America's National Parks for Dummies, Second Edition

Rating:
Summary: A thorough and descriptive guide that is worth every penny!
Review: This book is a great guide for visiting the most popular national parks in the United States. It provides extensive information on parks such as Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Great Smoky Mountains, Olympic, Yosemite and Zion. Repanshek details the pros and cons of each park with candor with helpful comments about what to expect from the weather, wildlife and crowds.

Each chapter focuses on a different park. Within each chapter, he covers such topics as: geology, attractions, directions, fees, safety precautions, hikes, ranger programs, lodging, dining options, and other essentials such as post offices, lost and founds, etc. He writes in the first person, and often makes amusing commentaries about his own experiences and expectations. He does a thorough job covering each park - one can sense from reading that not only has he personally visited these places, but that he has returned to each a number of times and writes with the experience that is so valuable to those on a limited time schedule. He acknowledges that while each park could be a vacation of its own, many people can only spend a day or two at each place. To accomodate such travelers, he includes a section in each chapter on what to do if you only have one day to explore the park. This can be an incredibly useful tool if you are on a tight time schedule.

Frequently in travel guides, one gets the sense that the author is either an avid outdoorsman bent on roughing it, or a once-a-year vacationer who would rather die than sleep in a tent. Not so here - Repanshek clearly addresses both groups. He details all the available campsites in a park, along with his opinions on how clean/quiet/developed each site is; but also lists hotels and motels in the surrounding areas, ranging from the cheapest to the swankiest of lodgings. Same goes for the dining options. I personally appreciated this a great deal - my trip was primarily a camping excursion, but every once in a while we decided to splurge on decent hotels and were grateful for his frankness in describing what we could expect for our money.

My only gripe with this book is that it only covers 15 parks. Of course, due to its level of detail, it would be difficult to cover more. My hope is that Kurt Repanshek considers putting together two or more separate guides, for the Eastern and Western National Parks. He has a great eye for detail and leaves no stones unturned in his comprehensive tour of the American parks. I highly recommend this guide!