Passport to Your National Parks, All the info you may want to know.
Written: Sep 19 '02 (Updated Aug 21 '07)
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Pros: educational and builds enthusiasm
Cons: can become very habit forming.that's also a plus
The Bottom Line: Collecting Parks and sites using the Passport opens one up to more knowledge, enthusiasm, and a better understanding of the great heritage of our beautiful country.
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| popsrocks's Full Review: What You Should Know About National Parks |
Update March 30 2007
I have been able to get the Passport to Your National Parks book entered into the Epinions database. The new up-to-date review can be found
here.
I have been doing reviews and many are on the subject of National Parks and Historic Sites. In many of these reviews I have mentioned the Passport Program. Trying to stick to the park information I was reviewing at the time I felt I was not doing justice to this program. I also felt I did not want to give an overwhelming amount of information about the Passport on the park review. So now I am going to give you all the information you may want to know.
The National Park System
The National Park System started over one hundred years ago with Yellowstone National Park. It was conceived to protect our countries sites of beauty and heritage, Americas treasures. It has grown to a system that now highlights three hundred eighty four sites and growing! You can visit all these places and bring your Passport and have it stamped and canceled too.
The system includes places of great beauty or grandeur like Yellowstone, Yosemite, Bryce Canyon, and the Smokey Mountains. Also included are places of deep history such as Valley Forge, Independence Hall, and Gettysburg. Great people are also noted in works like those at Mt. Rushmore. Our heroes are honored in sites dedicated to them as Korean Veterans Memorial, the Viet Nam Vets Memorial and the almost completed and soon to be dedicated WWII memorial.
From Acadia National Park in Maine to the Redwoods of California. And from the states of Alaska and Hawaii to the islands of American Somoa and the US Virgin Islands there is so much to see and learn about. The Passport can actually help you plan these trips and make it even more interesting.
Passport Program
The Passport Program is actually the work of Eastern National, a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to giving information through educational products and services to national park visitors. All proceeds from the sale of passports and stamps are donated to the National Parks Service.
The Passport Program consists of four different categories. The Passport, the map Stamps and the Cancellations at all the National sites.
Passport
The full name of the passport is Passport To Your National Parks. It is about three inches by five inches in size and consists of about one hundred pages. It is bound in a blue soft jacket with gold printing and a scene of an eagle flying over an American flag. It is a wire bound book. It is quite handsome looking and has the feel of a real passport.
Inside the jacket cover is a place for your passport photo along with your name and address. Here you will also find a table of contents and an intro to the National Parks System.
Map and Guide
Next you will come upon the National Parks System Map and Guide. It is a pullout map that has it's own home in a plastic jacket that is bound to the book. This is also a good place to keep your park passes for entry to the parks.
On one side the map depicts the U.S. and other possessions where you can find our national parks and trails. The reverse side has information on all the parks. It states information of what sites offer; visitors center, ranger programs, camping, restaurants, fishing, swimming and the like. This chart also relays the names, addresses, phone numbers, and in some cases email addresses of the site. The map folds up nicely and easily slides back into it's home in the Passport.
Different Regions
Inside the book itself is another map of the U.S. This map divides the country into nine different colour coded regions.
The Passport itself is divided into these same colour coded regions. This makes reference to an area very quick and efficient.
Each region has places for stamps and cancellations. The region opens with some words about the areas highlights. Then listed are all the sites in the region. These are numbered and are referred to on the regional map showing geographic locations.
In the back of the book is a page dedicated to national trails. It is a directory of names, addresses, and information as to which trails the park service administers.
How to get yours
Found in the rear are some additional cancellation pages in turn followed by information on where and how to purchase these products.
Eastern National
470 Maryland Drive, Suite 1
Fort Washington, Pa 19034
1-877 Nat Park
1-877-628-7275
www.eparks.com
Stamps
The second part of the program deals with stamps. Every year a new set of stamps is issued. These may be purchased at any National Park or at the above locations. The stamps cost about five dollars a sheet. That's not much to keep things going.
Every sheet has eleven stamps. Nine are one each of the different regions. A different stamp is printed from each region every year. They are placed in the book dedicated to stamps in each region.
On the sheet you will notice one stamp that is larger than the others. This is designed to fit on a full page in the Passport. That oversized stamp is the highlighted park of the year. The park is picked if it is celebrating a special event or milestone. The very first in the series was the Statue of Liberty in 1986 when it celebrated it's 100th anniversary.
