Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park sits on the top of the Appalachian Mountains’ Blue Ridge Range. Skyline Drive runs for 105 miles through the park. We spent four days in the park being awe-inspired and humbled by the views while hiking several trails, with a focus on Shenandoah’s waterfalls.
One of the largest protected areas east of the Mississippi River, Great Smoky Mountains National Park lies in eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina. There about 900 miles of paths, including the famous Appalachian Trail. We spent a week hiking a variety of trails in the 522,000 acre park.
Congaree is one of America’s newest national parks, becoming the 58th such protected area in 2003. Comprised of 26,276 acres, Congaree protects the largest intact old-growth bottomless hardwood forest in the U.S. We spent two days in the park’s swampy floodplain forest exploring several trails and camping in a primitive campsite.
A high-speed catamaran voyage of 70 miles each way along the Gulf of Mexico, exploration of a massive brick fort, and snorkeling underwater? We did all of these things during our time in Dry Tortugas National Park, one of the most remote parks in the lower 48 United States.
Twenty-one miles east of the Everglades lies Biscayne National Park. It is the largest protected marine national park in the United States. With 95% of the park on the water, we booked a full-day sailing trip to set foot on one of its keys.
Everglades National Park protects the largest tropical wilderness in the United States. It is the only place in the world where the alligator and crocodiles both roam. We spent four days exploring the park, the third largest in the lower 48 states and covering the southwest tip of Florida.
With over 400 miles of surveyed passages, Mammoth Cave National Park is famous as the longest known cave system in the world. We not only ventured into the cave on two occasions while visiting, but also had the opportunity to complete hikes on both sides of the Green River.
Hot Springs National Park, in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas, has the distinction of being America’s smallest national park at just 5,500 acres. Its protected status (in 1832) predates Yellowstone, commonly considered to be the world’s first national park.
We were in the state of Texas for 17 days, and most of our time was spent in one place: Big Bend National Park. Big Bend, established in 1944, is the 15th largest national park by area. We spent six days exploring its desert, mountain, and river ecosystems.
Over 200 million years ago, the Guadalupe Mountains were a marine reef under a tropical sea. These mountains include Guadalupe Peak, which at 8,751 feet tall is the “top” or highest point in Texas. We spent five days exploring this remote place.
Carlsbad Caverns, located in the Chihuahuan Desert in New Mexico’s Guadalupe Mountains, is the first of three “cave” national parks we plan to visit on our TTP NPS journey (the other two parks are Mammoth Cave in Kentucky and Wind Cave in South Dakota).
When we researched national parks to include on our Trekking the Planet NPS journey, we were surprised to discover sand dunes in the middle of the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. But little did we know that we would not only be seeing sand dunes, but experiencing snow.
