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The National Parks, Our American Landscape

Published : 2011-03-01

If the cover photo of The National Parks, Our American Landscape, doesn't encourage you to call in sick and head into the national parks, well, perhaps one of the hundreds of other images inside this book will.

Gracing the cover is an image Ian Shive captured in Montana of Glacier National Park, one of a lone backpacker on a rocky outcrop gazing out across a panoramic landscape of blue lakes, green forests, dramatic mountains. Flip the book over and you're looking at a similarly breathtaking image from Lake Clark National Park and Preserve in Alaska.

This is a new, paperback, version of the book by the same name that Mr. Shive published two years ago. While this edition is slightly smaller than the hardcover edition, it contains more than a few photos that didn't make the hardcover version.

For instance, while the timing, season-wise, didn't allow for the photographer to capture any images from Great Smoky Mountains National Park to include in the hardcover edition, there are four in this edition, including a two-page spread of the iconic staircase of mountains as seen at sunset from Clingmans Dome.

Other parks that are presented in this version, but not the hardcover, are Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve in Idaho, Cumberland Gap National Historical Park in Kentucky/Tennessee, Haleakala National Park, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, and Lake Clark National Park and Preserve.

There also are new images from Mount Rainier National Park, Grand Teton National Park, Yosemite National Park, and Zion National Park, all parks that were among those featured in the hardcover edition.

Flip through this book and you'll find gorgeous photos of a foggy morning atop Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park, a bright orange garibaldi swimming in the Channel Islands Marine Sanctuary at Channel Islands National Park, a backlit fiddleneck in Yosemite, and a view into the crater of Haleakala.

And those are just the beginning of a photographic journey across the National Park System that you can use to decide which parks you want to place on your personal check-off list.

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The Essential RVing Guide

The Essential RVing Guide to the National Parks

The National Parks RVing Guide, aka the Essential RVing Guide To The National Parks, is the definitive guide for RVers seeking information on campgrounds in the National Park System where they can park their rigs. It's available for free for both iPhones and Android models.

This app is packed with RVing specific details on more than 250 campgrounds in more than 70 parks.

You'll also find stories about RVing in the parks, some tips if you've just recently turned into an RVer, and some planning suggestions. A bonus that wasn't in the previous eBook or PDF versions of this guide are feeds of Traveler content: you'll find our latest stories as well as our most recent podcasts just a click away.

So whether you have an iPhone or an Android, download this app and start exploring the campgrounds in the National Park System where you can park your rig.