Help National Parks Traveler Continue To Bring You A Daily Dose of National Park Coverage

As the National Parks Traveler approaches its sixth year on the Internet, we're hoping you'll support our efforts to expand knowledge, interest, and stewardship in America’s national parks.

For its first five years, the Traveler has been a labor of love. Because of our steady growth, though, the Traveler now needs support to keep going. Your support will allow us to continue encouraging exploration, enjoyment, and understanding of the park system.

The Traveler is the only Internet site we know of that follows national parks with a daily burst of news, commentary, and travel-related features. At the Traveler, we're trying to fill that gap. On any given day you might read a travel feature, learn about a new interpretive program, discover a hiking trail, be brought up to date on management conflicts in the parks, or find a field program that perfectly fits your interests.

We could use your help to not just continue with that mission, but to build onto it with even richer, more diverse content. For individual supporters, we're suggesting an annual donation of $15, (though we certainly wouldn't decline larger contributions). Fifteen dollars is less than a week’s worth of trips to Starbucks, generally is less than the cost of one night in a national park campground, a pittance when measured against a decent pair of hiking boots, and it helps us provide you with 365-days-a-year coverage of the finest park system in the world.

What other site on the 'net can you turn to on a daily basis to learn about the latest search-and-rescue mission, about how Congress is treating the parks, or for colorful insights into the life and times in our national parks?

Does anyone else craft national park quizzes and puzzles like Professor Bob, or recount True Tales of Humor & Misadventure from America’s National Parks like Ranger Jim?

The Traveler also tracks the lodging scene across the park system thanks to contributions from David and Kay Scott, authors of that definitive guide known as The Complete Guide to National Park Lodges, and relies on myriad contributions from guest writers to explore and explain the national parks.

And, of course, we try to keep you up on the latest "hard" news, such as the recent court ruling that overturned personal watercraft plans at Gulf Islands National Seashore and Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, the questionable "core ops" programming that Park Service Director Jon Jarvis axed soon after taking up the reins, and the ongoing debates over snowmobiles in Yellowstone and off-road vehicles at Cape Hatteras.

We're not sitting on our laurels. Through the first six months of 2010 we've offered you 850 articles in a mix of news, features, videos, podcasts, puzzles, and mysteries. That's an increase of nearly 30 percent from the same period last year.

How would your donation help the Traveler? It'd help us cover the costs of our server, pay for software updates to the site, reimburse the volunteers who have willingly donated their time and knowledge to offer you a diverse mix of park-related articles, and help us expand our coverage of the National Park System and the National Park Service by attracting more writers.

If you look forward to surfing over to the Traveler -- whether once a week or every day of the week -- to see what's going on in the parks, please consider contributing to help us stay on-line. You can contribute by clicking the above button and logging on to PayPal, sending a check to National Park Advocates, LLC, at P.O. Box 980452, Park City, Utah, 84098, or encouraging businesses and organizations that operate in the parks to enroll in our sponsorship program.

Unfortunately, the IRS doesn’t consider us a non-profit, and so you can’t claim a donation to the Traveler as a tax-deductible contribution. But we can promise that your contribution will help ensure that when you get up in the morning or turn the computer on after dinner that the Traveler will be there with your daily dose of national park news and features.