National Parks Traveler

If you have any interest in the night sky and other wonders of the universe, the number "13" will be a lucky one this year if you can get to Bryce Canyon National Park between June 5 and 8. Those are the dates for the 13th annual Bryce Canyon Astronomy Festival, and the list of activities is an impressive one.

Summer is the definitely the high season in the national parks, and at Sequoia National Park that means lots of family activities, ranging from campfire programs to scanning the night skies to learn a little about astronomy.

If winter really is on the run, additional lodging will be available for visitors to Denali National Park and Preserve on May 31.

When you go out and buy a tent, no matter the manufacturer, it typically comes with an integrated rainfly, and you often can also pick up a ground cloth to match the tent's footprint. So why not consider an integrated layering system when shopping for outerwear?

The roadsides, trails and shorelines of our national parks would be a lot less attractive without the hard work of volunteers, park employees and conscientious visitors who pick up litter left by others. Every now and then, however, we learn about someone who has gone the literal "extra mile" many times over to help make a park a better place.

Bats come out at night in the skies around Pipe Spring National Monument in Arizona, so it's only natural for the monument staff to offer you programs on those creatures of the night.

A coalition led by the National Parks Conservation Association and the National Park Hospitality Association is lobbying National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis to increase entrance fees in parks that now charge them, and to expand such fees to parks that don't have them.

What could be better than combining the Great Smokies, America’s most-visited national park, with an iconic gateway to summer fun in the South?

Archaelogolists frequently are confronted by mysteries, and that's the case at Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve in Florida where they're trying to piece together the history of slavery at the Kingsley Plantation.

There are hybrid cars, hybrid corn, hybrid cattle, so why not a hybrid park? City of Rocks in south central Idaho is one. City of Rocks National Reserve is part of the national park system, but there are no NPS personnel there.