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A photo of a road going into Jasper National Park in Canada

Snow has fallen in the upper reaches of Yellowstone and Glacier national parks, and fall weather in general is making a national park trip in the northern half of the United States not terribly appealing.

October is a season of transition across the National Park System. Cooler, and in some cases colder, weather is sweeping across the northern states, while southern states are not as blazingly hot as they were just a month or two ago. But school is in session throughout the country, so if your vacation plans are tied to school, you’re probably not heading anywhere now for an extended trip.

Which makes it the perfect time to start considering where you might want to go next year. Here in the U.S. you don’t need to limit your choices to the National Park System. Canada is just a short drive, or flight, away. Rebecca Latson, Traveler’s contributing photographer and columnist, just returned from a trip to the Canadian Rockies, and is here to discuss what she found and what you might consider.

0:02 National Parks Traveler introduction
0:12 Episode Intro with Kurt Repanshek
0:57 Sieur De Monts - Nature’s Symphony - The Sounds of Acadia
1:15 Potrero Group
1:41 Great Smoky Mountains Association
2:02 Yosemite Conservancy
2:28 Canadian Rockies with Rebecca Latson
10:55 Vista Verde - Tim Heintz - The Sounds of Peaks, Plateaus and Canyons
11:15 NPT Promo
11:27 Grand Teton National Park Foundation
11:55 Friends of Acadia
12:21 Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation
12:48 Canadian Rockies with Rebecca Latson Continues
29:52 Blue Mist - Randy Petersen - The Sounds of Shenandoah
30:07 Interior Federal Credit Union
30:31 Washington’s National Park Fund
31:04 The Everglades Foundation
31:18 Canadian Rockies with Rebecca Latson Continues
41:04 Wonder Lake - Various Artists - The Spirit of Alaska
41:41 Episode Closing
42:14 Orange Tree Productions
42:47 Splitbeard Productions
42:58 National Parks Traveler footer

National Parks Traveler Podcast Episode 327 | Plight of the Parks

So much is happening so quickly to the National Park Service. There have been staff reductions, hiring freezes, spending freezes, orders from the Interior Secretary to make sure that visitors find national parks welcoming, no matter what it takes.

June 1st, 2025 Read More

National Parks Traveler Podcast Episode 326 | Environmental Partisanship

Is green a red and blue construct? Put another way, is there a political partisan divide over the environment?

That’s a particularly interesting question, no doubt more so in recent years as the country seems to have drifted farther and farther apart because of our political beliefs. To that point, a reader reached out the other day to say our stories shouldn’t be negative on the Trump Administration because the national parks are going to need the help of all of us - Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and everything in-between - to survive.

May 25th, 2025 Read More

National Parks Traveler Podcast Episode 325 | Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility

News around public lands these days seems to revolve entirely around the Trump administration. In the case of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, many of the steps the administration is taking with the operational efficiencies of the National Park Service and other land management agencies certainly are keeping PEER busy.
 

May 18th, 2025 Read More

National Parks Traveler Podcast Episode 324 | North American Bird Declines

True birders are some of the most determined and persistent hobbyists out there. If you want to call bird watching a hobby. For many, it’s more like a passion. Many look forward to “Big Day” competitions, where individuals and teams strive to see how many different bird species they can spot in a 24-hour period.

May 11th, 2025 Read More

National Parks Traveler Podcast Episode 323 | Walt Dabney and Public Lands

It’s fair to say that the nation’s public lands, those managed by the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service and other federal land-management agencies are at risk under the Trump administration.

There’s no hyperbole in that statement if you pay attention to what the administration already has done in terms of downsizing those agencies’ workforces, and when you listen to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum say he wants to open more public lands to energy development and mining.

May 4th, 2025 Read More

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