National Parks Traveler Podcast

What do you do, where do you go, when you pull into your favorite national park and can't find a place to park or a trail without crowds? Those are good questions probably going through many people's minds as the national parks become more and more popular with more and more people. Mike Oswald might have the answers you're looking for, at least for the Western half of the country. Oswald is the writer and publisher behind Your Guide to the National Parks, a thick, fact-filled guidebook to the 63 national parks in the country. This...

Congaree National Park is an often-overlooked unit of the National Park System. Indeed, only about 250,000 visitors set foot in Congaree each year. Those who do are awestruck by the size of the trees there, as the park contains the highest concentration of champion-sized trees anywhere in North America.  Our guest today is Professor Kimberly Meitzen from Texas State University. Before arriving at Texas State, she studied at the University of South Carolina, where she fell in love with Congaree, its floodplain, and its big trees. 

A growing majority of bat species are in serious trouble, largely because of white nose syndrome, a deadly fungal disease that resembles a white fuzz on infected bats.    As the disease has spread across the country, it's decimated bat populations – killing upwards of 99 percent of some populations – and turned up in many national parks.    As part of the National Parks Traveler's Threatened and Endangered Species Project, contributing writer Kim O'Connell has been looking into the situation with bat species. 

Big Bend National Park lately has drawn a lot of national attention, and not in a good way. Recently the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol announced that it wanted to build some sort of border wall along all or part of the 118 miles of border the national park shares with Mexico. Is that a good idea? Will it adversely impact the park? Can it even be done? To discuss those and other questions, our guest today is Bob Krumenaker, whose long Park Service career included a stint as Big Bend's superintendent. Bob also is chair of...

To put some perspective on the National Parks Travelers'  monthslong coverage of threatened and endangered species, we're going to go back in time a bit today to replay a podcast in which we discussed the ESA — and possible changes to it —  with Jake Li, a vice president with Defenders of Wildlife, and Stephanie Adams, director of wildlife at the National Parks Conservation Association.

At Cumberland Island the National Park Service currently is crafting a visitor use management plan that critics say poses a great threat to the national seashore's official and potential wilderness. To get an understanding of what's at risk, we've invited Jessica Howell-Edwards, the executive director of Wild Cumberland, which advocates for the seashore's wilderness area and ecosystems, to join us.

The Florida Reef stretches from Biscayne National Park south past Everglades National Park and down to Dry Tortugas National Park in Florida. It's roughly 350 miles long, and is the only coral reef in the continental United States. When it comes to reefs around the world, the Florida Reef is the third largest. But, unfortunately, it's under a lot of pressure. It's dealing with pollution, ocean warming, damage inflicted by anchors, and disease. Perhaps the most serious disease infecting the reef is Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease, which can be fatal to corals. Our guest today...

Whitebark pines are a Western icon that the National Park Service has designated as a "vital sign" species because they are critical to ecosystem functions. But they are at risk of extinction due to climate change, beetles, and a fatal fungus from Eurasia. Our guest today is Dr. Elizabeth Pansing, the director of forest and restoration science for American Forests, a nonprofit organization that strives to create healthy and resilient forests. This program was made possible in part by the Park Foundation.

What is the fate of the critically endangered Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle?  This smallest of the sea turtle species glides among the sea grasses and coral reefs of the Gulf of Mexico, and nests predominantly along the shores of Mexico, with a growing number of turtles nesting on Padre Island National Seashore in Texas. Hopes for this sea turtle's recovery weigh heavily on the national seashore's programs and budgeting, which are also threatened and endangered. Dr. Donna Shaver, one of the world's foremost sea turtle experts, nurtured the seashore's sea turtle science program for the past 22 y...

During a typical summer day at Yellowstone National Park roughly 3,000 vehicles enter through the North Entrance and head down to Mammoth Hot Springs so their passengers can begin their park adventure. Up until June 2022 their route took them along the Gardner River. But that all changed on June 13, 2022, when a once-in-500-years rainstorm, falling on top of snow cover, sent waters rampaging down the Yellowstone, Lamar, and Gardner rivers. Those flood waters took out sections of both the northeast and north entrance roads in the park. While the gaps in the Northeast Entrance Road were...

