For the new explorer, planning a visit to a national park, or even several on a big road trip can be a daunting task. Today on America’s National Parks, we're talking with Jennifer Melroy, a national park lover who has visited nearly all of the 63 main parks and shares her tips and advice over at NationalParkObsessed.com. I talked with Jennifer about the broad strokes of planning a national park visit, pitfalls to avoid, and her resources for helping you get the best out of your trip. 

Make sure to check out Jennifer's blog at nationalparkobsessed.com, and you can get her Ultimate National Park Planning Bundle through this link: https://nationalparkobsessed.store/collections/new-releases/products/ultimate-national-park-travel-planning-bundle

Amidst the rolling hills of Baltimore County, a two-lane road cleaves the sixty-two acres that remain of a former grand estate and plantation that once covered twenty-five thousand acres. The mansion sits on the north side and the remnants of the farm to the south. It’s a storybook picture, set in the middle of what is now a busy suburb of Baltimore. But, as most plantations go — the horrific enslavement of humans mars the earth that helped a new nation prosper. 

Today's show was sponsored by L.L.Bean, follow the hashtag #beanoutsider, and visit LLBean.com to find great gear for exploring the National Parks. 

And by Campendium. Find listings and reviews for thousands of campsites for your next national park adventure at campendium.com.

Make sure to follow the America's National Parks Podcast on Facebook and Instagram, and join us on the RV Miles podcast the hear our travel stories as we journey across America. 

In this episode, we share the news about Hyperion, the world's largest tree, and the attempts at Redwood National Park to keep people from making the dangerous trek to visit it. Plus, Lake Mede is receding, which is creating some interesting surprises, including possible bodies of mobsters at its depths. All that and more on this edition of our National Parks News Roundup.

Today's show was sponsored by L.L.Bean, follow the hashtag #beanoutsider, and visit LLBean.com to find great gear for exploring the National Parks. 

And by Campendium. Find listings and reviews for thousands of campsites for your next national park adventure at campendium.com.

Make sure to follow the America's National Parks Podcast on Facebook and Instagram, and join us on the RV Miles podcast the hear our travel stories as we journey across America. 

In 1870, 14 men led by Henry Washburn, Surveyor General of Montana, set out to explore the Northwestern region of Wyoming, an area known as Yellowstone. During their explorations, they made detailed maps and observations, exploring the numerous lakes, climbing several mountains, and observing the wildlife. They visited the Upper and Lower Geyser Basins, and after observing the regularity of eruptions of one geyser decided to name it Old Faithful.

For a 54-year-old U.S. assessor, the expedition through unknown lands was a chance of a lifetime. He fell ill for a few days a week into the journey, having to separate from the party a few days to recover, a precursor of what was to come. The expedition reached Two Ocean Pass, near the headwaters of both the Snake River and Yellowstone River on September 9th, 23 days into the journey. It was in camp that evening that the party discovered that Truman Everts was gone.

We’re now well into our fourth year of the show, and we’re going to do something On this Episode that we’ve wanted to do for a while - revisit one of the first stories we told. Today, we take you back to  Truman C. Everts and the harrowing tale of his 37 days alone in Yellowstone.

Today's show was sponsored by L.L.Bean, follow the hashtag #beanoutsider, and visit LLBean.com to find great gear for exploring the National Parks. 

And by Campendium. Find listings and reviews for thousands of campsites for your next national park adventure at campendium.com.

Make sure to follow the America's National Parks Podcast on Facebook and Instagram, and join us on the RV Miles podcast the hear our travel stories as we journey across America. 

National Monuments are some of our nation’s most controversial lands. On April 26, 2017, President Trump signed an executive order to review twenty-seven national monuments, calling them “superstitious land grabs” and “an abusive use of the Antiquities Act,” suggesting he might reduce or abolish them completely. He went on to issue proclamations that reduced two national monuments, Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears, and shortly thereafter, President Biden reinstated the former boundaries of both monuments when coming to office, 

Today on America’s National Parks, we talk with McKenzie Long, whose book This Contested Land: The Storied Past and Uncertain Future of America’s National Monuments, shares her visits to thirteen national monuments established within the last twenty-five years.

Today's show was sponsored by L.L.Bean, follow the hashtag #beanoutsider, and visit LLBean.com to find great gear for exploring the National Parks. 

And by Campendium. Find listings and reviews for thousands of campsites for your next national park adventure at campendium.com.

Make sure to follow the America's National Parks Podcast on Facebook and Instagram, and join us on the RV Miles podcast the hear our travel stories as we journey across America. 

Skagway earns its fame in an enthralling story, as the gateway to the Klondike Gold

Today, Skagway is home to the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park. The

Yellowstone National Park turned 150 this year, but of course, the national park moniker is just a human designation for this exotic landscape.  a massive Caldera formed from a volcano that last erupted 631000 years ago. There are few places on Earth that display the power of nature so eloquently as Yellowstone. A place where the only constant is change. That power recently showed its face in the form of devastating floods that ravaged much of Yellowstone and beyond. On this episode of America's national parks the path forward for Yellowstone after a 1 in 500-year event.

In this month's edition of News from the Parks, a late-breaking story out of Yellowstone, all 5 entrances are closed due to flooding and dangerous conditions. Also, the Interior Department is banning the sale of single-use plastics, a woman gets gored by a bison, and more.

The America's National Parks Podcast episode on California Condors: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/california-condors/id1353308883?i=1000409126037

Yosemite was once a wild land ruled by grit. In the 1870s and 80s, only the hardiest of travelers braved the rumbling wagon road and the twenty-mile trek into the valley on mule or horseback. These were folk acclimated to the wild, people who had lived in mining towns or mountain villages their entire lives. Yet, tucked away in the packs of some of these rugged, hardened adventurers was beautiful, delicate china, artisan soaps, fragile full-length mirrors, and fresh crisp towels. Across the treacherous terrain strapped to stubborn scratchy mules, employees of the Cosmopolitan Bathhouse & Saloon brought luxury to the valley in a juxtaposition that defined so much of this era.

What do a brownstone in the heart of New York City, a site near the Canadian border in Buffalo, a forested island in Washington, D.C., and the sprawling North Dakota Badlands have in common? They are all units of the National Park Service named for Theodore Roosevelt.