President Obama's FY12 budget request, if approved by Congress, would give the National Park Service a $2.9 billion budget, an increase of nearly $138 million above current funding levels.

Faced with a wondrous opportunity to truly preserve a large swath of Florida still bearing wilderness characteristics, one that can play a critical role in the recovery of North America's most endangered mammal, the National Park Service instead looked the other way.

New Mexico's Carlsbad Caverns National Park preserves some of the world's finest publicly accessible caves.

With the Civil War 150th anniversary commemoration gathering steam, this is a good time to reach into the Traveler archives for one of our all-time popular posts: links to videos showing movies of Civil War veterans at the Gettysburg 75th anniversary reunion in 1938. Get ready for goosebumps.

Technology and art often are intertwined to bring a subject to life. For Mike Cavaroc, Grand Teton National Park was the subject, and time-lapse photography was his tool for bringing the park to life.

Despite its deep, shimmering namesake lake, Crater Lake National Park is one of the lesser visited of the great national parks. For those who make the journey, that's a great reward. For those who don't, well, they're missing something special.

Years of modeling, planning, and talks, interrupted by lawsuits and inter-agency differences, have produced a proposed air-tour management plan for Grand Canyon National Park that officials believe will restore natural quiet over much of the iconic canyon.

The Montana Peak, that symmetrical quadrant pinch in the crown of the ranger's iconic "flat hat," was born out of the need for a practical solution to an Army trooper's significant problem.

Are we willing to stand idly by while the wolverine heads down the path of the dodo, the carrier pigeon, and the Caspian tiger?

If you've always dreamed of visiting a national park, and wanted to take your family along, here's your opportunity. Three grand-prize winners of the Traveler's first Take Your Family to the National Parks essay contest will win lodging for four members of their family in one of the country's national parks, and some gear to help to help them enjoy the trip.

The list is long, more than 200 names stretching over a century and then some. It's a somber one, as well, tracking the deaths of National Park Service employees from a wide range of fates, from heart attacks to rockfalls to cold-blooded murder.

The recent debate over mule rides in Grand Canyon National Park has left park officials, who say they have to live within their budgets and the public's desires, strongly criticized by mule backers, who say trail impacts might be less of an issue if park managers were smarter with how they spend their money.

Hike the Smokemont Loop in Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the winter. The hike offers streams, a cascade, and plenty of history.

Capitol Reef National Park is far enough off most people's radar that they miss out on this red-rock paradise when visiting Utah's other, more famous, parks. In the wintertime? Capitol Reef becomes a virtually private playground.

Now is the time to be planning your summer or fall vacations to the national parks.

While many fire lookouts across the National Park System are no longer actively staffed, thanks to higher tech options for monitoring lighting strikes, many of these lookouts remain, aging sentinels that recall an earlier day of fire prevention in the national forests and parks. Here's a look at some of the lookouts to be found within Mount Rainier National Park.

Across the National Park System many changes are expected from climate change, from more wildfires and vanishing glaciers to invasions of non-native species and flight of long-term residents. Writer/photographer Michael Lanza, concerned that today's park landscapes will change significantly by the time his young kids are his age, has been touring the park system with his family to show his children what they might miss later in life.

If you've always dreamed of visiting a national park, and wanted to take your family along, here's your opportunity. Three grand-prize winners of the Traveler's first Take Your Family to the National Parks essay contest will win lodging for four members of their family in one of the country's national parks, and some gear to help to help them enjoy the trip.

A promotion announced late in December, one that pairs the National Park Foundation with a massive Toyota sport utility vehicle, appears to be at odds with the foundation's stated mission and the National Park Service's approach to climate change.