Best National Parks To Visit In Winter

Above, Sequoia National Park is a good park for a winter visit. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Up front, a confession.

I have never visited a national park during the winter season. I have been to some in the spring and autumn months (and, of course, in summer). 

When I saw this article in HuffPost, I was intrigued. They have a list of the best national parks to visit during the winter. 

They begin with:

When people plan their national parks vacations, they typically don’t target the winter season. But the low-traffic cooler months are actually a perfect time to visit many parks across the U.S.

“Winter is such an underrated time of year to visit the national parks if you’re willing to put in some extra time planning around seasonal closures and packing those winter clothes,” Jim Pattiz, co-founder of the organization More Than Just Parks, told HuffPost.

Of course, some parks are better suited for winter visits than others. We asked experts to share the national parks they believe are best to explore during the winter season.

To read more, go here. 

T + L: 20 "Can't Miss" National Park Locations

Above, Yosemite Valley. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Since vacation season is only a few months away and the lure of our national parks beckons, Travel + Leisure has an article on "can't miss" spots of 20 of them.

The article begins with:

When brothers Jim and Will Pattiz visited their first national park four years ago, their lives changed forever. 

“Stepping foot inside a national park is like stepping into another planet, it’s just otherworldly,” Will told Travel + Leisure. 

Since then, the duo, who were already working in the media business, decided to embark on a journey to visit and film every national park within the U.S. 

Their project, titled “More Than Just Parks,” captures the incredible experiences you can have across America’s national parks. They have made their way through some 30 parks so far. 

For the last two years, Jim and Will have also been working with the National Park Service to create a feature-length documentary promoting public lands. They will continue working on virtual reality experiences for the parks down the line. 

Here’s the one location the brothers recommend first-time visitors see for an unforgettable experience in 20 parks they visited.

To read more and see the "can't miss" spots, go here.

More Than Just Parks

Above, Grand Teton National Park, one of the parks filmed by the Pattiz brothers. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Five years ago, two brothers began a series of films, More Than Just Parks, on U.S. national parks. This is a multi-year project to film all of the parks.

According to Digital Trends:

For the past three years, brothers Jim and Will Pattiz have been documenting the U.S. national parks with a mix of time-lapse photography and realtime video. The filmmakers and founders of Sea Raven Media visited their first national park five years ago — a trip that planted the seed in their minds for what would eventually grow into More Than Just Parks, a multi-year effort to film all 59 national parks. They just released their 10th film, leaving 49 to go. 

Digital Trends has covered the release of several previous More Than Just Parks films, but for the latest, Hawai’i Volcanoes, we were fortunate enough to catch up with the Pattiz brothers at the premiere. In a question and answer session following the film, we learned more about what goes on behind the scenes and how they plan to incorporate new technologies, like virtual reality, into upcoming projects.  

Typically, the brothers will spend anywhere from two to four weeks filming a park.

To read more, go here.