Product Description

Featuring 80 all new maps and more than 350 photos, this guide is the most comprehensive, up-to-the-minute book of its kind on the market today. A perennial favorite with almost a million copies sold in previous editions, it reflects National Geographic's century-long association with America's national parks system and its peerless reputation for travel expertise and cartographic excellence.


The book opens with an essay by Yellowstone authority Paul Schullery, and an introduction to the guide with a locator map showing all 58 of these American treasures (including the newest, South Carolina's Congree National Park). Next, the parks are presented alphabetically region-by-region, with individual maps and geographical profiles of each. These colorfully illustrated descriptions offer tours tailored to the time available, whether it's an hour or a week, and tell visitors the best spots to enjoy hikes, spectacular vistas, wildlife and more. Itineraries and directions, special activities and advisories, and suggestions of hotels and campgrounds are provided, along with scores of ideas for excursions to nearby wildlife refuges, monuments, and other nature areas of exceptional interest—140 in all.


From planning a trip to making the most of every minute, here's all the information anyone could want on the scenic national parks plus invaluable recommendations and advice from the National Geographic writers who know them well.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5147 in Books
• Published on: 2006-02-21
• Released on: 2006-02-21
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Customer Reviews

Great!
We went on a 2 week road trip across the country and used this book to look up national parks in the areas we were traveling to. It was fantastic! It has great graphics and overviews of hiking trails and what there is to do in the parks. It also includes phone numbers of campsites and hotels within the park (which comes in very useful when you are going to a lot of parks!). It was a great asset to our trip and we would recommend it to anyone who plans to visit national parks! However - while it includes amazing graphics (which the official parks guide does not), it does not include national monuments like the offical parks guide does.

Great Guide!
My husband and I used this book extensively on a recent trip out west. This is an excellent guide and one that we will use again and again.

a good book for travelers
I am a traveling lover, but not professional traveler (why should I?). I do not have enough time to make deep research before each trip, and I hardly have days and nights to explore every corner of those beautiful national parks. This book gives me a good executive summary and a practical guide to arrange my itinerary. It is pretty reliable. Anyway, my purpose traveling to national parks is for pleasure, but not for making a map. :-)