All the stamps are of full bright colour, fine detail, and have a paragraph describing the sites importance. You will find one other stamp. That is of the logo, in colour, of the eagle flying over the American flag.
Cancellation
The last part of the program is the most fun. That is when you take your Passport to the park or site and have it canceled. All National Parks, sites, and recreation areas have a place for this to be done. You will generally find the cancellation stamp in the visitors center or book store. Just ask. These are done every day and the rangers and naturalists encourage their use.
When you find the station simply take the cancellation stamp, ink it on the pad and then put the impression in your book, The cancellation stamp will have the name of the site you are at and the date you are there.
If the the regional stamp is available I usually cancel it. There have been some parks where the stamp has not been issued yet but they sell stickers of their park. I have taken the stickers, put them in my book, and then canceled the sticker. It looks great! Remember though, these stickers are high gloss. Be sure you wait till the ink is dry before closing the book. It works.
Oops!
Ok, so you are in the park and forgot your Passport? No worries. They have Oops, I forgot my passport sheets of paper. Simply cancel this and ad it to your book in the future. I have been on the road and visited a place without planning the stop. Instead of the Oops paper, what I do is get one of the guides they give out at all parks, find a place where the name or a picture may be, cancel it, take it home, trim it, and enter it in my Passport.
I have been to many parks in the past. This is well before the Passport Program was instituted. Sadly, I know there are many of these places I may never get back to. What I have done for my own pleasure and satisfaction is noted under the issued stamp the year and approximate date I visited. Purists may not agree with this but I think it looks good and fulfills my need to say I was there!
Not enough room
One thing I must mention is that the Passports do not have enough pages to hold all the stamps that were issued from 1986 till now and beyond. You must purchase additional books to do this. I have done just that but did something a bit different.
My kids though I was nuts. I spent a good part of an afternoon doing this. I purchased three books, took them apart. They are wire bound. I then put the proper regional pages together and rebound the book. The duplicate printed pages I just put to the side. I had to carefully cut the jacket of the book because it would no longer fit over the new book with the extra pages. I purchased three rings that open up and rebound the book with them. With a little ingenuity you can possibly come up with a better idea. Please share it. Pass it on.
Have fun !
I don't think there is any proper etiquette to all this canceling etc. Just have fun and learn to experience our parks. I have been to many and I have reviewed a few. I will continue to review places I have been to fairly recently and any new ones I go to in the future.
I would like to hear comments from anybody who has been involved in this program. Any input or new ideas are very welcome. I only wish my family and I had started doing this so much earlier. I hope this has been helpful to you.
A review of the Passport To Your National Parks book added to Epinions database 04/28/07
National Park reviews by popsrocks
.Acadia National Park My favorite National Park !!
.Biscayne National Park Great snorkeling
.Bryce Canyon National Park Home of the Hoo Doo
.Death Valley National Park Not so Hot
.Dry Tortugas National Park A unique Island Fort with snorkeling
Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site
.Everglades National Park A safari in Florida
Fire Island National Sea Shore
Home of Franklin D Roosevelt National Historic Site
Grand Canyon National park The North Rim
Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site, Pennsylvania
Kykuit, the Rockefeller Estate
Mount Rushmore, Four Great Men Theodore Roosevelt, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln
Pipestone National Monument
Sagamore Hill National Historic Site Teddy Roosevelt's Summer White House
Saratoga National Historic Site, New York
Shenandoah National Park
Valley Forge, Pennsylvania
Vanderbilt National Historic Site
Virgin Islands National Park WOW !!!! But don't tell anyone about it.
Wind Cave National Park
Zion National Park Amazing diversity!
DC area Monuments and places of interest.
The Washington Monument
Lincoln Memorial
Washington DC
The Korean War Veteran's Memorial
The Vietnam War Veteran's Memorial
The National World War II Memorial This is a new major memorial that will be dedicated May 2004
The National Art Gallery
The National Archives This has just reopened and it's bigger and better!!
National Parks PassPort
Collect National Parks
National Parks System
Our National Parks
National Geographic Guide to National Parks A great reference book
New York State So much to see
New York City All the facts
Rome, Italy
London, England
Jamaica
Recommended:
Yes
Best time to go: Anytime
Recommended for: Anybody
Review Topic: Overview
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