National GeographicNational Geographic Secrets of the National Parks, 2nd Edition: The Experts' Guide to the Best Experiences Beyond the Tourist Trail

Super informative and great guide book for national parks

I used the 1st edition on a western US park trip. I used 3 different books and picked what I wanted from all 3. There is some overlap but this one definitely has some unique information. Had to repurchase after losing the old one in a fire but looking forward to using this to plan my next trip.

great book!

This shouldn't be a surprise, but although this book does help you get past the handful of top tourist traps, the secrets are mostly not that secret. Also, the book only gives the most popular parks (about half of the total number) a full treatment. These parks get a few pages each, with a map, photos, and multiple destinations ("secrets") described. The less-visited parks get just half a page each. These mini-descriptions might entice you to go, but they have nothing that you wouldn't find on the NPS website.The good news is that this book is a useful handheld guide for trip planning. If you're on a multi-week cross-country road trip and want something to read after dinner and refine your plans for the next few days, this book is for you. It's also a nice overview of the park system that you can read idly at home. But if you want the real secrets, they won't be this easy to come by!

We have another book on the National parks that we also love, but it is heavy. We needed something that was lightweight and easy to carry in our backpacks on the plane, car, and hikes. This was perfect. It give details by park by region, and breaks it down to the different sections in the park. It even goes further to tell you that if you don't have a lot of time, here is what not to miss and what you can skip. Saves a lot of time if you are short on time. It also show detailed maps of each park in that section so you don't have to keep flipping back and forth to another section of the book where the maps are. Great book!

I found this to be useful.

Great information

Great book for planning travels; keep it on the shelf for winter reading then go explore!