National Parks Traveler

Death Valley National Park has long been the site of a mystery that has intrigued visitors and baffled scientists—the "sailing stones" of Racetrack Playa. The playa is a dry lake, and its surface is marked by a web of "trails" left in the soil by the unexplained movement of hundreds of rocks. Now a team of researchers has solved the puzzle...and the answer involves a very unlikely process in the hottest place in America.

A loosely run system for distributing free tour tickets for the USS Arizona Memorial that had "ample opportunities for abuse" is being addressed by National Park Service personnel to ensure walk-up visitors aren't locked out of the tours.

Virginia’s Booker T. Washington National Monument will be offering its popular “Harvest Time” event on September 20 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The reenactment of 1864 life on the plantation is expected to include basket making, blacksmithing, butter churning, chair caning, rag doll making, open hearth cooking, sheep shearing, spinning, tatting, and tobacco twisting.

It is late August, and most families will soon be returning home, just in time to send their children back to school, but not before one last trip to see the wondrous sights in one of our nation’s major national parks.