In celebration of National Park Week and its 100th anniversary, the National Park Foundation and National Park Service are inviting you to Find Your Park. The National Park Foundation has kicked off the Find Your Park program, a nationwide movement to redefine what the word “park” means. It will demonstrate that a national park is way more than anyone has previously imagined.
During this week, and the year-long celebration, we encourage you to get out and Find Your Park. Did you know that America is home to more than 400 national parks? So what are you waiting for? Get out and explore! We’re here to tell you about the national parks you didn’t realize were deemed national parks (plus ways we can help get you there):
CALIFORNIA
Golden Gate Bridge
Golden Gate National Parks chronicle two hundred years of history, from the Native American culture, the Spanish Empire frontier and the Mexican Republic, to maritime history, the California Gold Rush, the evolution of American coastal fortifications, and the growth of urban San Francisco.
The park’s cultural resources are tremendously varied. Dramatic view sheds of contrasting rural and urban environments lead to historic landscapes ranging from dairy ranches and seaside recreation sites, to maritime resources like lighthouses and shipwrecks. Golden Gate has been part of the homelands of Coastal Miwok and Ohlone people for thousands of years and still contains archeological sites and landscapes influenced by native land management.
The park includes the largest and most complete collection of military installations and fortifications in the country, dating from Spanish settlement in 1776 though the Nike missiles of the Cold War. Golden Gate contains eleven former Army posts whose military architecture and historic landscapes comprise the heart of the park.
How to get there with Globus:
Northern California’s Finest
Pacific Coast Adventure
Cabrillo National Monument
On September 28, 1542, Juan Rodrguez Cabrillo landed at San Diego Bay. This event marked the first time that a European expedition had set foot on what later became the west coast of the United States. His accomplishments were memorialized on October 14, 1913 with the establishment of Cabrillo National Monument.
The park offers a superb view of San Diego’s harbor and skyline. At the highest point of the park stands the Old Point Loma Lighthouse, which has been a San Diego icon since 1854. A statue and museum in the Visitor Center commemorate Juan Rodrguez Cabrillo’s exploration of the coast of California. In a former army building an exhibit tells the story of the coast artillery on Point Loma. In the winter, migrating gray whales can be seen off the coast. Native coastal sage scrub habitat along the Bayside Trail offers a quiet place to reflect and relax. On the west side of the park is a small but beautiful stretch of rocky-intertidal coastline.
How to get there with Globus:
California Classics with San Diego
IDAHO
Nez Perce National Historic Park
For thousands of years the valleys, prairies, mountains, and plateaus of the inland northwest have been home to the Nimiipuu or Nez Perce people. Explore these places. Learn their stories. Treat them with care.
The 38 sites of Nez Perce National Historical Park are scattered across the states of Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Montana and have been designated to commemorate the stories and history of the Nimiipuu and their interaction with explorers, fur traders, missionaries, soldiers, settlers, gold miners, and farmers who moved through or into the area.
How to get there with Globus:
Discover Glacier National Park, Hells Canyon & Washington Wine Country
ARIZONA
Glen Canyon Dam
Glen Canyon National Recreation Area offers unparalleled opportunities for water-based & backcountry recreation. The recreation area stretches for hundreds of miles from Lees Ferry in Arizona to the Orange Cliffs of southern Utah, encompassing scenic vistas, geologic wonders, and a panorama of human history. Additionally, the controversy surrounding the construction of Glen Canyon Dam and the creation of Lake Powell contributed to the birth of the modern day environmental movement. The park offers opportunities for boating, fishing, swimming, backcountry hiking and four-wheel drive trips.Outdoor activities are what Glen Canyon is all about. Whether you’re on your own or on a guided trip, there is something for everyone’s taste.
How to get there with Globus:
Canyon Country Adventure
Enchanting Canyonlands
Western Explorer
Parks & Canyons Spectacular
WYOMING
Devil’s Tower National Monument
Rising 1267 feet above the Belle Fourche River, Devils Tower has long been a beacon, attracting people and capturing their imaginations since prehistoric times. Today, it continues to hold many meanings for people including American Indians, local ranchers, rock climbers, and thousands of visitors.
Using the authority of the newly created Antiquities Act, President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed Devils Tower Americas first national monument on September 24, 1906.
