let's talk national parks....
 

I would love love love to so a series for national parks but I know the names themselves are trademarked... any help on how to skirt around it and maybe give names that aren't the actual national parks?

Also would love to know what the top 3 national park kits you'd like to see.. this would be a HUGE feat to take on so I don't know if it would be good to do all the national parks or sort of combine some of the similar ones? I've even thought of going back to my great outdoors series and meshing them with that?

Doing some of these kits is likely the only way I'll ever get to experience them myself.. but man what a dream it would be to visit them.. I really really want to go to arches and zion.. and also olympic national park. I wish travel was free! I also selfishly wish they weren't so popular by the influencer crowd :P

The summer before the pandemic my husband and I finally went to glacier national park in montana and did the going the sun road - SO pretty..

Hope you all don't mind me asking this here

I want to visit Pictured Rocks here in Michigan.



What about calling them something like:
Parks & Recs - Pretty Rocks....
example for Pictured Rocks

Many of the popular ones are on our wish list... Rocky Mountain was a favorite of ours. We typically go to the smaller national monuments, presidential libraries, etc... they aren't "nature" ones, but historic locations. Jake loves loves doing Junior Ranger so if that can be included in some part? Also military parks would be another tangent, maybe an add on?

Majestic Beauty? Preserving Nature?

edited to add... A kit on the desert type parks... another on more nature/mountains... and a third on historic monuments? Doh! Forgot about the marine type ones that we've been too... this is hard.. haha

I like a death valleykit

I like Preserving Nature too.....

I like preserving nature tooo..except lately these days are national parks doing that as well as they should be? This is probably too political haha..

I do really like parks & rec.. or maybe even parks & landmarks?

I'd say preserving nature for the name as that was the actual intent of the parks from the start.

I'd also do them in sections geographically; like southwest, pacific northwest, tropical, northern, eastern, California, Alaska etc.

I have pictures I have not yet scrapped from Voyageur and Isle Royale and will be going to Cuyahoga Valley next month and since I am from near Theodore Roosevelt I always have some from there. We hope to visit Olympic in the next couple of years. I love National Parks and hope to visit many more. Arches and Yellowstone are gorgeous.

yes ok this makes the most sense!

you MUST go to banff/jasper one year!

I so hope, too. I'd love to do the big Canadian cross-country train trip with a stop there. How amazing would that be? It would probably be more partial cause I could start in Winnipeg.

Well as you see from my posts we did 18 national parks and monuments last summer, 4 over spring break and planning a trip for summer to Washington's Mt Rainer, Olympic, North Cascades then Oregon Crater Lake and over to Montana for Glacier. I am sure we will find some monuments or others....

Your desert kit has been great for my Arizona and New Mexico photos as well as Texas.
A historical one for things like Mt Rushmore, DC monuments, St Louis Arch etc
Of course the regions someone mentioned. Hiking elements, camping, caves (we have been to 4 so far), cliff dwellings (Mesa Verde, bandelier, Pecos etc
Yellowstone is a huge one with lots of features.
Waterfalls, trees, bison, elk, moose, lizards, wild horses (animal life), Mountains, petroglyphs, sunsets in the park, Great Sand dunes (brownish sand), White Sands National Park (I need a kit for this one...still looking)
Arches, Canyonlands, Bryce have the red rocks
Black Canyon of the Gunnison has black rocks...lots of rocks! :)
Hot springs (Hot springs national park)

I can ramble on... :) I have lots of photos too...We have been to over 30 of the National Parks and countless monuments, national seashores, historic parks etc

I am soooo jealous!!

I haven't seen Everglades National Park mentioned. A whole different world than most national parks.

Having family that lives in Florida and loves to go hiking, most hiking kits just don't work because the landscape/foliage in Florida is so different. Even kits that are Florida focused don't always work because they focus on the theme parks and sightseeing attractions. There is so much more to Florida than that and the beaches.

I'd love to see you create this series Kristin. I know I tried to twist your arm after we did our road trip to Yellowstone, Grand Teton & the Badlands.



I haven't been to a ton, but we've been to a few.

I think if you did something along the lines of what Kimberly mentioned would be great.

To keep it simpler to start, you'd probably want something like
- Desert, rock formations, both reds & browns
- Lush & green w/ waterfalls, mountains trees, etc (big trees, for the red woods, sequoia)
- Glaciers, Mountains, lakes, cold, LOL!
- Tropical/Swamp, snakes, gaters, bugs, turtles, fish
-Maybe throw volcanos in w/ the tropical or have more add on smaller kits to go with the larger theme to really help or w/ the desert

I love the idea of one that could be used for the monuments as well.

