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Passport to Your National Parks
The first time I discovered the Passport To Your National Parks, I was on my honeymoon in Zion National Park. I hadn’t yet taken a trip out of the country, and I longed to put stamps in the passport I received earlier that year. Little did I know, there is a special “passport” book for those who trek through the United States visiting National Parks, Historical Sites, Recreational Areas, and Battlefields.
The passport book was introduced in 1986 by Eastern National, a nonprofit organization that supports America’s national parks, giving park lovers a tool to log their visits to different national historic areas.
Each National Park and Historical Site has a stamping station housed inside its visitor’s center. The stamping station offers two types of passport books for purchase: a small, pocket-sized book and a larger, collector’s edition. Proceeds from your purchase are donated directly to the National Parks Service to help preserve and protect America’s lands.
Both versions of the passport book have a page for each national site in the U.S. but the difference between the two is that the collector’s edition is larger and includes additional historical, contextual, and factual information about each site. These books have spaces for passport stickers, which you can order and place in the book to represent each site. These stickers show an image of the site, the name, and a description. There is also a spot for the site cancellation stamp, which shows the date you were there, so you can keep track of when you visited!
The collector’s edition has space for the National Site anniversary stamps. These stamps are larger and start with the year 1986, going all the way to 2021, with four taking up a single page. These stamps illustrate a different historic site each year, based on the anniversary of that specific site. For example, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in Arizona hosts a 2002 anniversary stamp because it celebrated its 30th anniversary of being inducted into the National Parks Service (NPS) in 2002.
If you love traveling to National Parks, but wish there was a passport book to keep track of your visits, definitely consider getting your own personal Passport To Your National Parks book. I now have a copy of both versions, and I can’t wait to get my next stamp!
Do you have a National Parks passport book or have we inspired you to get your own? Do you have a different way of tracking your visits? Tell us about it below!! Also, don’t forget to Pin!
