It's the 100 year anniversary of the National Park Service and we love our National Parks. I think that they are the best thing that the government spends my tax dollars on. I love to have keepsakes of my visits and do this with photos but I also have one other thing I manage to get to remind me of my travels. National Park Passport Stamps (wiki page)
These are ink stamps that can be obtained for free at most of the National Park Visitors Centers. Usually in the bookstore. They sell a passport book for $10.00 and upgraded books for $60.00. Generally they even provide some paper slips for those of us who have forgotten our books or just stumble on to a park on the spur of the moment.
I have the $10.00 book though if I was going to do it again, I would not even buy the official book and get a small unlined Moleskin book and stamp away on those pages. Add my thoughts and notes along with the stamps and be very happy.
The excitement for these stamps has turned some vacations into a scavenger hunt of sorts with the call of "stamps, stamps, stamps" whenever we get to a location (pretty sad for 20 and 50 year old people). We are not alone since we see lots of others participating. and just as excited.
The other thing we have noticed is some places that are not National Parks have unofficial passport stamps as well. We have been collecting them as well. Again it is all about the memories.
They have expanded this program and you can now buy collectors stamps (stickers). I am not really into that but it is popular as well.
So next time you are in a National Park, get the stamp. Here is a list of the locations where they can be found. (And yes we have planned trips around the location of the stamps.)
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