National Parks Traveler

Now, it's generally not wise to suggest that you flee the Traveler for some other website, but you've got to check out this site just launched by the National Park Foundation.

Horace Kephart is best-known for his role in raising public support for what became the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and as the author of two non-fiction books that have become classics. Tucked away for 80 years was a literary surprise: the completed manuscript for a Kephard novel. It's just been published by the Great Smoky Mountains Association and the timing is appropriate: this year is the park's 75th anniversary.

We're at the halfway mark of The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. So what do you think? Has Ken Burns pulled off another masterpiece, or do you find it lacking in some regards?

A series of tsunami waves triggered by an earthquake in the South Pacific slammed into the U.S. territory of American Samoa shortly before 7 a.m. Wednesday, local time, killing nearly three dozen islanders and reportedly demolishing the headquarters and visitor center of the National Park of American Samoa.