There has been huge interest in national park vacations since the pandemic. On the one hand, this is great – we like to see people getting into nature and enjoying our national parks.
On the other hand, national parks are BUSY. With a population in the United States of over 334 million people, a slightly uptick in visitation can have huge effects. And that doesn’t count foreign visitors!
Of course, we at Zephyr Adventures often visit popular locations around the world. Figuring out when, where, and how to visit these places to maximize your experience is what we do. And we can do that with National Parks too.
Alumni Survey of National Park Vacations
So we recently conducted a survey of our alumni asking whether they were interested in us adding more national park vacations and, if so, which ones. The result? 50% of respondents told us they are very interested in having us offer more national park vacations and 95% are either somewhat or very interested. Here are the top parks of interest to you out of the 14 we included in the survey:
- Acadia
- Denali
- Glacier
- Grand Canyon & Zion
- Grand Teton
- Mount Rainier
- Redwoods
- Yellowstone
In 2024 we plan to offer six different tours in national parks and are working on that now. However, the interesting thing about this list is we are already offering trips to two of these locations this year. We have recently revamped our July 16 – 19 Best of Yellowstone Hiking Adventure to be as much about the hiking as it is about the animal viewing and geothermal features – the three make Yellowstone the most amazing park in the world. And from August 6 – 10 we are running our Glacier National Park Hiking Adventure, guided by our recently-retired and much-beloved guide Kris Keys. (Note we also have a Banff Multisport Adventure running from September 21 – 25, which was not included in our survey since it is in Canada.)
Look for a few new adventures to be announced by September 1st for 2024!
Hi Allan – thanks for the updates of the National Parks’ survey. Will the Tetons include hiking the Teton Crescent Trail? Any skating trips for 2024 🤞🤞🤞
Hi Cindy. For Grand Teton, we are changing the tour from our old Jackson Multisport to a new tour focused more on the Grand Tetons. I am not yet sure which trails and activities will be included but the Teton Crescent Trail is a 40-mile backpacking trip … and although it sounds amazing I am not sure our travelers would be up for that. 🙂
Yes, we will definitely have one and possibly two skating trips next year. I am heading to do the research on one of them the first week in April.
Allan
Hi Allan – thanks for the additional feedback … any hints where the 2024 skating trip(s) may be? 😊 Am I one of a few remaining Zephyr skaters 😉?
On a personal note, I have found the love of my life & he lives in Maryland! (He’s a cyclist 👍🏻) Have you ever skated the Indian Head Rail Trail (13 miles long)? It’s been recently repaved & my skates are loving it 🥰
Another thought … could one of the Zephyr skating trips be tied into Duluth, Minnesota’s North Shore In-line Marathon in 2024?
Wishing you well
Cindy,
As you know, we have a new marketing person. Stephanie and I believe there is still a market for skating tours and we are working to add new skating tours and promote them more. First step is to cooperate with the North Shore Inline Marathon.
Yes, we are considering a tour in Minnesota tied to the marathon. It is not super easy. Minnesota has awesome paths but they are often far apart from each other.
I want to hold back on mentioning any new locations in case they don’t work out.
Congrats on finding the love of your life! That makes for a long, long-distance relationship, doesn’t it? I have not skated that path but it sounds great.
Allan
Are you going to do any family trips to National Parks beside Yellowstone?
Yes. We are working on that. One problem is family trips often need to be in the summers when parks are crowded but we have to have two family trips next year.
Allan