A dramatic battle is being waged on the flanks of Halealakā National Park to save rare Honeycreeper birds that exist only in Hawaii. It's believed that the 50-odd known living or extinct species of honeycreepers all evolved from a single colonizing ancestor that arrived on Hawaii, the world's most remote island group, some three to five million years ago. Threats to the birds began to surface around 500 A.D., when Polynesian colonists began to settle on the Pacific island chain. They began to clear most of the low elevation forests, inadvertently eating away at the b...

This year, 2025, likely will go down as the most transitional for the National Park Service. We've seen the loss of nearly a quarter of the permanent workforce, efforts to whitewash history in some parks, and the loss of a grand lodge to wildfire. The past 12 months have been full of news impacting the National Park Service and national parks, not all of it good. It's been a somewhat tumultuous year, leaving many wondering what the new year will bring for the parks and their employees. To help us look back over the past 12 months, we've...

A century of seasons has worn the appearance of the log cabin Roy Fure built in present-day Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska, but his care of the small cabin, and later National Park Service restoration efforts, have enabled it to stand the test of time. Dovetail-notched spruce logs still sit tightly together, the corrugated metal roof Fure replaced his sod roof with in 1930 and painted red could use a new coat of paint, but otherwise looks rainproof, and the windmill he erected to generate electricity still stands tall. Across the 85+ million-acre National Park...

After more than 50 years as one of the country's landmark environmental laws, the Endangered Species Act has gone from one of the most popular measures before Congress to one fueling demands that it be revised, if not discarded. The National Parks Traveler is reviewing the Endangered Species Act's work and its record, spotlighting individual species that it's protected, those that it failed, and those that it recovered. The monthslong series comes as ESA champions worry that the push to weaken the law could consign countless animals and plants to the growing list of flora and...

Haleakalā National Park is deceptively wonderful and rich in biodiversity. But if we're not careful, we could lose some of that biodiversity.  Located on the island of Maui in Hawaii, the first thing you notice about this national park is its towering dormant volcano, Haleakalā, which rises from sea level to more than 10,000 feet. While many visitors simply want to head to the top of the volcano to peer into its crater or enjoy a colorful sunrise or sunset, if you take a little time to get to know this park you'll be amazed by wha...

It's Thanksgiving Weekend, usually interpreted as a bountiful time of year when we can all sit back and be thankful. But can many who work for the National Park Service feel thankful in the wake of the staff reductions this year?  This year has been hard on the Park Service, what with the loss of roughly a quarter of the full-time workforce and questions around how the agency has long interpreted history.    But the Park Service has long struggled with its operations. Funding and staffing never seem to have met the needs of the Park Ser...

Gazing up at mountains from their valleys down below, it's hard, if not impossible, to detect any change on the top of the mountains. But change is ongoing, especially in recent history as the climate continues to warm. From Tacoma or Seattle in Washington state, the snowy summit of Mount Rainier National Park appears unchanged from how it's always looked. Snowy. But is that truly the case? What would you think if someone told you the top of the summit no longer is 14,410 feet high, that the high point of the park has actually shrunk? ...

The government shutdown has been record-setting in terms of its length. So, too, has been the time that many employees of the National Park Service have been furloughed without pay. How has the shutdown affected the parks, and how have the friends groups that support the parks responded? We're going to discuss that today with Chris Lenhertz from the Golden Gate Conservancy, Jacki Harp from Smokies Life, Eric Stiles from Friends of Acadia, and Cassius Cash from the Yosemite Conservancy.

What is a "typical" day at the National Parks Traveler like? When you surf over to the website there's always content there, ready to update you on news from around the National Park System. How is it generated, and who generates it? Editor Kurt Repanshek and Contributing Editor Kim O'Connell dive into the logistics of running a news operation that's focused on national parks and protected areas.

Though the Revolutionary War didn't officially end until September 1783 with the signing of the Treaty of Paris, a key turning point in the war for independence occurred six years earlier in a small corner of today's New York state. The Battle of Saratoga stretched out from September 19 until October 7, 1777, and marked the first time the British Empire had been forced to surrender. British General John Burgoyne had stretched his forces too thin in marching down from Canada with the intent of capturing Albany and wound up with huge losses in his army of nearly 7,000. His...