The National Trail System in the United States spans many thousands of miles of foot trail. The crown jewels of that system, of course, are the Appalachian National Scenic Trail, the Continental Divide Trail, and the Pacific Crest Trail.

A Walk in the Park is a marvelous adventure story well told, but also a serious treatment of many issues facing Grand Canyon and other national parks.

In addition to photography, contributing photographer Rebecca Latson enjoys cooking and history. Amy Bizzari’s “The Civilian Conservation Corps Cookbook” allowed her to engage in all three activities and write about it for the Traveler.

In the more than 150 years of national park history in the United States, a short four-year chapter hardly seems significant, and it surely would have vanished into obscurity were it not for one man's determination not to let it fade away.

The latest edition of a book that explores the history of rangers in the land-management agency illustrates problems with law enforcement in the National Park Service, but comes across as one-sided and with an axe to grind.

The Bears Ears in southeastern Utah are iconic landforms that have leapt to the American consciousness in an epic battle over how public lands should be used.

David Brill is one of the Smokies’ great living storytellers. He is a writer in the outdoor–adventure field, but his work doesn’t shy away from the contemplative, the quiet moments when wild places arouse in us feelings of solitude, solace, communion, and awe.

Cracked takes on the big and complex issue of dams, their impact on rivers worldwide, the weakening rationales for maintaining dams already built or for building more, and how people are working with some success to “crack” these monolithic structures.

You can never have enough guides to the national parks.

In 2023 if a woman wishes to run the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, she can, and many do. If she decides she wants to be a scientist, or a science journalist, she can do that too. Melissa Sevigny, a science journalist, rafted the Colorado through the Grand Canyon to visualize the journey two botanists, Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter, made in 1938, the first women to successfully boat the canyon.

In the beginning, national parks were mostly about scenery — not entirely because some early parks like Yellowstone, Mount Rainier, and Crater Lake featured unusual marvels of the natural world. But the focus was on scenic beauty and providing opportunities for visitors to enjoy it. From those earliest days wildlife, particularly big critters like bears and elk, were one of the attractions in some parks like Yellowstone and Yosemite where they were on “display” at, for instance, the Yellowstone garbage dumps. Wildlife protection was an afterthought if a thought at all in the establishment and management of national parks. George Melendez Wright changed this, at least for a while.

A library of books has been written about John Muir, many of which mention Robert Underwood Johnson, but not many adequately describe his long collaboration with Muir. In this book, Dean King remedies that oversight. Muir’s life story and his contributions to the preservation of what is now Yosemite National Park have often been chronicled and King presents the highlights of that story. What King adds to the Muir story is who Robert Underwood Johnson was and what his role and contributions were in helping Muir in his many battles for protection of Yosemite.

Explore the National Park System extensively and not only are you likely to come across some incredible vistas, diverse natural resources, and rich history, but also some incredible meals in the lodge at day's end, or even at the start of your day.

Wild New World is a big book, Big History, and deserves big attention. This is a history we must know.

As nice as those folding park maps you get when driving into a national park are, trying to collect them all and organize them for your road trips can be a challenge, to say the least. sure, you could punch holes in them and organize them in a three-ring binder, but an easier approach to exploring the parks is National Park Maps, a forthcoming atlas of the 63 "national parks."