Last week we announced our biggest adventure yet. A seven week, 5,600 mile auto tour of the National Park to Park Highway. You may be wondering the same thing everyone I’ve talked to does:
What exactly IS the National Park to Park Highway?
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Image from Paving the Way: The National Park-to-Park Highway |
History
In 1920 there wasn’t good road access to the National Parks of the West. The primary transportation in and out of National Parks was the railroad or roads designed for use by horse and wagon, not the increasingly popular automobile.
A group of intrepid travelers wanted to change that. With the help of AG Westgard, route finder for AAA, and Stephen Mather, the first director of the National Park Service, the National Park to Park Highway Tour was born.
The Playground Trail
was that roads in the 1920s were named and maintained by private groups, usually auto clubs. Nowadays we take for granted that some government agency maintains our roads, but at that time private groups provided signs, maps and maintenance of their adopted route.
Although many auto trails existed, nothing connected all of the National Parks of the west. The National Park to Park Highway association banded together to fix this.
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Paving The Way
The PBS Documentary Paving the Way: The National Park to Park Highway directed by Brandon Wade is another invaluable resource. It chronicles the efforts of the dedicatory tour that left Denver on August 27, 1920.
If you have any interest in early National Parks or good historical story telling I highly recommend watching Paving the Way: The National Park-to-Park Highway
See America First
You can learn all you want from books and movies, but at some point you have to be in a place to truly experience it. That’s why I’m taking my mountain family on a tour of the twelve Parks on National Park to Park Highway, plus six more National Parks and Monuments along the way.
Since 2016 is the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service it’s the perfect time to celebrate these outdoor spaces. This summer we hope you can #FindYourPark along with us as we take the advice of the 1920s National Park advertisements and See America First. We’re taking off in late June 2016 and would love for you to come along.
To see all of our National Park-to-Park Highway posts click here.
Mountains to Ocean
OCTOBER 2018 UPDATE: See the awesome sights of the National Park-to-Park Highway and our family’s journey in this FREE photo ebook. Just put in your email in the box right here and we’ll send it right to your inbox:
We are currently on a year-long, full-time RV road trip around North America and would love for you to join us via email.
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