An insider’s guide to traveling America’s National Parks in the 21st century

“All the crowds gravitate towards the name-brand national parks, and even within those parks there’s a handful of famous hikes or viewpoints that everybody visits. With a little knowledge, creative thinking, and physical effort, you can have a wilderness experience that’s peaceful and beautiful — and you’d never know there were big crowds elsewhere in the park.” –James Kaiser

James Kaiser (@JamesKaiser_) has written bestselling travel guidebooks to a number of American national parks, including Acadia, Joshua Tree, the Grand Canyon, Zion, and Yosemite. He speaks about national parks at elementary schools around the United States, and he is also the author of Costa Rica: The Complete Guide.

In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and James talk about their early experiences in American national parks (2:30); how to find national parks in a given part of the country, and the rewards of visiting lesser-known parks (14:00); how James became a guidebook author, and the kind of research he does at national parks (20:15); strategies for visiting parks in the 21st century, new trends and developments, and the effects of over-visitation (29:00); how to avoid crowds in national parks and similar American wilderness areas (35:00); strategies the parks use to lessen the impact of visitors (42:00); using (and avoiding) smartphones in national parks, and how social media has affected visitation trends (46:00); the impact of international visitors on national parks (50:00); and why national parks are special, and how to best approach them for first-time visitors (55:30).

Notable links:

• “Van Life before #VanLife” (podcast episode)
• Acadia National Park (wilderness area in Maine)
• Ansel Adams (landscape photographer)
• The National Parks: America’s Best Idea (television documentary miniseries)
• Mount Katahdin (highest mountain in Maine)
• Yosemite National Park (wilderness area in California)
• Grand Canyon National Park (wilderness area in Arizona)
• Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve (natural area in Kansas)
• Find Your Park (national park search engine)
• Crater Lake National Park (wilderness area in Oregon)
• Joshua Tree National Park (wilderness area in California)
• The Joshua Tree (1987 U2 album)
• Glacier National Park (wilderness area in Montana)
• Arches National Park (wilderness area in Utah)
• Zion National Park (wilderness area in Utah)
• Bureau of Land Management (government public lands)
• Horseshoe Bend (incised meander of the Colorado River in Arizona)
• Campendium (camping search and reservation app)
• HipCamp (camping search and reservation app)
• Recreation.gov (camping reservation website)

This episode is brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. If you’ve ever planned a trip with multiple stops, you know that finding the right flights can be difficult. Between balancing travel logistics and cost, it often becomes impossible to build an itinerary that matches your travel goals.  AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey.

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at [email protected].