Citizens of the World: A Stoic Podcast for Curious Travelers - U.S. National Parks: How to Plan Your Trip

Episode Date: August 9, 2019

Like many expats I know, most of the travel I’ve done has been outside of my home country, the U.S. In fact, my European friends have seen more of the States than I have, and their wistful descriptions of the U.S. national parks have inspired me to plan a trip. (show notes at postcardacademy.co)   Danielle Jacobs-Erwin, host of the podcast Everybody’s National Parks, joined me on the Postcard Academy to discuss the history of the National Park System; what we need to do to prepare for a trip the national parks; where to stay; what to eat; and more.  I’m your host, Sarah Mikutel. Did you know I host another show called Podcasting Step by Step? Check it out if you’ve been wanting to start a podcast. Every week, I break down ‘how to podcast’ with a little loving motivation to give you the skills and confidence you need to finally launch that show of your dreams.   Ready to travel? Get your free guide to cheap airfare.   Thank you so much for listening to this show. I know you’re busy and have many listening options, so it means a lot to me that you’re here. You are the best.   This podcast is brought to you by Audible. Not a member yet? Postcard Academy listeners can get a FREE audiobook and a 30-day free trial if you sign up via audibletrial.com/postcard This podcast is also brought to you by World Nomads. Need simple and flexible travel insurance? Get a cost estimate from World Nomads using their handy calculator at postcardacademy.co/insuranceDo you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

Welcome to the Postcard Academy. I'm your host, Sarah Micatel, and I'm an American who has spent the last 10 years traveling around Europe. And even before then, most of my travels focused on Europe, because I love it over here. The history, the culture, the castles. Lately, though, I've been thinking that I would like to see more of the United States, especially the national parks. I'm not sure if it's the photos I've seen on Instagram or the fact that my Europeanian friends have seen more of the U.S. than I have. And they keep telling me how they fell in love with the natural beauty of my home country. So today I am speaking with my friend Danielle Jacobs Irwin. She is the host of the podcast, Everybody's National Parks. We will talk about how the national park system came about, what we need to do to prepare for a trip to the national parks,

where to stay, what to eat, and which groups of parks we should visit at a time so we can make the most of a two-week vacation. Or one week if you're in hurry or are stuck with a one-week American vacation. Sorry, guys. For links to things that we talk about today, head on over to postcardacademy.com.

This podcast is brought to you by my other podcast podcasting step by step. If you've been wanting to start a podcast for a while, but you've been putting it off because you just don't know where to start. I am here to guide you step by step. Visit sarah megatel.com for a bunch of free resources that will get you going from overwhelmed audio amateur to podcast pro. Now into my conversation with Danielle. Welcome, Danielle. Thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you, Sarah. I'm so excited to be with you. So today is all about national parks, but I have to ask you about your time in the Peace Corps. I heard like a very

tiny bit of the story and I would love to hear the whole thing. So where were you doing the Peace Corps? How did that all get started? Well, that is a very long story. So my interest really in like international and travel and stuff started way back when I was 15 and studied abroad in Belgium. And so that's when I really traveled a lot in. And, you know, Europe and got the travel bug. Wow, 15. Can we just talk about that for a second? I'm so jealous that you got to study abroad when you were 15. How did that happen? That's pretty crazy. So my 10th grade social studies class, two students came into the class who were former rotary exchange students and talked about their experience and they were recruiting for students to apply to Rotary to

go abroad the following year. I completely zoned out for that 42-minute class and was just imagining myself in their shoes. And I just kind of came back to when they said, okay, anyone interested? Raise your hand. And my hand zapped up and got the papers, brought him home, talked to my mom about it. And she was like, well, you know, if you want to go through the process, sure, go ahead, never thinking I would follow through. And it was pretty intense. Long story short, it ended up, you know, the following fall, going to Belgium by myself and stayed with host families. And so the way Rotary does it, you stay with multiple families. You rotate a couple of times throughout the year.

