National Parks Traveler

Visitation to the 401 units of the National Park System last year slipped to 273.6 million, a drop of 9.1 million visitors from the 282.7 million counted in 2012.

Our National Park System now includes over 300 units, and none of them would be in existence today without the energetic efforts of individuals or organizations to secure the necessary authorization and funding. Such efforts are known as "lobbying," and the story behind Mount Rushmore National Memorial includes both a very creative approach for gaining a President's support...and a good example of what not to do in the halls of Washington.

While closed much of last year and early this year due to mandatory budget cuts, the Tall Trees Access Road in Redwood National Park was scheduled to reopen today.

With the travel season not too far off, you should be planning your national park adventures. If you're looking for a great scenic drive, we offer the following for your consideration.

Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve protects 3,283,000 acres of spectacular Alaskan scenery, so even some pretty spectacular geologic events in remote sections of the park can go unnoticed for a while. Thanks to remote sensing equipment, however, scientists have confirmed that "largest known landslide on Earth since 2010" occurred in the park earlier this month.

If you have an artistic side, you might consider entering the competition for a 2014 edition poster promoting this year's Acadia Night Sky Festival in and around Acadia National Park.

Salt River Bay National Historical Park in St. Croix stirs up the imagination. It's the only known place where Christopher Columbus landed in the United States. Walk the beach, kayak and swim in the bay and check out the bioluminescent organisms in the water.

Familiar names and faces are used around the world to sell every imaginable type of product to consumers, so conservation groups are turning to the same approach to try to help save wildlife such as elephants and rhinos. The long-term survival of the animals, which are a big draw for tourists to national parks in Africa and Asia, is threatened by a growing illicit trade in wildlife products.

If you were given a blank piece of paper, and asked to design a national park, what would you consider to be indispensable?

Dinosaur National Monument's two rivers, the Yampa and the Green, should be justification enough to formally describe Dinosaur as a "national park;" they offer some of the best rafting in the West.