Or go to lightly used parks like Guadalupe Mountains, Big Bend, Isle Royale, Wind Cave, or Mojave. National parks educate us. Guided tours reveal the spectacular Anasazi towns of Chaco Culture, the depths of Timpanogos Cave, and the intimacy of the Frederick Douglass Home. Nature's classroom has endless lessons to teach in the mountains of the North Cascades, the desert of Organ Pipe, the dunes of Cape Cod, and the ridges of the Appalachian Trail. Our cultural heritage reveals itself through the artifacts at Women's Rights, on the battlefield at Gettysburg, and among the deserted pueblos of Wupatki.
National parks create jobs.
This is a myth. In fact, national park-oriented economies are far more diverse, stable, and healthy than economies heavily dependent on logging, mining, ranching, or farming. A visit to most towns whose economies are driven primarily by natural resource extraction, whether in northern New England, the Great Plains, or the West, is most likely to show an economy and community in steady decline. Yes, there are some problems with our national parks-they need more funding, they need to be bigger, and there need to be more of them. Enjoy one of your old favorites, or add a new one to your life list.