National Parks Traveler Podcast

In this week's show, we're going to delve into landscape photography in the National Park System. "Good photography is about creating a feeling of things, rather than a picture of things."  That's the philosophy of our guest, Clyde Butcher, acclaimed photographer and environmentalist. You might be familiar with his iconic black and white large format landscape photos that often are part of larger...

We sit down with Becky Lomax, author of Moon's USA National Parks, to discuss news stories that arose from the National Park System during May. And we bring you an interesting story about efforts to recover populations of endangered black-footed ferrets in the West. Two places where they're working on that are Wind Cave and Badlands national parks in South Dakota.

We're joined this week by Costa Dillon, a National Park Service veteran who ended his long career as superintendent of Indiana Dunes National Park, to discuss a novel management decision in Thailand to close that country's national parks every year for two months to give wildlife a break from humans. Would such a move be good for America's national parks? Lynn Riddick returns this week with a stor...

In this week's program, we talk with Toby O'Rourke, the president and CEO of Kampgrounds of America, about a study KOA commissioned to gauge Americans' interests in returning to campgrounds on and near public lands as the fight with the coronavirus pandemic continues. The findings are quite interesting and point to renewed interest in camping as a recreational pursuit. After that conversation, we...

This week we talk with Robert Young, director of Western Carolina University's  Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines  about a project to more accurately determine the cost sea level rise could inflict on coastal units of the National Park System. We also take a look ahead to summer in the National Park System, the watery side of the system specifically, with a look at some of the prime se...

Who makes those colorful interpretive panels found in the National Park System? One person is Steve Patricia. He's an independent artist and content specialist who provides illustrations and diagrams for waysides, exhibits, and murals at national parks, monuments, and historic sites all over the country. From his home in the Laurel Highlands of southwestern Pennsylvania, he shares some insights wi...

This week we pick up with the musings of Doug Leen.  As a young park ranger in the 1970s, Leen stumbled upon a poster promoting a meet-the-ranger event at the Grand Teton National Park.  It turned out to be one of 14 long-forgotten silk-screened posters made under the Works Progress Administration to promote tourism to the national parks.  In the 50 years since that discovery, Leen has been search...

Lynn Riddick sits down with Doug Leen, the force behind Ranger Doug Enterprises, to discuss his decades long search for original Works Progress Administration posters that depicted national parks across the West. And we leave you with some thoughts on what we all should be thinking about for National Park Week.

What will the 21st century national park campground look like? What amenities are you interested in finding when you pull into a campground? Derrick Crandall, counseler for the National Park Hospitality Association, joins us to discuss two studies that examine the campgrounds, the issues they face, and the demands today's campers want.

Join us for a trip, at least an audio trip of sorts, to the heart of Yellowstone National Park and its wild kingdom. A place where wolves, grizzlies, and elk roam free and sandhill cranes catch your attention with their curious chortling. And Dan Puskar, the president and CEO of the Public Lands Alliance, discusses how its membership works to provide educational and interpretive materials for the...

National Parks Conservation Association President and CEO Theresa Pierno discusses the impact coronavirus is having on the National Park System, and we have a conversation with author Richard Louv on his latest book, Our Wild Calling: How Connecting with Animals Can Transform our Lives, and Save Theirs . And Lynn Riddick concludes her four-part series on San Antonio Missions National Historical Pa...

The impact of coronavirus on the National Park System truly is unprecedented. Unlike the impacts partial or full government shutdowns have on the parks, government funding won't solve those created by the growing spread of coronavirus overnight. To take a look at how coronavirus is affecting the parks and the National Park Service, for this week's show we've gathered three park experts, including...

National Parks Traveler continues its tour through San Antonio Missions National Historical Park as Lynn Riddick visits Mission Concepción, and David and Kay Scott discuss the high-end national park lodges you would stay in if money were not an object.

This week we feature Lynn Riddick's segment on Mission San Jose, the first of a four-part series on San Antonio Missions National Historical Park in Texas. We also talk with Mitch Tobin, Director of The Water Desk at the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado, to understand why his organization is underwriting journalism revolving around the Colorado River.

This week we have a wide-ranging discussion about visiting the parks with Jason Epperson from the America's National Parks podcast and David and Kay Scott, authors of The Complete Guide To the National Park Lodges. We preview upcoming podcasts on the missions of San Antonio Missions National Historical Park, and recap our series on the Colorado River and its impacts on Canyonlands National Park an...

In recent years there has been a movement of sorts to rebrand units of the National Park System as "national parks," a movement motivated in large part by the economic boost such a redesignation is hoped to have. In New Mexico there's a group that's opposed to turning Bandelier National Monument into Bandelier National Park. We discuss that issue with Tom Ribe, executive director of Caldera Action...

This week's show kicks off our coverage of the Colorado River and how its health, or lack of health, impacts Canyonlands National Park and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in Utah. We also take a peek at Grand Portage National Monument in Minnesota and what awaits intrepid park travelers who put it on their to-do list.

Candy Harrington, a journalist who traveled the National Park System to see how accessible lodges and trails in the parks really are, discusses her new book on accessibility in the parks. And Cory MacNulty and Erika Pollard from the National Parks Conservation Association's Southwest Regional Office discuss the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's plans for managing the greatly reduced in size Bears E...

Emily Hoff and Maygen Keller discuss their upcoming book, Scenic Science of the National Parks, an Explorers Guide to Wildlife, Geology, and Botany. The book, scheduled to arrive March 31, is a wonderfully new guidebook to help you get the most out of your national park adventures. Tanya Shenk, National Park Service scientist, explains a draft framework for bison stewardship in the Midwest Region...

This week's show, our 50th, looks at a Jurassic Period carnivore dubbed "AJ,"  a new species of allosaurus, found in Dinosaur National Monument in Utah, and takes a short Revolutionary War history tour of Saratoga National Historical Park in New York State.

John Freemuth, who holds the Cecil D. Andrus  Endowed Chair for Environment and Public Lands at Boise State University, and Nada Culver, the vice president for public lands and senior policy counsel at the National Audubon Society, discuss efforts in Washington to tweak the National Environmental Policy Act as well as the Endangered Species Act.

Former National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis discusses the Institute for People, Parks, and Biodiversity that he launched at the University of California-Berkeley and how it's trying to guide climate change work in the National Park System.  We also visit with Tumacácori National Historical Park Chief of Interpretation Anita Badertscher to learn about her park and what awaits visitors there.

Michael Kellett, the executive director of RESTORE: The North Woods, discusses a campaign to see the size of the National Park System roughly tripled to more than 182 million acres. And Traveler contributing editor Erika Zambello and Becky Lomax, author of Moon's USA National Parks, the Complete Guide to All 59 Parks, join Kurt Repanshek to discuss their favorite winter national park destinations.

The past year brought many news-making events to the National Park System. It started, of course, with the partial government shutdown that created more than a few problems for the park system, the continued lack of a Senate confirmed director of the National Park Service, hurricanes inflicting damage on coastal parks, and construction of a border wall in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument that p...

With many national parks across the country in trouble from such myriad threats as climate change, overcrowding, energy exploration, invasive species, and poor air quality,  National Parks Traveler's   new "Threatened and Endangered Parks" lists identify parks that are struggling to retain the very essence that led to their inclusion in the National Park System in the first place. In this week's s...