Now, what is Rotary? I've not even heard of this. I've heard of Rotary clubs, I guess, but I guess I don't know what that is, really. Yeah. So it's the Rotary Club. So it's like, you know, traditionally it's a men's club that, you know, gets involved with the community and volunteer. and supporting the community and things around the world.

And so, you know, Rotary does these exchanges all around the world. And so I was abroad. And while I was living with a family, my mom was required to be a host. And so she actually hosted a, but it's not an even exchange. You host someone, you know, wherever the placement is from. And so she hosted a girl from Japan. Okay. Yep.

And then where I stayed, you know, I can't remember where my host brother was, but he was somewhere in the States and, you know, and same with the second family I stayed with. But so we are digressing. I love it. From my origin story, so I apologize. But I just need to make a side note here. Last summer, my whole family, you know, my two daughters and my husband, we spent a month in France. and Belgium going around visiting all my friends that I haven't seen in like 20, 25 years. Wow. And these were the friends that you had when you were studying abroad?

Yes. So I love that. Well, from different periods of my life, some from Madagascar, actually, which was also 20 years ago as well. But yeah, so we stayed with my host family in Belgium. we stayed with my closest friend from my Belgian high school and her parents in the Ardennes and in Brussels. And my other host sister, she moved to France. And so we visited her in Grenoble. Another great friend from that time, she lives in Normandy and her parents are still in Belgium. So we visited them in both places as well. It was so amazing.

And my children meeting their children. and becoming such great friends, it was the most incredible experience. Just, well, all of these experiences have led up to it. Yeah, that's the beauty of travel. Like, the relationships you form are so strong, even if you were only spending like six months or a year, like so much time can go by. But then when you meet up again, it's like you saw them yesterday. It was incredible.

I haven't seen these people. Some of them I went back and visited and kept in touch with. I always send, you know, holiday cards. But in terms of like talking to them or anything, nothing in all these years. And it was like no time had passed. It was really amazing. It was just so, so special. So you had that European experience.

And then you mentioned Madagascar. And so that's where you did the Peace Corps, right? Yes. And so I had to come back from living in Belgium for a year and finish high school, which was really hard. And so I had to finish my last year of high school, couldn't wait to get out of there. And everybody had already been touring colleges. So I had to catch up on that. My mom said, what do you want to study?

And I was like, well, international affairs, obviously. And so I did that. And I studied abroad when I was in college, actually, my junior year in Madagascar. And when I was in Madagascar, I met Peace Corps volunteers and thought, this is so cool. I'm doing the Peace Corps. I had never really heard of it before then. And so came back and applied and all that jazz. One question before we move on.

So Madagascar, usually when I talk to people who did study abroad, they were doing it in London, Romer, Paris. How did you choose Madagascar? And where is that for people who don't know? Madagascar is the fourth largest island in the world. It is in the Indian Ocean and it is off the southeast coast of Africa. So really, if you look at the map and it looks like a puzzle, the pieces fit together because once upon a time all these landmasses were together, it kind of fits perfectly in with Mozambique. And so it's just across the Mozambique channel in the Indian Ocean.

And you may have heard of Seychelles. The Seychelles are right near there. So it's a really beautiful, diverse, special place. And I learned to speak French when I was in Belgium. And thus, I've also taught my kids to speak French, which is why my trip last year was kind of my dream trip from the day they were born. Because they're pretty much fluent in French. And when I was looking of where I could go, I wanted to go to French Africa. I felt like, well, I've done Europe.

And I spent all this time in Belgium. I visited France a little bit, but didn't really know France very well. But, you know, wanted to see more of the world. and I was really interested in Africa. And so I figured, well, obviously West Africa. But when my placement officer called me and said, you're not going to believe this, but you're placed in Madagascar. And I just was ecstatic because I just loved it so much.

And it's kind of, I've never heard of another situation where someone gets placed in the Peace Corps where they've already spent time. I haven't heard of that either. Wow. So that was pretty unique. And so it was pretty crazy to land there. And not that I spoke Malagasy from study abroad, but I knew some words. But getting through the training program, there's like three months of training.

