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National Parks Traveler Podcast

National Parks Traveler is the world's top-rated, editorially independent, nonprofit media organization dedicated to covering national parks and protected areas on a daily basis. Traveler offers readers and listeners a unique multimedia blend of news, feature content, debate, and discussion all tied to national parks and protected areas.

National Parks Traveler Podcast Episode 273 | Smokies Life

Smokies Life, which most of you who closely follow Great Smoky Mountains National Park know was previously known as the Great Smoky Mountains Association, produces educational and informational materials for Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This week we’re joined by Laurel Rematore, the chief executive officer of Smokies Life, to discuss the name change as well as how her organization lends a big hand to the Park Service staff at Great Smoky. 

May 5th, 2024 Read More

National Parks Traveler Podcast Episode 272 | Fossilized Parks

Have you ever closely inspected the landscape when you’re touring the National Park System, particularly in the West? You never know what you might find.

Back in 2010 a 7-year-old attending a Junior Ranger program at  Badlands National Park spied a partially exposed fossil that turned out to be the skull of a 32-million-year-old saber-toothed cat.

April 28th, 2024 Read More

National Parks Traveler Podcast Episode 271 | Wolverine Recovery in Colorado

Wolverines, the largest land-dwelling members of the weasel family, once roamed across the northern tier of the United States, and as far south as New Mexico in the Rockies and southern California in the Sierra Nevada range. But after more than a century of trapping and habitat loss, wolverines in the lower 48 today exist only as small, fragmented populations in Idaho, Montana, Washington, Wyoming, and northeast Oregon.

April 21st, 2024 Read More

National Parks Traveler Podcast Episode 270 | Cultural Resource Challenge

Spur a discussion about traveling to a national park for a vacation and odds are that it will revolve around getting out into nature, looking for wildlife, perhaps honing your photography skills, or marveling at incredible vistas.
Will the discussion include destinations that portray aspects of the country’s history, or cultural melting pot? 

April 14th, 2024 Read More

National Parks Traveler Podcast Episode 269 | Total Solar Eclipse of the Parks

Tens of millions of people in the United States will be able to witness a Total Solar Eclipse on Monday as the rare astronomical event cuts a path from Texas to Maine, up to 122 miles wide in some spots. This is a great opportunity to see the exact moment when the moon fully blocks the sun, creating a blazing corona visible to those observing from the center line of totality.

April 7th, 2024 Read More

National Parks Traveler Podcast Episode 268 | Music Inspired By The Parks

With March madness down to the Sweet 16, and Opening Day of Major League Baseball having arrived, we’re going to take a break this week and dive into our podcast archives for this week’s show.
 
This is Kurt Repanshek, your host at the National Parks Traveler. My NCAA bracket was busted the very first day, and while the Yankees won their opening day game against the Houston Astros, I don’t think they’ll go undefeated this year.
 

March 31st, 2024 Read More

National Parks Traveler Podcast Episode 267 | Padre Island's Sea Turtles

One of the most popular public events in the National Park System was the release of sea turtle hatchlings, shuffling off into the Gulf of Mexico at Padre Island National Seashore. I say was, because the number of those public events has been drastically scaled back in recent years.

March 24th, 2024 Read More

National Parks Traveler Podcast Episode 266 | Polluting the Parks

Air pollution and climate change impacts can have outsized effects on the National Park System, as well as lesser noticed but just as concerning effects. But are those impacts spread across the entire park system, or clustered around a few?

Back in 2019 the National Parks Conservation Association looked at how air pollution and climate change were impacting parks. They have updated that study with the latest data from the National Park Service, and the current state of affairs remains concerning.

March 17th, 2024 Read More

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