Kurt Repanshek, founder and editor-in-chief.

The start to 2019 has been a busy one, what with the year opening with the partial government shutdown that challenged the National Park Service, winter storms leading to slides and rock falls at Zion National Park, and Congress passing a massive public lands bill that benefits the National Park System.

At the Traveler, we’ve added a weekly podcast to help you stay on top of life in the national parks. The content doesn’t directly mirror that which appears on these pages, but complements it. We hope you’ve added the podcast to your list of favorites.

Hopefully you’ve also noticed the great mix of content we’ve been able to offer you in recent months. Rita Beamish did a masterful job exploring the issues confronting Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area’s recovery from last fall’s Woolsey Fire, while Barbara Moristch’s examination of the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and its rescue project in Kenya opened a window into park issues across the globe. 

Erika Zambello informed you on the ongoing battle with lionfish at Biscayne National Park, David and Kay Scott have been busy with their series of stories on national park lodging, Kim O’Connell took an interesting look at some of the unique architecture in the National Park System, and Rebecca Latson keeps coming with tips and examples on how to improve your national park photography. 

We’ve also been working hard to keep you up to date on developing news, such as the traffic management plan at Arches, the structural woes with the Chisos Mountains Lodge at Big Bend, wolf recovery at Isle Royale, and search-and-rescue missions across the park system.

A key component of all this coverage is your input via comments. After all, the national parks belong to you, and you should have a forum to discuss them.

This conversation that we’re having – our content, your reactions and input – is made possible through the wonders of cyberspace. The only Traveler  “headquarters” is my basement office, the mothership if you will. I am the only real employee. But I couldn’t make this happen without a great and invaluable team of volunteers and freelance writers scattered from New England to Florida’s Gulf Coast and west to California and the Pacific Northwest.

We do this because we believe in the national park ideal and the need – yes, there is a need -- to provide editorially independent news and feature coverage every day of the year on these special places and the people who manage and oversee them. National parks contain myriad stories, from the obvious -- wildlife, tourism, geology, archaeology, paleontology -- to the not quite so obvious -- scientific discoveries, extinctions, the human condition. They are, in essence, a tangible canary in the coal mine that is an indicator of the health of the world.

But if we are to sustain and continue to evolve this journalistic initiative, we need your support. Google, Facebook, and Apple aren’t just siphoning away advertising dollars from journalism. They’re strangling it, corralling content for their own news feeds and dictating the financial terms. And in the process, they’re weakening the content out there as traditional media outlets shrink in a bid to stay in business. Some are dying.

If just 10 percent of our annual readership, which is around 1.5 million, gave $2 a year, we could comfortably grow and build Traveler's content not only in sheer number of stories, but in how they’re presented. Sadly, there’s still a widespread belief that Internet content should be free. And that would make sense, perhaps, if everything else in life were free, right?

Traveler is, and has been, free, because we believe the content should reach as wide an audience as possible. Nonetheless, it needs your support, as well as that of sponsors and underwriters, because producing the content is not without cost.

As a colleague in a similar predicament put it, "if you don’t support the brands you love, if you don’t live your values by where you spend, they will go away."

We need the financial support of readers who are passionate about national parks and protected areas, who see value in news coverage of those areas, and who believe in what we’re trying to accomplish here at the Traveler. If you want more feature coverage of the U.S. National Park System, along with more stories from parks and protected areas around the world, and a place to discuss the wonders and challenges these places face, we ask for your support, whether you live in the United States, Canada, Australia, or Kenya.

As Traveler is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit media organization, donated revenues go directly to pay for editors, writers, photographers, videographers, podcasters, and related expenses.

For those who can afford a tax-deductible donation of $250 or more, we’ll send you a copy of our gorgeous 94-page, full color 2019 Traveler’s Essential Park Guide. This advertising-free periodical contains adventures, road trips, and explorations through the park system. It’s a collectible you’ll return to time and again when planning your park excursions.

For those who contribute $500 or more, we'll also invite you to our quarterly editorial planning meetings.

With that out of the way, we’d also like to announce an open call for board of directors candidates. We have need for two and are seeking candidates who not only have a passion for these places but are willing to work hard and contribute to the continued evolution of the Traveler.

Resumes and letters of interest can be sent to:

                        National Parks Traveler

                        Board of Directors

                        P.O. Box 980452

                        Park City, UT 84098

Thanks, and I hope to see you in the parks.

Kurt Repanshek