They've changed the system now. But when I was there, you had three months. It was kind of like camp. And they had all these trainers coming in every day to teach you different types of things. And so I was in the health sector. And my job before that in Washington, D.C., after I graduated before Peace Corps was in public health, international public health, and I was in charge of the African countries.

And so I knew all the people. I knew all the trainers. They were all my colleagues. It was really funny. And my host family, we were not far from the Capitol. So when we first, I had lived in the capital, Tana, and, you know, stayed in close contact with my host family and visited them all the time. and the study abroad program also, I was really good friends with the director. And so when I would take vacations, he would let me know when they were doing their big trips

and I would tag along. Oh, nice. So it was really fun, you know, not as scary going because I already knew what the country was like. Wow. Well, it sounded like you had a great experience. Yeah. And so how this ties in to the national parks, because this is not a podcast about the Peace Corps, or my whole life story, though it may have become that,

is that while they are through those two experiences, the Peace Corps and Study Abroad, I saw most of the country. And they have national parks and, you know, seeing lemurs and all the biodiversity that Madagascar has to offer. I learned so much about the culture of that country and the natural, the natural culture too, the natural history. When I was getting ready to leave, I thought, well, I've learned so much.

I know this country so well now, but I don't know my own country. And I've never seen most of my country. I've never been in the middle of the country. I'm from the East Coast. And I've taken a few trips, maybe one or two trips to the West Coast. And so I thought, when I go home, I want to do a road trip and I want to see some of the country. And I want to see our national parks. I've never been to a national park.

And so that's what I did. Went home and, you know, traveled around for a month with my partner in crime, my husband, Brian, who does the podcast with me. We had been dating. And so we decided let's, and he was in between his jobs and schooling and whatnot when I came home. And so we traveled around and went to the Grand Canyon and Bryce and Zion. And we headed over to the West Coast.

and went up the coast into Canada and went to Olympic. We did the Redwoods and Point Reyes, and I'm sure there's others that I'm not remembering. But that was our first taste to the parks. Actually, my very first was Shenandoah. I kind of consider that to be my home park, even though I'm in New York now and it's so far away. But we lived in D.C. for so many years.

And so Shannon Doe was the closest. and being on the East Coast, especially where we live. We're on Long Island. We are as far away as possible from national parks. Well, it sounds like you really love national parks. And I'm like how you were a number of years ago. I've seen a lot of Europe. But I haven't actually spent a ton of time traveling around the United States,

especially not in the national parks. So I would love today if you could help out some people like me, especially people who might be coming over from Europe and we don't know that much about the national parks. We have a limited amount of time to like hit some of the highlights. Could you help us come up with like a little itinerary? Sure. So first of all, it is so vast and the number is always changing. And so it's hard to keep straight how many parks there are. I believe at the moment there are 419 park sites and those fall into different categories of monuments and historical sites and battlefields and national seashores and then the big

parks. And big parks, I think we're up to 61, 61 national parks. And so there are so many to see and there's the most visited ones, but they are all special. And so to avoid crowds, you don't have to go to the biggest ones. First, looking at the time of year that you're going, you don't want to necessarily go to the middle of the hot desert in the summertime. So I wouldn't recommend planning a hike to the bottom of the Crane Canyon in July. Well, based on some photos that I've seen, I would love to get to Zion. And I think, think we have to see the Grand Canyon at some point in our life. And then like maybe one or two others. So if we could plan a trip, let's say in, I don't know, September or October,

could you walk us through what we need to do for this trip? First of all, are there any sort of like passes that we need to buy or what would we do to prep for a trip like this? Yes. So for that trip, going in the spring or the fall would be the best. And if you're hitting, you know, more than one park, you'll probably want to get an annual pass. Now, there are a few different options for passes. For people like you and me, we would just want to buy the annual pass and it's $80, good for a year. But if you have like active duty military, you can get a free annual pass. If you have a fourth grader in your family, you can get the every kid in a park.

