National Geographic Guide to the National Parks of the United States, 5th Ed. (National Geographic Guide to the National Parks of the United States) | 
| Author: National Geographic Society
Publisher: National Geographic
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
Buy New: $14.03
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Avg. Customer Rating:  20 reviews
Sales Rank: 2903
Media: Paperback
Edition: 5
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 480
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.2 x 0.9
ISBN: 0792253221
Dewey Decimal Number: 917.304931
EAN: 9780792253228
ASIN: 0792253221
Publication Date: February 21, 2006
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Condition: Outstanding condition! Brand New!! Clean, tight, and crisp!!
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Product Description
Featuring 80 all new maps and more than 350 photos, this guide is the most comprehensive, up-to-the-minute book of its kind on the market today. A perennial favorite with almost a million copies sold in previous editions, it reflects National Geographic's century-long association with America's national parks system and its peerless reputation for travel expertise and cartographic excellence.
The book opens with an essay by Yellowstone authority Paul Schullery, and an introduction to the guide with a locator map showing all 58 of these American treasures (including the newest, South Carolina's Congree National Park). Next, the parks are presented alphabetically region-by-region, with individual maps and geographical profiles of each. These colorfully illustrated descriptions offer tours tailored to the time available, whether it's an hour or a week, and tell visitors the best spots to enjoy hikes, spectacular vistas, wildlife and more. Itineraries and directions, special activities and advisories, and suggestions of hotels and campgrounds are provided, along with scores of ideas for excursions to nearby wildlife refuges, monuments, and other nature areas of exceptional interest—140 in all.
From planning a trip to making the most of every minute, here's all the information anyone could want on the scenic national parks plus invaluable recommendations and advice from the National Geographic writers who know them well.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 15 more reviews...
 Pretty good guide May 11, 2008
This book includes all the national parks in the United States (as of mid-2008). Note that there are a few non-traditional parks in the system such as Hot Springs, which nonetheless get the same treatment. It even has the national parks in US territories (i.e., outside the 50 states), although the park for American Samoa barely gets two pages.
All in all, the guide is pretty good at giving you overviews of each park, with maps and information on each. It tells you usually what the main things to do in the park are and what you can do in a day or more. It is not a substitute for making your own plans, though, so do not rely on it completely. Someone suggested that web information is lacking, which is true, but it might be better to rely on the parks' web sites for up-to-date web information anyway.
There are also excursions listed for many, but not all, parks. This makes sense because some NPs are close enough to each other that you'd be listing the same excursions. I would note that the distance to excursions varies greatly. I also wish they weren't so skewed in favor of national forests and wildlife refuges (not much emphasis on state parks), but these are nice to have.
I would finally note that sites such as national lakeshores, seashores, preserves and monuments that would be of interest to readers of this book are not covered as it only covers national parks. Some of these are covered in a one-paragraph excursion description, but because this is a book on the parks that is all they get. My point is that there are many places in the US designated as other than national park that are worth visits, and to find out more about those you'll have to look elsewhere.
 Compact yet comprehensive October 24, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Totally awesome guide that rolls through the U.S. geologic areas and the parks occupied within. Nice 5-10 page look at each park, great photos, plenty of details regarding attractions, square miles, trails, fees, etc.
Also includes historical details, geologic history, animals and habitat, tips on high traffic vs. low traffic tourist spots, etc. Wonderful book!
Really enjoyed this book August 9, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Good book of national parks. Good practical information for the short term visitor (how many people have the vacation time to spend 2 weeks anywhere? not many i think) which is welcome to see. I'd recommend this book if you'd like to get a feel for where you'd like to go, what you might see when you're there and where you might stay. Once you've figured that out you might do well looking elsewhere for some detailed information, but for the casual visitor the basic information (10 - 20 pages per park) is great. I'd recommend this book if you're either someone who's like to visit a few parks or someone who's trying to work out which park to go, or someone who'd just like to flick through to see if there's something you hadn't considered before.
Buena ayuda July 15, 2007
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Es una guia fantastica, para recorrer los parques nacionales de EEUU y disfrutar al maximo lo que ofrecen.
National Geographic Guide to the National Parks May 14, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Very informative, very useful, good size for carrying it around,
great book.
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