Home ›

Who are the National Park Travelers?

A list of the folks who have created profiles on the website. If you'd like to add yourself to this list, create an account, and after you've logged in, you can edit your biography.

  • Wanda Zuchowski...

    Wanda Zuchowski-Schick was raised and still resides in Rossford, in Northwest, Ohio, the ninth of fifteen children. She devotes her full attention to her career in the fine arts, and becoming recognized as a painter of the National Parks. She has exhibited her paintings and prints, primarily, throughout the states of Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan. She has exhibited at the Ohio Watercolor Society numerous times and has been an exhibitor in their prestigious Ohio Watercolor Traveling Exhibit . She has been a participant and has won numerous awards at the Toledo Federation of Art Societies Annual Exhibit held at the Toledo Museum of Art.
    In 1997 she was awarded an Artist-in-Residency at Isle Royale National Park. As a guest of the park service she spent 16 days in isolated wilderness pursuing her art. In 2002 she was awarded another Artist-in-Residency at Voyageurs National Park. Again for two weeks she worked in the wilderness. She spent a week in 2004, painting, at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. Every October, she travels to Yellowstone National Park to experience the majesty of the park.
    Her most recent trip to Isle Royale National Park was in the summer of 2010.
    Her paintings are realistic in style. She uses transparent watercoloror or oil emulsion to create her images. Due to time constrictions, she works from photographs she takes while pursuing her subject matter.
    She tries, through her paintings, to share her view of the unspoiled expanse of land that words cannot describe. Being alone out in the vast expanse of our National Parks humbles her and creates an inner peace. Her paintings are very personal. She wants only to express her impression of the wildness and beauty of the land. At times that beauty may be a simple flower.
    wandaswatercolors.com

    ebay store; Wanda’s Watercolors

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  • Eldonedw

    I live in Santa Barbara, California. I am very interested in the national parks. I studied geology of national parks while in college. My wife and I have visited many of the national parks.

  • Seth Shteir

    Seth Shteir works as California Desert Field Representative for the National Parks Conservation Association in Joshua Tree, California.

  • Neal Desai

    Neal is the Pacific Region Associate Director for the National Parks Conservation Association.

  • jeffreymcohen

    To say that I am a “National Park Enthusiast” would be an understatement. I have been visiting U.S. National Parks for years, hold an annual membership card, participate in the passport stamp program, and research National Park units in my free time. As a Human Resources Manager with a popular cruise line, part of my job is to publish a monthly newsletter featuring events both on the ship and in our ports-of-call. I have written several articles about different National Parks in Alaska for this newsletter. I am also a professional writer. I am currently working on my Masters in Public Policy and Public Affairs.

    Traveling is in my blood. I live a very blessed and fortunate life. During my travels, I have visited over 50 countries on five continents.

    Also, visit my blog at http://jeffreymcohen.blogspot.com/

  • robschonk

    Retired Environmental Engineer.

    Living his dream in Avon, NC, on the beautiful Outer Banks.

  • jane schneider


    I am a writer, curious about the world around me. I grew up with open lands I could explore as a kid and that helped shape my love of the outdoors. My visits to the national parks help me reconnect with myself and discover anew the natural world. I worked as an archaeologist before becoming a journalist, and still find the study of history and culture fascinating. Now, I edit a parenting magazine and often write about the parks as family travel destinations. I do so because I believe if we, as parents, can expose our children to the wonders of nature, we will ensure the continued conservation of these magical places.

  • tamili
  • sandramclaren0
  • tseselja
  • Beth Pratt

    As a young girl, I would gaze with longing at photo books of our National Parks and think, someday, someday… As an adult I realized my childhood dream, and have dedicated both my professional and personal endeavors to being a steward of our public lands. For over twenty years, I have worked in environmental leadership roles and in two of the largest national parks—Yosemite and Yellowstone. I currently oversee sustainability programs in Yellowstone and work to educate the park visitors about climate change in our national parks.

    My articles have been published in Yellowstone Discovery, Yosemite, Yosemite Nature Notes, The Harbinger, online for the Sierra Club, and in Biocycle. I have also appeared on the National Geographic Travel channel, and my novel, The Idea of Forever, was released in 2002. Currently I author two websites www.bethpratt.com (focused on natural history and wilderness) and www.greeningyellowstone.org (dedicated to raising awareness about climate change and sustainability), and write a column for Examiner.com

    My love of public lands has led me to explore the wilderness throughout the United States, hike the John Muir Trail, and wander extensively through the backcountry of Yosemite and Yellowstone. For me, the conservationist Enos Mills perfectly describes why I cherish our National Parks: “Within National Parks is room -- glorious room -- room in which to find ourselves, in which to think and hope, to dream and plan, to rest and resolve”

    Originally a native of Massachusetts, I currently live in Yellowstone National Park with my two dogs and two cats (along with the wolves, bears, bison, and elk that frequent my home).