fourth grade pass and you just go online and do that print it out. And then once you get to the park, you show that pass and then they give you an actual card that's good for a year. If you're, you know, over the 62 or over and you're a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, you can get the America, the beautiful senior pass, which is $80. And that's a lifetime pass. So you only have to get it once. And a funny side note, they just raised the price on that a year or two ago. It was 20 bucks before that. Oh, wow. That's a good deal. But I mean, $80 for the rest of your life. Yeah, that's still a good deal. Exactly. And so, you know, the pass admits everyone in your car. You know, you just need one pass for your whole group. And good for all the parks. So yeah, that's actually

Excellent. $80 per car. That's amazing. Exactly. It's not so much. So, I mean, is it possible to get to these places by public transport or do we need to have a car if we want to do some road tripping through the national parks? For the big parks, those 61 parks, for the most part, you need a vehicle. They're far. And then once you're in them and it depends on the park. For example, Zion. in if you're there during peak time, you can't drive. You need to park your car and you're required to take a shuttle. And several parks have implemented that system. So these trips, I'm not going to lie, they require a lot of research and planning. It's hard to just show up. When I did this trip after the Peace Corps, you know, I did it.

I just knew where we were going and we figured out where we were going to stay a little bit, but we just showed up. But the parks have gotten so popular in recent years, and especially since the centennial of the National Park Service in 2016. And then also with things like Instagram and stuff, they're just gotten so popular. So you need to do planning. Do they limit who can come in or no?

So every park has its own superintendent and its own way of running the park. So it depends on the park for permits and things or camping and lodging. You know, you need to make your reservations. Some of them do have walk-up or have some sites for walk-up. But if you're planning this big trip, if you're someone who lives nearby, maybe you would want to chance it. But if you're traveling a long ways and this is like your one time to Yosemite or to Yellowstone or whatever, you'd want to plan all that stuff in advance.

So let's say I've got two weeks and I want to hit Grand Canyon, Bryce, and Zion. Can you walk us through like what a road trip would look like for that and what we're going to see? I mean, obviously we've all heard of the Grand Canyon. It's this giant canyon. But what's special about it? What did you see when you were there? Where did you stay? Would you suggest that we stay?

So I would fly into Las Vegas. I would go visit the North Rim. And even if you're not doing a big hike down to the bottom or anything like that, seeing the rim, but then going down a little bit gives you a whole different perspective. So I definitely recommend, even if you're only walking for five minutes inside the canyon, it looks totally different. So I definitely recommend that. I also, if you can, recommend trying to see it at sunset or sunrise or both, if you can, because seeing the light, and that goes really for all of these parks in the desert.

That does sound pretty magical. It is amazing. And when we were in the Grand Canyon, I managed to wake up several mornings to see it at sunrise. But that is challenging if you're not a morning person. And then Zion is not that far away. People can go to the Grand Canyon for, you know, a day or two days or a lot more. And that's that's really your choice in what you want to do and the hikes that you want to do. What can you do? Are you hiking around?

Is that primarily or are there other activities? You're hiking around and there's ranger programs. And if you want to do, let's say, like the round. trip on the Colorado River, that you have to book like minimum two years in advance. Oh my gosh. And so that is something I hope to do someday when my kids are older and can do like the big hike and everything. But you really have to plan way, way, way ahead for that.

Okay. So that's like one of those special things that not everybody gets to do. And Zion is you're like at the bottom. bottom looking up, which is very neat. Whereas the Grand Canyon, unless you're hiking down, you're at the top looking down. What do you mean the bottom looking up? Can you describe, like, what the postcard of Zion is? It's like you're at the bottom of the canyon looking at these big walls of rock. Okay. And it's all part of the Colorado plateau. And I am not a geologist. And I think this is probably covered in my geology episode about Grand Canyon because we do have a whole series on

Grand Canyon and we also have a whole series on Zion. So you're at ground level and you're looking at these huge walls around you and it's very colorful, all different shades of orange. And then Bryce is hoodoos. It's like these rock formations, like these sculptures of rock. and you can hike at the top and you can get down below to where you're seeing these rock formations above you. So they're pretty neat. We camped a long time ago at Bryce. Zion, at that time, I don't even think we spent the night. But there's some really cool hikes there.

