Tag archives for national parks
Playing the Big Five Game in Zambia
Posted by Krista Rossow on November 19, 2010 If you’ve ever been on an African safari, you’ve probably heard of the “Big Five” game animals. Although I had heard of the term, I didn’t know that it was originally coined to refer to the most dangerous African game animals to hunt on foot. During my safari in Zambia I was happy to shoot…
Dig Your Own Fossils
Posted by Intelligent Travel on October 12, 2010 The first annual National Fossil Day will be celebrated tomorrow, October 13, by the National Park Service and at fossil sites throughout the country. Jamie Pearson has the scoop on some of the best dig sites for kids. As a kid, I was obsessed with fossils. What kid isn’t? Which is why I took my…
Rim to Rim: Setting Out
Posted by Margaret J. Krauss on September 9, 2010 Margaret Krauss, who works in the National Geographic Kids division, recently completed a five day back-country hike into the Grand Canyon. For the next few days, she’ll be sharing glimpses from her trip. Read her first post here. The North Kaibab Trail is the only maintained trail from the North Rim. Over its 14.2 miles…
Rim to Rim: Hiking the Grand Canyon
Posted by Margaret J. Krauss on September 7, 2010 Margaret Krauss, who works in the National Geographic Kids division, recently completed a five day back-country hike into the Grand Canyon. For the next few days, she’ll be sharing glimpses from her trip. Hitting rock bottom is generally not a gratifying experience. But when I reached the Colorado River at the base of the Grand…
American Festivals: Oglala Lakota Nation Pow Wow
Posted by Janelle Nanos on August 5, 2010 Today marks the start of the annual Oglala Lakota Nation Pow Wow, one of the nation’s largest powwows, and it will be held on the Pine Ridge Reservation outside Badlands National Park in South Dakota through August 8. Last year, photographers Andrew Owen and Ross McDermott visited the Pow Wow as part of their year-long…
New Magazine Feature: Ask a Park Ranger
Posted by Janelle Nanos on August 3, 2010 Every so often, we let you in on the inner workings of Traveler magazine before it hits newsstands. And if you’re a close reader, you may be aware that I write a column each month on the latest news from the National Parks. I’ve come to love talking to the Rangers about all of their…
Thank a Ranger Day
Posted by Intelligent Travel on July 28, 2010 Alison Brick pauses to thank the people behind our National Parks. It’s the heart of summer, and you can almost hear the pounding of tent stakes into the ground and the blowing of embers to start campfires as people make their way outdoors. National and state parks across the country are being appreciated this time…
Brazil Broadens Rain Forest Protection
Posted by Janelle Nanos on June 16, 2010 Our colleague David Braun at Nat Geo News Watch reports on some promising news for the Brazilian rain forest: Four new environmental conservation units and the expansion of a national park within the Atlantic Rain Forest biome in the state of Bahia have been announced by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil. “The…
Do National Parks Help Alleviate Poverty?
Posted by Intelligent Travel on June 1, 2010 Costa Rica’s Tortugerro National Park, by MyShot user Aashit Shah Do national parks help to alleviate poverty in developing nations or are they the cause of it? This is the question that shapes many conservation policy debates. Those in favor of national parks say that the protected areas bring tourism revenue and create jobs in…
Vintage National Park Posters
Posted by Janelle Nanos on May 27, 2010 Our pals over at the National Geographic Travel & Cultures site have just put together an excellent online package that looks at the current state of our national parks. The series of articles spans the history of the parks and National Geographic’s unique role within it, and provides updates on some of the major issues…
Plan an Adventure in the National Parks
Posted by Intelligent Travel on May 26, 2010 With over 392 national park sites to choose from, planning a summer vacation to one or a few of them can be a bit daunting. Thankfully, the National Park Service has just launched a new website dedicated to helping you map out your next visit. The new 2010 Summer Adventure planning site features quick links…
Building a New National Park in Patagonia
Posted by Intelligent Travel on May 18, 2010 Patagonia is pure, dramatic nature–craggy peaks that seem to signal the end of the Earth (the tip of South America is nearby, after all); panoramas of grassy foothills, each topped with a single guanaco on the lookout for pumas; waterfalls and glaciers seeping into lakes colored a startling blue. Every windblown inch of it screams…
Florida’s Forgotten National Park
Posted by Intelligent Travel on May 10, 2010 Sara Zeglin, associate producer for Digital Media for National Geographic Kids, is just back from a trip to the Florida Keys, where she had the chance to explore Dry Tortugas, one of the country’s least visited national parks. I’m not ashamed to say it–I’m in love with the national parks. I have one of those…
National Parks Going to….Pot
Posted by Intelligent Travel on April 1, 2010 Mexico’s drug cartels are growing billions of dollars’ worth of marijuana on U.S. parkland, especially in California’s Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, which offer an ideal setting: 1.2 million remote acres coursed with creeks, blessed with sunny weather, and subject to scant law enforcement. Park visitors are not endangered by the clandestine marijuana fields–most…
Happy Birthday, Glacier!
