National Parks
Today we feature the latest guest post from contributing writer Robert Waite, who, thanks to his travelogues from around the world over the course of the past year and a half or so, has helped balloon my own voluminous bucket list to Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade proportions.
You can now add Canada’s Jasper National Park to that list. Bob explains why:
By Robert Waite
Jasper, Alberta – I had wanted to visit Jasper National Park pretty much from the time I immigrated to Canada in 1986.
Jasper is the largest and most northerly of seven national and provincial parks in the Canadian Rockies that together form UNESCO’s Canada Rocky Mountain Park World Heritage Site.
Known for its magnificent vistas and abundant wildlife, Jasper had been featured endlessly in the travelogues and magazines of my youth, kindling my imagination.… Continue reading
El Tovar is perched on the Grand Canyon’s dramatic South Rim. Photo from Xanterra.
Historic inns at some of the most popular U.S. national parks are sending out alerts that, because of cancellations and travel restrictions imposed in the wake of COVID-19, there is potential space to be had this summer if you act quickly to reserve.
The lodgings run by the Xanterra company — including historic and atmospheric inns such as El Tovar perched on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, Zion Lodge in Utah, and The Oasis in Death Valley — are even offering up to 30 percent off their regular rates this summer to entice customers.
Summers are usually fully booked months in advance, so for those who do want to travel and feel they can safely do so, this is an opportunity to experience some of America’s greatest outdoor spaces in style.… Continue reading
Yellowstone National Park ranked second overall in the survey. Photo from YellowstonePark.com
While travel searches took a big hit the last couple of months — off by almost two-thirds in total — many people are still dreaming about, and planning for, their future vacations.
According to the folks at rentcafe.com, a nationwide apartment search website and a research blog, 42 percent of those surveyed still want to pursue their travel plans when permitted. But which destinations are holding strong during the pandemic?
To find out, RENTCafe analyzed travel-related Google searches for 960 destinations in the U.S. and then ranked them as top overall destinations, towns, beaches, and natural areas that saw the smallest drop in interest from would-be vacationers.
The survey followed Google travel searches during March and April of this year. All searched destinations were off by at least 25… Continue reading
The Grand Canyon taught Mitch a hard-earned lesson in trail guiding.
One of our frequent contributors to clarknorton.com, my friend Mitch Stevens, is kicking off our occasional series of first-person pieces on how various baby boomers got started traveling for a living.
Mitch’s odyssey led him from summer camp in Pennsylvania to the depths of the Grand Canyon to college field trips in Wyoming and eventually to Tucson in the (mostly) sunny deserts of southern Arizona, where’s he’s been leading Sierra Club hikes for years and more recently founded his adventure travel company Southwest Discoveries.
Like the intrepid cyclists who compete in the 100-mile El Tour de Tucson race each fall, Mitch’s long-distance hikes through the canyons and across the mountains of the Southwest provide inspiration to me as I sit here at my computer giving my typing fingers a thorough workout.
So lace up your hiking boots, grab… Continue reading
Dinosaur National Monument offers scenery, adventure. Photo from Mitch Stevens.
Today we have a guest post from my friend Mitch Stevens, who leads hikes and adventure trips throughout the Southwest for the Sierra Club and as founder of Southwest Discoveries.
Mitch recounts a recent rafting trip along Utah’s Green River through spectacular Dinosaur National Monument. This family-oriented trip is perfect for multi-generational travel with grandkids. (And what kid doesn’t like dinosaurs?).
By Mitch Stevens
We hiked through a narrow defile carved through red sandstone. The foliage in the canyon was lush: Boxelder, grapevines, Ponderosa pine and Douglas fir trees all thrived in the moist environment. A clear stream murmured near the trail, contributing to the serenity.