Some of the most famous ones are the Narrows and Angels Landing. and just doing your research and being prepared and knowing if you can do them. Angels Landing gets very narrow and it's just like a cliff's edge. My husband did it most recently. We did it way back when that trip when I came back from the Peace Corps and then he went more recently with his buddy and was just stunned seeing people in flip-lops or. with their kids and a backpack carrier on this hike that is just a really challenging hike. Wow. What resources do we have where it will tell us what like the challenge level is for these hikes? Going on the National Park Service website describes all these hikes and especially for these challenging ones.

They have information about how to be prepared and what to know. And then now with so many bloggers, you know, people have have that information. So if you just Google hikes for Zion, you'll come up with so much stuff. But I always start with the National Park Service website and then work my way out from there. And there's this great guidebook that I love, that I actually, I interviewed the writer of this guidebook. Her name is Becky Lomax and the books published by Moon Travel. books and it's called USA National Parks, the Complete Guide to 59 Parks. When it was published,

it was 59. Now there's more. But like we're always just perusing that book to see where we want to go next because it's just really well done and it hits some of the highlights. So I usually start there also and then, you know, look for more information from there. What are our food options in these parks? Food options. So all the parks have concessionaires. And if there's lodges, there's always a nice restaurant and then there's always places to get sandwiches and things. When it's crowded time, you know, you'll be on lines. We always have peanut butter and jelly with us. We prefer to pack our food so that on our hike, you know, we don't need to be worried about that and we just can enjoy the day. Sometimes, especially if we're staying in a lodge, we'll make dinner reservations.

if we're camping. We will sometimes go shopping before we enter the park. You can usually find a Walmart or something. But we always bring camp food, like the dehydrated camp food. We like a brand called Mountain House. We always bring that with us just so we know that we have food. However, a little side note on that is that the crows and the turkey vultures, they can smell it.

even though it's dehydrated. So don't leave it unattended because we had this experience in the Everglades earlier this year where we needed to go to the camp store to get firewood. And so we just like got there, dropped our stuff, ran for like five minutes to just get the wood, came back, and like everything was gone. Oh, my gosh. Wow. We saw our campsite.

We're like, why are all those birds? at our campsite and they just tore open everything. And so we had no food. Oh, no. We had, I had stopped at a farm stand, a fruit stand on our way in. So we had that and then we went back to the camp store and just like got cheese and crackers and they had like craft macaroni and cheese. And so we just kind of scrounged, but it was pretty funny.

And a lesson learned the hard way. But we, luckily, you know, we were able to make do. So there's usually camp stores around the national parks where people can buy supplies and stuff like that. Yeah. And some of them are more limited than others. Daniel, has the glamping trend appeared in the national parks? Yes. There are opportunities for that.

And there are vendors that will set you up. You know, I can't give you recommendations. I just don't know them well. but you could definitely do a Google search for that. There are like eco-tents and things like that that might be outside of the park. A lot of state parks have gotten into that too. And that's something to think about. For your lodging options, you can stay at the lodging inside the park.

You can camp in the park. You can camp if you're into camping, but you can't get a camping reservation inside the park. There's also BLM sites, Bureau of... of land management in like the forests and things that are outside the parks. And there's also, every state has wonderful state parks. And there's usually state parks near a lot of the national parks. So there's other options. If you're doing federal land camping, whether it's inside the park or it's the Bureau of Land

Management campgrounds, you want to go to recreation.gov website. And that's where you would do your bookings and see what the options are. The campsites vary with their amenities. So you would want to look at that too. Is there water or do you have to carry in all of your water? Things like that. Another thing to note is that in terms of wood for campfires, you always want to buy it locally because you don't want to accidentally introduce pests and things.