How to get there with Globus:
Exploring America’s Great Parks
VIRGINIA
Yorktown Historical Battlefield Park
Discover what it took for the United States to be independent as you explore the site of the last major battle of the Revolutionary War. Here at Yorktown, in the fall of 1781, General George Washington, with allied American and French forces, besieged General Charles Lord Cornwallis’s British army. On October 19, Cornwallis surrendered, effectively ending the war and ensuring independence.
How to get there with Globus:
WASHINGTON DC
Lincoln Memorial
“In this temple, as in the hearts of the people for whom he saved the Union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever.” Beneath these words, the 16th President of the United States, the Great Emancipator and preserver of the nation during the Civil War, sits immortalized in marble. As an enduring symbol of Freedom, the Lincoln Memorial attracts anyone who seeks inspiration and hope.
The Memorial’s steps have been a stage for many significant moments in American history. On August 28, 1963 approximately 250,000 people participated in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where they heard Martin Luther King, Jr., deliver his memorable speech, “I Have a Dream.”
The Lincoln Memorial is shown on the back of both the United States one cent coin and the five dollar bill, while the front of each bears Lincoln’s portrait.
How to get there with Globus:
America’s Historic East
Great Cities of the East Coast
Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall honors the men and women who served when their nation called upon them. Deliberately setting aside the controversies of the war, the designer, Maya Lin, felt that “the politics had eclipsed the veterans, their service and their lives.” In keeping with this belief, the design remains elegantly simple to “allow everyone to respond and remember.”
How to get there with Globus:
America’s Historic East
Great Cities of the East Coast
Eastern US & Canada Discovery
Korean War Veterans Memorial
From 1950 to 1953, the United States joined with United Nations forces in Korea to take a stand against what was deemed a threat to democratic nations worldwide. At war’s end, a million and a half American veterans returned to a peacetime world of families, homes, and jobs – and to a country long reluctant to view the Korean War as something to memorialize. But to the men and women who served, the Korean War could never be a forgotten war.The Korean War Veterans Memorial honors those Americans who answered the call, those who worked and fought under the trying of circumstances, and those who gave their lives for the cause of freedom.
How to get there with Globus:
America’s Historic East
Great Cities of the East Coast
Eastern US & Canada Discovery
World War II Memorial
The World War II Memorial commemorates the sacrifice and celebrates the victory of “the greatest generation.” Friedrich St. Florianís winning design balances classical and modernist styles of architecture, harmonizes with its natural and cultural surroundings, and connects the legacy of the American Revolution and the American Civil War with a great crusade to rid the world of fascism.
How to get there with Globus:
America’s Historic East
Great Cities of the East Coast
Eastern US & Canada Discovery
PENNSYLVANIA
Liberty Bell and Independence Hall
A few ideas so capture the imagination of mankind that they imbue physical objects with universal meaning. For Americans, indeed for all people, there are no more potent symbols of individual freedom than Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell.
Since 1951 this building and this long-silent tocsin have been maintained by the American people as part of Independence National Historical Park. The park includes three square blocks in the City of Philadelphia where the dream of a free country of independent citizens became fact. Here were written the two documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, on which the foundations of our country rest. Here, from 1790 to 1800, when Philadelphia was the nationís capital, the principle of governance based on the rights of individual citizens was first tested.
Through a series of events, which in retrospect seem almost miraculous, many of the buildings in which these events took place were preserved. With years of devotion and effort on the part of the City of Philadelphia, the National Park Service, and countless private citizens, these places have been restored for the enjoyment and enlightenment of the millions who come to Independence.
How to get there with Globus:
America’s Historic East
Great Cities of the East Coast
Eastern US & Canada Discovery
MASSACHUSETTS
Cape Cod National Seashore
Writing about Cape Cod in the 1800s, Henry David Thoreau said, “A man may stand there and put all America behind him.”
Thoreau walked the length of the great Outer Beach. Modern visitors can trace Thoreau’s route along 40 miles of pristine, sandy beach protected within Cape Cod National Seashore.
Cape Cod is a large peninsula extending 60 miles into the Atlantic ocean from the coast of Massachusetts. Located on the outer portion of the Cape, Cape Cod National Seashore is 44,600 acres encompass a rich mosaic of marine, estuarine, fresh water, and terrestrial ecosystems. These systems and their associated habitats reflect the Cape is glacial origin, dynamic natural processes, and at least 9,000 years of human activity.
How to get there with Globus:
Now what are you waiting for?
All information provided by National Park Foundation and National Park Service.