  • Rick B.

    Rick B. is a 60+ year old nurse, rapidly approaching the embrace of retirement. His wife is a museum curator for the NPS. They currently live in the Pacific Northwest. He has enjoyed the parks since childhood, and is now particularly enjoying having more means and opportunity to visit or revisit parks of all sorts. He makes no apologies for pursuing NPS Passport stamps with childish delight.

  • Mary Delaney Krugman

    Mary Delaney Krugman is President and Principal Historic Preservation Specialist of Mary Delaney Krugman Associates, Inc. (MDKA), which was founded in 1995 and is based in Montclair, NJ. She specializes in architectural history; historical research; assistance with regulatory compliance, NHPA Section 106 and DOTA 4f; design consultations for compliance with U.S. Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Treatment of Historic Properties; nominations to the National Register of Historic Places; Historic American Building Survey (HABS) and Historic American Engineering Record documentation; preservation planning. Bridge and dam rehabilitation a sub-specialty.

    During the summer of 2010, Ms. Krugman completed a 5-week study tour of the Western National Parks, tracing the much of the route of the Park-to-Park Highway Dedication Tour of 1920. The focus of her attention became the history and engineering of the roads through the terrain of the national parks. She is currently working on a research paper on this topic.

  • Charmaine L
  • PBrueck

    2nd Generation NPS spending most of his youth within Zion National Park. Started his own career at Pt. Reyes National Seashore in 1972 as a law enforcement ranger and retiring as the Deputy Superintendent of the Southeast Utah Group in 2005. During his career he served as Superintendent of several parks, Re-engineering Coordinator for the National Park Service and as the Deputy Regional Director of the Mid-Atlantic Region in Philadelphia.

  • Yosemite Blog

  • Mary McDonald
  • offcamber1
  • JJ

    I recall visiting Yellowstone National Park sixty years ago as a young child and I still have a small brass figure of an elk I purchased at the time. As we raised our children we planned nearly every vacation around visiting a national park or two. Today I’m retired and continue to visit our parks. I’ve now been to nearly all 392 parks and historic sites. My most recent was a week long trip in late June, 2010, to Brooks Camp in Katmai National Park.

  • Cleanlady

    I am a "25 and holding" blue collar worker from Tennessee. I am passionate about hiking and being outdoors! My favorite places to go are the Smokies and Cherokee National Forest. I am returning to hiking after being away from it for several years. I have a lot of catching up to do!!!

  • Daryl L. Hunter

    When I was a wander lusting young man I would often find myself in beautiful places, so I bought a camera so I could document my wanderlust.

    1n 1987 I packed up my Toyo 4X5 view camera, Pentex 6X7 medium format camera, and my 35-millimeter cameras and headed to Jackson Hole Wyoming, one of the best places on earth to be an outdoor photographer.

    Jackson Hole is full of active lifestyle types, fly-fishing, hunting, whitewater sports, horseback riding, etc. I became a freelance guide as well, fly-fishing, snowmobile, park tour guiding, and horseback wrangling my way to beautiful pictures all over the area and throughout the spectrum of activities in the area.

    Jackson Hole abuts Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park an embarrassment of riches for wildlife and scenic photography.

    My freelance photography bifurcated to include graphic design work, which opened the door to web publishing requiring that I learned to write. I publish the Greater Yellowstone Resource Guide.

    My photographs (http://www.daryl-hunter.com) have been published by National Geographic, Outside Magazine, Snow Country, Outdoor life, Esquire Sports, West Coast Board Sailor, Warren Miller Productions, U.S.A. Today, San Francisco Magazine, Fly-fisherman, Mother Jones, Toyota, International Wolf and Beet - a fishing magazine and Fit For Fun a German sports Magazine.

    I am proficient with small, medium, large format photography. As a stock photographer my photos have been used in hundreds of brochures, rack cards, newspapers, and websites promoting the Greater Yellowstone area and beyond. Today I shoot exclusively with my Canon EOS D5 Mark ll, its 21-megapixel censor can produce Tiff files of 60 megabytes, a size that can reproduce very large prints, or provide the opportunity for cropping tight and still having plenty of resolution to work with.

    I have been working with Photoshop extensively since 1995 and am proficient with photo manipulation and montage. Today my photo management system is Aperture by Apple; it is superb at color correction with the added benefit of photo database management.

    Education: Independent study of photography and digital design:

    Photography has more pay offs than monetary. It drives us to search out pretty places or to dissect our surroundings to find it where we are. It makes us seek out beautiful things even in adverse conditions. Wherever we go we are looking for a beautiful rectangle we can isolate out of the chaos of life, when you are always seeking beauty, you will find more than your share - that is rich.

    I publish The Greater Yellowstone Resource Guide (http://www.greater-yellowstone.com) and The Hole Picture (http://www.the-hole-picture.com) is my Photo Portfolio.