So that's something that people will. want to keep in mind. And if you're not familiar with Leave No Trace principles, you'd want to look that up to just like, you know, taking care of all your garbage, making sure you're carrying everything out, not, you know, staying on the trails because so many of these places are such sensitive environments. And if you're stepping off, you're crunching and smushing plant life that's trying to grow. You may have seen all these Instagram pictures. of all these super bloom flowers, all these super blooms that were happening in different parts of the country, especially in California, and how people were like in the flowers for that Instagram

photo. And that is not good practice. Yeah, let's respect the parks, everyone. I don't know if you want to go into this, but haven't they been rolling back environmental protections in the national parks and opening it up more to private industry to let people just drive their little doom buggies around? or whatever. Yeah, there's all, I mean, this is like such a big part of the history of the national parks of our country is that preserving the land versus commercial use and capitalism and stuff. And so, you know, it goes up and down. And it's, it's sad to see things that have been happening, especially during the government shut down in January. You may have seen, um, in the press about someone cutting down at Joshua Tree.

It's really disturbing when we were in Sawaro. Park Rangers were telling me about people stealing these Sawaro cacti that when you see them that big, they're like 150 years old, 200 years old. So. Lack them up and throw away the key. Yeah. And then there's the babies, two people will steal those. So there is, no, no, no, I'm sorry, the baby Sawaro cacti.

Not actual gai. I'm like, uh, it's happening in these sparks. When you see these little cacti, they're about 15, 20 years old when they're like kind of a foot long. So I did talk to a ranger who said when he came back after the shutdown, this like one particular cactus that he would always see and it made it happy to see it. it was gone. And that was just really sad. There's, you know, there's not enough staff to watch constantly. It's too bad people couldn't just be good humans. Exactly. But during the shutdown also, you know, there was so much garbage and you kept

reading about that and seeing that. But then there were so many good Samaritans stepping up to take the role. And since the Rangers weren't there to do a lot of the cleanup and the concessionaires really stepped up as well. How did the national park system come about? You know, a small group of people who fell in love with the natural wonder available started advocating for it. You may know names like John Muir, actually originally from Scotland, very famous naturalist and conservationist and writer, artist, photographers, people like Ansela Adams, Thomas Hill, a very famous landscape painter. Those were all people who started out in Yosemite and got through those methods of their writing and their pictures and their photos and their paintings showed more people got it into the press and things and people started to see at these natural wonders.

You know, they advocated for it. So Yosemite became the first protected land. Since California was a state, it became the California State Park. And President Abraham Lincoln in 1864 signed it under the protection of California during the Civil War. What's funny is we've now been to Yosemite and Yellowstone. Yellowstone was the very first national park. Congress established it in 1872. And that was in the territories of Montana and Wyoming.

So there was no state to administer that. So it became the first federal, you know, national park. And so when you talk to Rangers and people in Yosemite and in Yellowstone, there's a little, you know, there's a little bit of conflict of who was the first. It's kind of funny and cute. That's actually goes back farther than I thought because when I think of Teddy Roosevelt, I think of, you know, the great environmentalist and how environmentalism used to be. be a bipartisan thing where we could all agree that protecting our earth and especially in our parks was a good thing and a patriotic thing and something that we could all rally around. Unfortunately, it's become a little bit politicized. But what was Teddy Roosevelt's role in all of

us? Yeah. So Teddy Roosevelt actually, he went on a camping trip in Yosemite for a very famous campmanship for a few days with John Muir. And John Muir showed him all these special places. And there's famous pictures of him by Bridalvale Falls and in Mariposa Grove with the big sequoias. John Muir got Teddy Roosevelt on board. Teddy Roosevelt, you know, was already, you know, conservationist and loved all this stuff. And so, you know, he under his administration, he created five parks 18 national monuments and preserved a lot of other millions of acres of national forest and things. And so, yeah, Teddy Roosevelt, we have big thanks to him. There's also, as a side note, the historic sites, his home of Sagamore Hill is a national

historic site, which is on Long Island. That's actually the closest site to me. But we visited it just this summer and the kids loved it. They learned so much. And speaking of kids, at all these sites, there's always ranger programs and different parks have different offerings depending on where you are. There may be some sort of boating or biking or rock climbing or rafting. They all have different things.