We rounded a bend in the canyon and heard falling water in the distance. Soon our group came upon the source of the sound, a breathtaking waterfall tumbling 200 feet down a sheer… Continue reading
Yellowstone National Park is on my list of essential U.S. destinations. Photo from yellowstonepark.com
Just about every travel publication, digital or print, now seems to start the New Year with a top ten list of “where to go this year,” counting down to the most irresistible spot on the planet.
One year, the hot ticket may be to Croatia, the next year to Colombia, the next year to Canada. (For my own facetious take on where Americans would be going in 2017 — with nearly half the country fleeing to Canada for extended vacations, the other near-half checking out the newly discovered charms of Russia, and the remaining in-betweeners headed to Cuba — check out my post from December 29, 2016. Seems so long ago…)
My own (rather cynical) theory about top ten lists of this nature is that they mostly reflect where editors of said publications want to… Continue reading
Everglades National Park
No more almost-free senior lunch at U.S. National Parks: The price of a lifetime America the Beautiful Senior Pass rises sharply from $10 to $80 on August 28, 2017.
The Senior Pass, available to U.S. citizens and permanent residents age 62 and above, has cost just $10 since 1994, making it one of the great travel bargains in the world.
At $80, it will still be a good deal, just not the steal it is now. If you already have one of the $10 passes, it will be honored for your lifetime.
Senior Passes provide access to more than 2,000 recreation sites managed by six federal agencies:
- National Park Service
- US Fish & Wildlife Service
- Bureau of Land Management
- Bureau of Reclamation
- US Forest Service
- US Army Corps of Engineers
Senior Pass Benefits
The Grand Canyon
The passes cover entrance and day-use recreation fees… Continue reading
Bison roam Yellowstone National Park. Photo by Dennis Cox/WorldViews
National Travel & Tourism Week, which runs this year from May 7-13, is a time to celebrate the impact that travel and tourism have on the U.S. economy.
And it’s huge. According to the U.S. Travel Association:
- In 2016, domestic and international travelers spent a combined $683 billion on leisure travel in the U.S. When you add in business travelers, the total is almost $1 trillion — some $31,500 spent per second.
- That same trillion-dollar spending generated $2.3 trillion in total economic output in the U.S., factoring in an additional $1.3 trillion spurred in other industries, such as retail.
- The travel industry supports 15.3 million American jobs — 8.6 million directly in the travel industry and 6.7 million in other industries.
- One of every nine jobs in the U.S. is dependent on the… Continue reading
Budapest’s Parliament building is Hungary’s top must-see attraction . Photo by Clark Norton
Most of us, when we travel to another country, probably have in mind at least one “must-see” attraction., usually an iconic structure, museum, historic site, or natural wonder.
Examples might be Machu Picchu in Peru, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the Giza Pyramids in Egypt, the Roman Colosseum in Italy, and the Parliament building in Budapest, Hungary.
Recently, TripAdvisor — which has propelled itself into the world’s leading travel site and travel data bank — released a map of Europe displaying the “one thing you must do in each country, according to tourists.” (I found it in the Huffington Post.)
For most countries, the results were pretty true to form: The Roman Colosseum in Italy; The Grand Place in Brussels, Belgium; the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Netherlands; Tallinn Old Town in Estonia; the Acropolis Museum in Athens, Greece; the… Continue reading
The Northern Lights, best viewed above the Arctic Circle,took the top spot on this Bucket List survey
While I prefer the term “Life List” to “Bucket List” — it just has a more positive ring to it — Bucket List has become the generally accepted phrase for delineating those often-challenging, mostly travel-related experiences you want to do before you, uh, can’t do them any more.
As a baby boomer, I’m acutely aware that I won’t have as much time or perhaps physical capacity as a millennial to, say, climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, which has recently slipped off my Bucket List until I can work myself into better shape. A few more years on the treadmill should do it, if my knees haven’t collapsed in the process.
The good news is, Bucket List items don’t have to involve super-strenuous exertion. In fact, according to a recent TotallyMoney.com survey of 1,000… Continue reading
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