A lovely mix of waterfalls, hiking, camping, and swimming makes this New York state park the ideal summer getaway.

Park Pass, Amy Beth & Derek Wright.

This year (2024) we’ll be pausing the series for one year. We look forward to reading your poems in early 2025!

A unique North Georgia state park and home to one of the most spectacular waterfalls east of the Mississippi.

Park Pass, Derek & Amy Beth Wright

The greatest, best, and most beautiful place I've ever car camped was on top of a cliff in the Buffalo Gap National Grassland. Here's what you need to know.

Spotlights, Robbie DeGraff

Four majestic, historic, and scenic parks on the Outer Banks of North Carolina are a quick journey from one other, and can easily be combined into long holiday weekend exploration or enjoyed over several summers.

Spotlights, Amy Beth & Derek Wright

To make the most of your trip, use this guide to help you decide how to maximize your adventure to Yellowstone according to your interests.

Spotlights, Courtney Johnson

Though many of the parks units have little to no entry fee, roughly one-third do charge an entry fee. Some can be a bit hefty; Grand Canyon and Yosemite run $35 per car. The best deal going is the America the Beautiful Pass, as for $80 you purchase one year of unlimited entry into national parks and national wildlife refuges as well as standard amenity fees (day use fees) at national forests and grasslands, as well as lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Tips and Tricks, Derek Wright

We are delighted to share our seventh annual poetry series!

Discover the 2023 dates when entry to all national parks will be FREE!

Tips & Tricks

Part I of our D.C. guide is focused on National Park Service units in the Washington D.C. jurisdiction area; a few sites in Virginia and Maryland are included. You can visit these sites without a car, either by walking, using public transportation, or taking a quick taxi ride. The parks are in alphabetical order, which the NPS categorizes by the first letter of the park. At the end, we’ll share a great tip to make sure you find all the stamps for your Eastern National Parks Passport. You can also continue to Part II of the guide here.

Spotlights, Parks & Points

Join us on Tuesday, May 9th at 7:30pm EDT for an evening poetry.

This year, The Pursuit of History is pleased to feature the perfect holiday gift for history and art enthusiasts.

We are thrilled to announce the publication of Wayfinding, a poetry anthology that we have curated and edited together, by the venerable Finishing Line Press.

Join us this Wednesday, May 4th at 8pm EDT for a live poetry reading featuring many of the 2022 Parks & Points & Poetry series poets!

Register for this event here! ->>>

When you approach the tallest sand dunes in North America at Great Sand Dunes National Park, you almost feel like you are on the set of Star Wars. From a distance, they appear much smaller than they are—the tallest point on the dunes is approximately 13,604 feet (4,146m) above sea level. When we got our closeup look from the visitor center in July, my four-year-old daughter Emma's mouth dropped open.

Spotlights, Courtney Johnson

In April of 2021, we will again host our annual online poetry series in honor of National Poetry Month. We invite poetry submissions that reflect upon nature, outdoor exploration, and accompanying moments of adventurousness or self-reflection. Enter your poem today!

Channel Islands National Park, comprised of five islands along the southern California coast, is only accessible by boat (a sixty-minute journey from the Ventura marina) or by helicopter. In 2015, the park logged 324,816 recreation visits, compared with more than four million visits each to parks like Yellowstone, Rocky Mountain, and Yosemite National Parks. Like the Galapagos Islands, the seclusion and protection in the Channel Islands allows for species that exist in no other part of the world to thrive and become interdependent. Magnificent kelp forests shelter more than 1,000 species of animals and plants. Rocky reefs are prolific for eelgrass beds, and shelter small invertebrates, fish, and sharks. The park provides nesting and breeding grounds for 99% of California’s shorebirds and seabirds, and half of the world's population of ashy storm petrels and western gulls.

Spotlights, Parks & Points

There's plenty to say about Glacier National Park, one of the most popular and scenic national parks — it is defined by glacial lakes, alpine valleys, vast green meadows and striking mountain tableaus. It is an idyll, with landscapes that might more often be found in a storybook. The vast park stretches over one million acres of northern Montana, and is home to multiple habitats and potential experiences for visitors. Based on our experiences with Glacier National Park thus far, we’ve synthesized our ideas, thoughts and suggestions to get you started in planning a Glacier adventure. Consider it a primer, as there is an abundance of information out there.

Spotlights, Parks & Points

My family and I are standing at the top of Ding Darling’s wooden observation tower admiring the refuge’s long stretch of water, undisturbed landscape, colorful birds and all-around beauty when we hear a jarring and unmistakable sound.

CRUNCH! We look out to the water. “What is it,” my daughter asks.
Near the shore, an eight-foot American alligator devours a Frisbee-sized horseshoe crab. The gator’s jaws are deceptively closed, but after a few minutes its mouth opens, and the doomed crab flops inside the gator’s mouth.

Spotlights, Chris Umpierre with additional reporting by Amy Beth Wright

Our beloved poetry series returns, with 21 original poems about nature and parks.

As we come to the close of the 2010s, we’re counting down with some of the biggest stories from public lands from this decade, the 2010s.

We are delighted to host our third annual poetry series.

Read the winners of our 2019 nonfiction contest.

A free epic virtual road trip offering unprecedented behind-the-scenes access to twelve extraordinary historic sites with expert tour guides leading the way.

Tips and Tricks, Amy Beth Wright and Derek Wright

Our annual fall essay contest invites nonfiction submissions of up to 1,500 words in the form of autobiographical essay, reportage, profile, memoir, or narrative nonfiction. Winners will be selected by contest judge, Pippa Biddle.

Contests, Parks & Points