But they pretty much all have junior ranger programs where if you're traveling with kids, go to the visitor center and ask for the junior. Junior Ranger activity book. And so over the course of your visit, your kids could complete that book and then go back to the Ranger and take a pledge and swear in as a junior Ranger and earn a badge. And so my kids do that. It is very cute. And we learn so much. And there are adults who do that as well. So the Ranger activities are for adults or for families and the junior is for the kids. Yeah, but adults can do it too. Like you're never too old to be a junior ranger. So I've definitely seen adults who like to do them as well.

Very cool. Always be learning, I think. Exactly. So, you know, that's basically the origin of the national parks. And eventually, you know, in the early 1900s, then you've got all these commercial interests and exploitation. And so hotels and railroads and no one really in charge of managing the parks. And Yosemite, there's this area called Hetch Hetchy that ended up being damned to provide a water supply for San Francisco. And John Muir strongly advocated against this. But, you know, there was interest there too.

San Francisco had, you know, suffered horrible fire. And, you know, it's kind of hard. Like, people need water. But that, among other things, led to advocating for. for a National Park Service. And so that was established in 1916, August 25th, 1916. And so that's why you may have seen that there was so much press in 2016 celebrating the Centennial, the National Park Service.

And now, as I mentioned at the start, there's over 400 protected sites. And it really tells the story of our country, our natural history, our cultural history, our cultural history, good and bad. And it's the first and the inspiration for national parks in like over a hundred countries around the world. Wow. You're really stirring some sentimental feelings in me, Danielle. Usually I'm always, you know, touring around Europe. But now I'm ready to get in a car, I guess hire a driver because I don't usually drive around and see some of these beautiful places. Yeah, like you talk about the cathedrals all over Europe, seeing these amazing cathedrals. And John Muir talked about the cathedrals, the natural cathedrals of Yosemite, these great granite rocks and like being close to God in this natural environment.

Not everybody is into that, but there is something to it for your mental health, for your spirituality, being in these places. especially when you can get off the beaten path to see this natural wonder that is so old and just really special. Yeah, I like what you said about mental health and spirituality because I think a lot of us, if not all of us, unfortunately, spend so much time on our phones and our computers and we're just walking down the street staring at our phone and like bumping into people and it's awful. And like, are you feeling a different vibe when you're in the parks or people actually

being more mindful of their surroundings. Absolutely. And that's another thing. When you're out in these parks or even driving to these parks, you often lose service and don't have regular service. That can be a little unnerving since we're so reliant on them now. But it's also, you know, freeing. It's nice to disconnect a little bit. But there was just talk about making more accessibility in the Grand Canyon.

And, you know, there's arguments on both sides, people saying like, well, you should just disconnect. When you say accessibility, you mean Wi-Fi. Yes, I'm sorry. But that's a whole other issue is, you know, accessibility for, you know, people with disabilities or strollers and things like that. And they vary. Some parks are accessible and some have, you know, a lot less accessibility. But yeah, anyway, there's a whole huge community that lives around the grand. Canyon. There's all the park rangers and their families. There's a school there. Like, it's a whole

little city of people that have very limited access because it doesn't work very well. And there's, you know, not that many towers and whatnot. They're probably happier than any of us. They still, you know, they live there full time. It's not like they're there just for a few nights. Yeah. Yeah. The visitors who are like, all right, it's nice to not have to check my work email because I can't because I don't have access. So are the national parks mostly seasonal? Are they open early year or only a certain? Again, it depends on the park. And some places, there are road closures. Think like we were in Yosemite in May and we got really lucky getting this week of springtime weather. It was just magnificent. And the last day we were getting out of the valley, Yosemite Valley and moving over to Wawona where the

where the giant sequoias are and Glacier Point Road opened that day. It was closed because of snow and it, they had opened it that day. So we got to go see that. However, we came home and then there was like multiple snowstorms. And so everything closed again. All these roads that in the higher elevations were closed.

