Frommer's National Parks Newsletter

This summer I've been invited to contribute a series of articles for a National Parks newsletter published online by the travel experts at Frommer's. They produce a daily newsletter covering all aspects of travel, but twice a month during the summer, the content of the newsletter is all about the parks. The special park-only newsletter appears on the first and third Thursday of every month between April and October. The first park newsletter appeared online yesterday, it can be read here.

I know that as a contributor my opinion will appear pretty biased, but so far, I've been impressed with the contents of the newsletter. In just this first one, I've learned something new about -

• Acadia National Park - did you know Mt Desert is pronounced as "dessert"? I didn't. Of course, I've been known to mispronounce the names of mountains in Maine before. It turns out that Katahdin starts with a "kah - tah" and not a "cat - a", a mistake I made for many years.


• Hot Springs National Park - interesting B&B lodging packages in town


• Southwest Parks - they've put together a couple of very fun sounding road trips through the Southwest. I'd love to take the 21 day loop journey they've laid out from Vegas to Zion, Grand Canyon, Arches, Bryce, and more before returning to Vegas again.

In my article for the newsletter, I tried to introduce the strange concept that the National Park Service manages for both conservation and visitor enjoyment within the same resource. For more than 90 years, that delicate relationship has caused problems. And for 90 years, the balance between the two has shifted back and forth. Can you imagine the Yosemite Fire Falls being introduced today in the park? There might be a ton of "visitor enjoyment" going on, but the conservation mission of the park would suffer. And yet, for more than 88 years the Fire Falls were a nightly event on the cliffs above Camp Curry. Anyway, check out the article and newsletter if you get a chance. Let me know what you think.