Posted by Intelligent Travel on January 26, 2010 Alison Brick gets the scoop on Glacier National Park’s centennial celebration. One hundred years isn’t long in the life of a mountain range, but it’s something to recognize in the life of a national park. Glacier National Park will be celebrating its centennial throughout 2010 with a series of special events that are just getting…
My City Celebrates: Pete’s Yosemite
Posted by I Heart My City on December 30, 2009 This year, inspired by our “I Heart My City” series on Intelligent Travel, we’re reveling in the holiday season by asking our readers to share their favorite ways to celebrate in their cities. But we have to admit that in our focus on cities, we overlooked some of the less-urban offerings. So today we look…
Boeing Helps Fund a Greener Washington
Posted by Sarah Langdon on November 17, 2009 Who says industrial companies and national parks can’t be friends? Boeing and Washington’s Mount Rainier National Park certainly think they can. On Monday, Boeing presented the park with a $75,000 check to help it become more carbon neutral. According to the Boeing Charitable Trust, the money will go toward Washington’s National Park Fund and be…
A Civil War Camping Weekend Just Beyond DC
Posted by Meg Weaver on November 11, 2009 To mark Veterans’ Day, here’s a bit on the Civil War-themed camping trip I took last weekend with my husband and our goofy dog. It was our last camping trip of the season. Smoke inhalation (we had a little trouble with the cabin’s stove) and frozen digits aside, we had a great time. It’s amazing…
Top Ten Photogenic Parks This Fall
Posted by Janelle Nanos on October 9, 2009 We’ve got leaves on the brain today, and frankly, that’s not such a terrible thing, particularly when the National Park Foundation and Olympus just announced the ten most photogenic parks for fall foliage this season. Feeling inspired? You can submit your favorite photos to the Share the Experience contest, put on by the Federal Recreation…
Wild Sweden
Posted by Intelligent Travel on September 29, 2009 JT Blatty, a former Traveler photo intern, has been spending the last month traveling through Sweden, and sends us a dispatch from their swath of national parks. During an impulsive, two-week road trip through the less populated landscapes of Sweden, it only took a few nights for my friend and I to realize that our…
Ken Burns on “America’s Best Idea”
Posted by Janelle Nanos on September 28, 2009 So I’m just back from lunch with Ken Burns. Ok, so maybe it was me, Ken Burns, and a room full of other journalists at the National Press Club, but the man is such a captivating speaker that it’s as if he’s sitting across the table from you, instead of across the room. Burns was…
Obama Visits the National Parks
Posted by Giovanna Palatucci on August 13, 2009 Lynda Bird Johnson packs her camp trailer prior to her western trip. From the December, 1965 issue of National Geographic Magazine, by David Boyer/NGS. This weekend President Obama and the First Family are heading to Yellowstone and Grand Canyon National Parks, in part to promote this summer’s final fee-free weekend at over 100 parks that…
Photo Flashback: Yellowstone National Park
Posted by Janelle Nanos on July 15, 2009 There is perhaps nothing I love more than poking through the National Geographic photo archives. Which is why I adore the two galleries we currently have on our website, featuring classic images from Yellowstone and Yosemite National Parks. The shot above, which has never before been published, depicts the snowmobile vehicle tours available in Yellowstone…
We Heart National Parks
Posted by Janelle Nanos on July 1, 2009 Just launched today: Traveler’s quick and easy guide to ten of our favorite national parks. Each guide includes great hikes, scenic drives, natural wonders, insider experiences, photo ops, and strategies for getting the most out of your visit. And as a bonus, we went back through the archives and assembled two fantastic slide shows of…
Russia Creates New Polar Bear Habitat
Posted by Janelle Nanos on June 16, 2009 Are you a fan of polar bears? (Who isn’t?!) Well there’s some good news from our friends over at the NatGeo News Watch blog: Russia will create a new 3.7 million-acre (1.5 million-hectare) park in the Arctic, a central area for the Barents and Kara Sea polar bear populations, WWF said today. Announcing the park,…
