National Parks Traveler is America’s premier, editorially independent news source covering all aspects of the National Park System. In today’s challenging political climate, our nonprofit news organization needs your help to extend and expand our reporting.

We depend on grants, sponsorships, and reader and listener support to keep you informed. We believe that if you share our mission, and come to understand and embrace the national parks as best you can, you will choose to support that mission with a contribution.

Though in size we're the journalistic equivalent of a flea on an elephant, we have the chops to compete with newsrooms many, many times larger and with budgets that run in the millions -- many millions -- of dollars. Our stable of writers and photographers combined has more than a century of professional journalistic experience. The Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, Gizmodo, Popular Science, Outside, and many other media have cited or mentioned us in their reporting. Our weekly podcast series, just a year old, ranks among the top 25 percent in the country in terms of downloads. 

Kurt Repanshek, founder and editor-in-chief of National Parks Traveler

There is a robust audience for the Traveler's output. And it's growing. Last year, traffic to nationalparkstraveler.org was up 23 percent, to more than 1.58 million readers. Consumption of our content on Apple News was up nearly 90 percent for the year, to nearly 1 million, while our "reach" on Apple News -- those readers who at least saw one Traveler headline -- was nearly 5 million.

Meanwhile, our weekly podcasts, which debuted in mid-February 2019, were downloaded nearly 60,000 times through our first 51 episodes and continue to gain audience.

We need to not only keep our readers and listeners engaged, but build that audience and give it a voice. We are working to do that with more content that explores the park system and its wonders, and also highlights the parks’ needs.

Our near-term editorial calendar contains a series (stories, podcasts, and videos) on the Colorado River and the parks in Utah it flows through, a look at the impact of Australia's wildfires on that country's national parks, an in-depth look at Indiana Dunes National Park, a multimedia package of stories from Everglades National Park and its neighbor, Big Cypress National Preserve, and a visit to New River Gorge National River.

Some of these will be experiential stories that explain how best to enjoy the parks. But we will continue to have stories that make clear the challenges facing the National Park Service and the parks.

While that lineup looks good, there are many, many more stories to tell. These places belong to you, and you should know how they're being managed.

Help us keep you informed.