While visiting Arches and Canyonlands National Parks over New Year, contributing photographer and writer Rebecca Latson had a chance to sit down and talk to Kate Cannon, Superintendent of the Southeast Utah Group. During their conversation, they discussed such things as favorite park spots to agency cooperation regarding oil and gas leasing outside of park boundaries to the power of a personal visit to a national park.

A group opposed to seeing a reservation system instituted for Arches National Park is pushing a novel solution: park your car outside the park.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke believes a surge-pricing scheme for entrance to 17 national parks during the height of travel season can help whittle away the $11.3 billion or so maintenance backlog mired around the fiscal neck of the National Park Service. What does the general public think?

"Did you see that bird???" It's a question frequently overheard in the National Park System. And it might be uttered more often this year, the Year of the Bird. So what birds might you see in the parks, and where should you go to see them? Here are some suggestions.

Two Brothers, a historically significant whaling ship found in 2008 by maritime heritage archaeologists, is now included in the National Register of Historic Places—the official list of the nation's historic places worthy of preservation.

Without question, the 2017 arrival of the Trump administration has had the worst impact on the National Park System in recent decades.

There's never enough time to meet all the people and see all the places that make the National Park System the envy of the world, but over the past 12 months, the Traveler has "explored" quite a few parks, and we list those stories here to help you plan your next national park adventure.

Looking back at the long flow of stories that appeared on National Parks Traveler in 2017, more than a few deserve a second look before we enter the new year.

November sun sets at 4:35 p.m. in Death Valley. Early because we’re on the eastern edge of Pacific Standard Time. It’s only 6:30 p.m. and I’m already tired of reading. All around my campsite there are others sitting in the dark. Most are sitting beside campfires. Quiet talk fills the evening along with delicious odors of cooking food. Somewhere not too far away, someone quietly plunks on a guitar.

Read any good books relating to national parks or the outdoors this year? We did. Check out the books and the reviews.

Cabrillo National Monument is one of the little gems of the National Park System. Located at the tip of Point Loma, a peninsula that’s on the northwest side of San Diego Bay. Only 160 acres and surrounded by a major Naval base and Coast Guard station, Cabrillo is nevertheless a tiny treasure — and because of its proximity to one of America’s largest urban areas, it’s one of the most heavily visited pieces of the park system.

Though Hurricane Irma walloped Dry Tortugas National Park, it was not the park's first hurricane, and it weathered it in fairly good shape. Now, with winter setting in, a return to the park is the perfect way to take a break from the cold and snow and enjoy a warm, interesting hiatus from the season.

My son and I are sitting on the porch of Yellowstone National Park’s Thorofare Ranger Station, about 32 trail miles from our car. We got here a little sooner than we expected this morning, so we’ll have a second breakfast of dried fruit and nuts while we take turns using the outhouse.

Winter beckons in Yosemite National Park. It’s a time of sparse crowds, crisp air, great views, deep snow, and forests of giants. Head out in the morning on your snowshoes and watch for the tracks of snowy denizens of the forest, or take a heart-pounding skate-ski up a road until the valley vista presents itself.

If you ever questioned whether the National Park Service is hamstrung by an insufficient budget, all you need do is look at news from the past week.

Though it will take months for national parks in the Caribbean to fully recover from the impacts of Hurricanes Irma and Maria, the impacts to the ecosystems and human environment are slowly being erased.

Winter brings a frosty, and icy, new robe to many national parks. The biting cold against the snowy settings can be magical, as these photos show.

Where in the National Park System might you turn this winter for an incredible journey? The list is long...

It burst onto the scene 11 months ago at 140 characters per tweet, unnerving some in the Trump administration with its irreverence and pushback, and no doubt concerning top management of the National Park Service. But where is the alt movement these days?

It started in mid-September; a few flakes began to flutter across the Crown of the Continent in Glacier National Park. The snow since then has slowly spread east and west, north and south. By January the white mantle likely will cover the whole northern tier of the National Park System, from Acadia west to Olympic, south through Rocky Mountain, into Shenandoah and Great Smoky Mountain national parks.