Grand Canyon National Park long has run its backpacking permit operation with a four-month lead time. In other words, you could walk into the backcountry office on February 1 and ask for a permit for a date in June and receive it. Well, the rules are changing friends.
For some people, Thanksgiving means a full belly and an afternoon on the couch watching football. For me, Thanksgiving means a full belly and a hike in the fresh autumn air of a national park.
A rare shot of Great Smoky Mountains National Park taken by Ansel Adams shortly after World War II has been acquired by a Knoxville, Tennessee, museum.
Late fall is a great time for outdoor activities at Saguaro National Park near Tucson, and if you're in that area and want to work off some Thanksgiving dinner calories, the park is offering some special sunset and moonlight hikes and programs in late November and early December.
What are you doing the Saturday after Thanksgiving? Two NPS areas offer a chance to skip the mall and experience the holiday season on the frontier and in the backcountry through special programs. These "frontier" and "backcountry" sites are in locations that might surprise you: South Carolina and New York.
Along its 3,100 miles that wind from the Canadian border down to Mexico, the Continental Divide Trail is one of the most rugged, and in parts one of the most visually spectacular, hiking trails in the country. Now the U.S. Forest Service says the route could be opened in places to mountain bikes, which raises a question of possible impacts to national parks.
If you've been paying close attention to the Traveler, you've no doubt noticed our "Friends of the Traveler" and "Sponsors" boxes over there in the righthand column.
In this final installment of our three-part series on visiting national parks by train, we'll take a look at some options for trips in the central and western United States.
What is it about the hard salt pan, the shifting sand dunes, and the life-threatening temperatures that make Death Valley National Park such a lure with travelers?
While Padre Island National Seashore doesn’t overflow with college students in spring as does its neighbor, South Padre Island, the national seashore nevertheless is a popular gathering spot for awkward-looking visitors. From November to early spring, the seashore becomes a temporary home to sandhill cranes.
The 146th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address is Thursday, November 19. This coming week Gettysburg will be hosting a full slate of Dedication Day and Remembrance Day activities to honor President Abraham Lincoln, his Gettysburg Address, and the soldiers who fought so bravely in the Battle of Gettysburg.
Gettysburg is more than just a summer destination. Here are a dozen holiday activities that make the battlefield park and its gateway community a good choice for a memorable getaway.
You might call the coming weekend an ancestral weekend at Mammoth Cave National Park, as the park will offer workshops for tracing family trees that have roots in the park's rolling and rumpled landscape.
There are places in Great Smoky Mountains National Park that the old timers called "hells" they were such a tangle of vegetation. Well, a young trio of hikers realized that the hard way when they wandered off a marked trail and quickly found themselves lost.
Sorry for the late programming note, but just got word that the National Geographic Channel will explore the Appalachian National Scenic Trail tonight.
With winter descending on the Northern Rockies, the staff at Yellowstone National Park is embarking on its second decade of trying to unravel a conundrum: How do you welcome the public during the year's harshest season without greatly impacting the park?
A one-act play depicting 19th century life in Hopewell Village puts flesh on the bones of history preserved at Pennsylvania’s Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site. This is an example of outreach that’s outside the box.
More money is heading to Glacier National Park to help with the rebuild of the Going-to-the-Sun Road. However, that road construction means you'll be spending some time mired in construction delays while crossing the 50-mile-long road next year.
In the early years of the national parks, railroads were the easiest—and sometimes almost the only—way to reach many of the parks. Although most visitors now arrive by car, the train still offers a useful alternative for travel to some destinations. Here are our tips for riding the rails to parks in the eastern U.S.
What's in a name? History, frankly. And that's why crews at Acadia National Park are returning to the past in renaming many trails that crisscross the park.
Orange will be highly visible in Great Smoky Mountains National Park early next year, as road work ramps up around the park thanks to an infusion of funds via the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as well as the Federal Lands Highway Program. While that work will produce some long-needed improvements, it also means getting around the park could be difficult at times.
In addition to the site of a famous Revolutionary War battle, Cowpens National Battlefield preserves the 1828 Robert Scruggs House. The “Backcountry Holiday” that the park hosts at the Scruggs House each November entertains and educates visitors of all ages.
With all that snow atop Mount Rainier, it's no surprise that folks head to the mountain to make some turns. But those turns are really earned, as there's no lift. This short video shows some turns made the other day following the recent snowfall at Mount Rainier National Park.
Still unchecked on my national park "to-do" list is a winter visit to Sequoia National Park with snowshoes and XC skis in tow. The folks at Wuksachi Lodge are trying to entice me with winter specials.
In a move that might not go over well with motorboaters, officials at Everglades National Park are thinking of creating a "pole and troll" boating zone in Florida Bay to protect seagrass and marine-life. However, such a zone could prove popular with paddlers, wildlife viewers, and some anglers.
Trekking to Canyon de Chelly National Monument in winter offers a number of pluses -- a respite from high summer temperatures, no crowds, and lodging rates well below summer's high-season pricing.
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