  • Snowbird02

    When I was growing up on the East Coast in the 1950s, I was fortunate enough to have parents who wanted to show their children that something existed other than the hills and shores of New England. When I was 12, my father, a Congregational minister, swapped pulpits for the summer with a colleague whose church was in Great Falls, Montana. For five weeks, we traveled around the northern Rockies, taking in one national park after another -- Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Glacier, and Badlands to name a few, not to mention national monuments, national forests, and several Canadian national parks. In a subsequent trip west we visited Colorado and enjoyed Rocky Mountain and Mesa Verde national parks there.

    My memories of these trips are quite strong, and have led me to visit more than fifteen additional national parks all over the western U.S. since my wife and I moved to California in the late 1970s, putting my current total of National Park-designated NPS units visited (and revisited) at 27. In my retirement I've done significant hikes in Channel Islands, Grand Canyon, Mt. Rainier, Yosemite, Kings Canyon, and Sequoia national parks. Point Reyes is practically in my back yard, so I'm there frequently for day hikes and overnights. And I still have all the Southeast, Hawaiian, and Alaskan national parks to look forward to.

  • Anne

    I live in the Black Hills of South Dakota and enjoy the great outdoors, especially our National Parks. Exploring, hiking, horseback riding, fly fishing and camping are a few of my favorite things to while being outside. Yellowstone National Park is my favorite National Park!

  • vballkel

    I love visiting all of the beautiful places in this country. No two places are a like. It's great to camping and hiking with my family and friends.
    One of my favorite National Parks is
    Arches National Park. I'm grateful for the National Park system and hope more get to visit them and see all of the beauty this country has to offer.

  • Marcos

    My name is Karl Kristiansen. I was born in Connecticut. I spent most of my childhood in Stonington, a small, seaside town on the Connecticut-Rhode Island border. My father was a commercial fisherman and since he was from Norway, life on the sea was a natural for him. My mother was a housewife. We were the typical '50's family. Much of my childhood was spent around the docks and fishing boats of Stonington. In 1954, my father and a few of the other fishermen decided to try their luck at shrimping in Brownsville, Texas. After a few months, and very little success, we returned to Stonington. Most of the Stonington boats were selling their catches in New Bedford, MA, so it was no surprise that in 1969, we packed up and moved. Today I work with several projects usability (otimização de sites, desentupidora, lampadas, acompanhantes, transportadora, relogio de ponto, ortodontista) and am also a profound lover of nature and I try whenever I can, in spare moments, being in an environment surrounded by mountains, trees so I can inspire me and draw strength to continue with my projects .

  • the Bat

    Banker by day, biology student by night. Was recycling before it was cool. Participated in Audubon bird counts. Hike sections of the Appalachian Trail. Explore NWFs on weekends. Camp in the Smokies and Shenandoah whenever possible. Have volunteered in parks since 1985. Pulled trash out of streams, oil off of ducks, and people out of harm's way in the woods. Currently pulling noxious weeds and other invasives on Saturdays at my local NP.

  • corv78

    First visiting our National Parks in 1993, Pat always desires to go back and enjoy nature in different ways! First, as a driving trip, then slowly branching out to hiking into the back country, he appreciates having the opportunity to enjoy parks and find new and exciting places within them to explore!

    His other interests include flying single-engine aircraft, operating ham radio, collecting antique arms and target shooting.

  • MVMA_Laurel

    Executive Director of the educational nonprofit Mesa Verde Museum Association (MVMA) since the fall of 2008. A lover of public lands and especially national parks, I moved to the Four Corners after an 8-year stint as the Membership and Development Director for the Yosemite Association--relocating from one spectacularly beautiful place to another!

    MVMA operates bookstores in Mesa Verde National Park's Far View Visitor Center and Chapin Mesa Archeological Museum, as well as a store in the Colorado Welcome Center in downtown Cortez, Colorado. We publish a variety of books and trail guides, and we stock a comprehensive array of educational books, maps, posters, games, and toys that help visitors of all ages better understand and connect with the park's remarkable cultural and natural resources. We operate the Mesa Verde Institute, offering free lectures and reasonably-priced hikes and workshops in partnership with the National Park Service. For those seeking an enduring connection to Mesa Verde, we offer a membership program as well.

    Learn more about MVMA at www.mesaverde.org or by calling 800-305-6053.

  • ladywalker1967
  • vkelly

    I'm a student at Southern Illinois University enrolled in the Outdoor Recreation & Park Mgt curriculum. I worked with an agency last summer in the Interpretation dept, and I just got hired on by USFWS at a local NWR. I love trees and wildlife of all kinds. Snakes are a personal favorite... could talk (educate) all day about them :) I'm interested in hiking, interpretation, environmental education, basically anything to expand my knowledge and help to educate others willing to listen.