So while we were there with the nice weather, with those roads starting to open, there were still most of the roads in those high elevations were still not accessible. Yellowstone is another example in the winter. There's only one road in the park that stays open year round because it connects communities and they need to be able to travel. But otherwise inside the park, you can only travel by snow coach through their concessionaire or snowmobile, which you would have to.

go through a service to do snowmobiles that are, you know, have the permits to go in there. So it depends on the park. One more question about sleeping. So if I like flew in, you know, I don't live in the U.S., would I be able to rent camping equipment if that was something I wanted to do? Yes, there are services that do that. And that's, again, something that people can look up and find. And there's also, you can also like rent RVs.

There's also companies that rent like vans that are converted vans and things like that. I'm seeing a lot more of that type of thing. And the other thing is that I'm seeing so many Europeans. I was really surprised at how many French people I encountered when I was in Yosemite and people speaking all different languages. And so that was really cool. So long story short, is that the United States is a huge country. has so much diversity in it of beautiful, natural things to see. I definitely recommend exploring

our own country. Are there any other routes that we should consider if we're planning a trip to the national parks? There is a lot of parks that you can group together. And if you want to check out a particular episode of the podcast in my episode 14 about National Park Week and summer travel ideas. That's actually an interview with Becky Lomex that I mentioned earlier with that travel guide. She had a lot of great suggestions. And some of them include if you're in the east going to Acadia in Maine, Shanandoah, and the Great Smoky Mountains. That would be a big trip. Acadia is very far away from Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, but it is possible. Or you could do Shannon Doe in Great Smoky Mountains.

Then heading west, you could group together Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton's, and Glacier, and even tie in the Rocky Mountains. That could be a trip. Also in the west, you could do Sawaro, Death Valley, Joshua Tree, and Big Bend. Oh, going back to Shannon Doe and Great Smoky Mountains, the Blue Ridge Parkway connects them. That could be cool. California, you could do Yosemite with Sequoia and Kings Canyon. And in Washington State, you could do Olympic, North Cascades, and Mount Rainier.

So there's a lot of options going up Oregon, Crater Lake, Lassen, Volcanic National Park. And then in Northern California, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Wind Cave National Park, and Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Some of these parks are less well-known, and so you won't have to deal with the crowds as much as some of these big ones like Yosemite and Yellowstone. That sounds good. Do you have like a top one or two, like, hidden gems

that we could go to if we want to avoid the crowds? So this is secondhand information from Becky. So all of those ones that I just mentioned are supposed to be spectacular. like, for example, Yosemite, if you want to skip Yosemite, which Yosemite is amazing. But Sequoia and Kings Canyon are much less traveled, and you're going to see a lot of similar things there. Sequoia, you'll see the big trees.

Kings Canyon, you see those granite walls like you see in Yosemite. Is it Al Capitan and Haftome? No, but it's still really beautiful and really neat to see. Well, thank you so much for talking to me today. Danielle, where can people find out more about you? Our website is everybody's national parks.com. We are also on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram. And we are on wherever you listen to your favorite podcast, you can find everybody's national parks. Thanks so much, Danielle. Thank you, Sarah. This was so much fun.

I feel like singing my country tis of me right now. True story, when I was a kid, I went to Disney World with my parents, and I cried during a fireworks show because I was so full of patriotism. Today was a nice reminder about the beauty of the U.S. Yes, there are people who throw garbage around and steal and exploit our natural resources, but then there are the people who are willing to roll up their sleeves, clean up the mess, and work to make sure future generations can enjoy the great outdoors. So thank you to to all of the great people who are doing that kind of work. Final note, did you know that Ken Burns did a documentary on America's National Park?

And he went on Danielle's podcast, Everybody's National Parks, to talk about it. How cool is that? I will link to that interview and to the places and resources we discussed today at postcardacademy.po. That's all for now. Thank you for listening and have a beautiful week wherever you are. Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free conversation sheet sheet with simple formulas that you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you're in a meeting or just talking with friends. Download it at sarah mygatel.com slash blank no more.