPS sites where milder winter weather offers a fine time to enjoy parks that are just too toasty or buggy for most of us during the summer.

In the fall, animals and birds prepare for winter. Bears eat constantly to fatten up before they slow down. Many birds are already on their migration path. Elk and other ungulates are preparing for the mating ritual, the rut. Take a look -- or stop and listen -- in many national parks this Fall and you'll catch a glimpse of this autumnal spectacular.

Passage of time can, on occasion, be an insidious eraser of events. As we near the two-month "anniversary" of the blowout of the Deepwater Horizon oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, are we becoming numbed to its impacts, realized and potential?

There were great expectations when Mote Marine Laboratory launched an underwater robot nicknamed Waldo to look for oil and dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico just west of Dry Tortugas National Park.

A slurry of oil and tar balls roughly 2 miles long and a yard wide from the Deepwater Horizon disaster has been keeping cleanup crews busy at Gulf Islands National Seashore, while other parks in South Florida still have not been impacted.

When word came earlier this month that tar balls had washed ashore at Dry Tortugas National Park, the implication was that they were related to the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. But then an analysis showed they weren't related, so where did they come from? Some think they were tied to a "spill of opportunity."

As millions of gallons of crude oil continue to flow into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe, the National Park Foundation is mounting a campaign to raise money to help national park units affected by the disaster.

The Kemp's ridley may be little as sea turtles go, but it's got big problems. It was already the world's most endangered marine turtle before the mammoth Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico threatened to wreak havoc on its vital habitat.

This coming Friday, May 21, is Endangered Species Day. It is a day to both celebrate the amazing successes achieved for wildlife protection ... and to reflect on the work still left to be done.