What about America the Beautiful: Deserts
America the Beautiful: Mountains
America the Beautiful: Monuments/History
America the Beautiful: Tropical
America the Beautiful: Snow Covered

add-ons:
Volcanos
Hot Springs
Caves
Lakeshores

IDK, just some ideas.

I agree...Florida is so different. We went to a gator park and did some hiking on trails and with the foliage, gaters, water, swamp...very different

Vanessa really summed it up. :thumbup:

The land wasn't "preserved" for everyone. "Preserving nature" might be too insensitive for a kit series about the Parks.



If you're unfamiliar with what I'm talking about, below are some articles. The last one is from NPS.gov and just after the article is a link to a gallery of images showing segregated facilities (and managers) mentioned in the article. The oldest image is from 1939. The most recent: 1950.



This is the type of stuff they didn't teach me in school, and I wish they had. Maybe y'all learned about it, but I didn't, and I don't want to speak for anyone except myself. Perhaps, if we had learned about this when we were younger, then this mess could have been sorted out already. Then we could be happily and respectfully enjoying state/national parks and monuments without this hanging over us. Thankfully there are people working on solving this, as well as working to rename racist parks/monuments/cities/etc.



Mt Rushmore PBS article (about the broken treaty)
Who should run the US National Parks?
Looking back on Violent Displacement
National Park Service article: "Segregation and Desegregation at Shenandoah National Park"

I 1000% do not want to do anything insensitive and I think you are right. I will read these closer tomorrow but I do agree that it likely is not the way to go in naming because of this.

I like this idea, especially the Monuments/History part. Here on the East Coast, most of our national parks are battlefields and other historic sites. The few we have that are more strictly parks tend to be a lot smaller than the ones in the West, places like Great Falls(a park with a river and waterfall) where you might spend an afternoon but not a whole vacation. The famous ones further west sound amazing and I'd love to go one day, but I don't see it happening any time soon. I could see DH and I driving to them after we retire.

Maybe something by type of national park rather than specific names or regions, because we don't all live in North America but we do have national parks :)

So, as others have mentioned - mountains, glacial, deserts, coastal, grasslands, wetlands, tropical, rainforests, historic monuments, etc.

You could include a blank 'national park' type sign so people can add the name of whatever park they want to.

I think you should name them based on these travel posters.

https://mymodernmet.com/wp/wp-conten...er-share-1.jpg

This one is my favorite:
https://mymodernmet.com/wp/wp-conten...er-share-9.jpg

I think that, other than the national library system, our national parks are the thing the US government does best.

We visited seven different national parks in 2018 (and we got in free to all of them thanks to our fourth grader!), and I was so impressed with them, even the small parks.

Having been to a lot of national parks, I think this is the best way to go. There's such a diversity in our parks (and very complicated history of the parks themselves) that breaking it down into parts would be best.

To the add-on suggestions, I would also suggest a military/fort/battle theme.

Personally, I would love to see a Monuments/History kit first as many designers focus on the nature aspect of the parks rather than the history aspect. For example, we went to Gettysburg a few years ago and I've never scrapped the photos because I haven't found a good military history kit. Same with places like Valley Forge. We may not like to think about war but it's a big part of history.

We've also been to one of the most remote National Parks (Dry Tortugas National Park) and while it has a lot of nature it's also a decommissioned fort so I would need a military kit to scrap it.

yea we have national parks up here as well in canada so I think i'd like to make it as universal as I can.


I will be 1000000% honest and say I am likely NOT the best designer to do one with more of the monuments/historical and that sort of thing because I'm not a designer who can really do those sorts of things and my knowledge of them all is really lacking.. I wouldn't even know where to begin. Perhaps another designer could tackle kits with more of those details

I love to design based on landscapes/regions moreso than getting too specific? Hopefully I can do something that works though? :o

Love all these ideas! I've been to quite a few varied National Parks and would love to get to more! To include more countries - maybe an overarching theme like Nature's Treasures or National Treasures? I also love those snarky posters Kellie posted.

What if you called it This Land: Mountains
This Land: History/Monuments
This Land: Battlefields
This Land: Topical

Etc.

Keeps it broad.

edit, just realized I listed mountains twice. LOL!

Florida's easy for me, I was born and raised there. LOL! I lived up north and my grandparents lived 4 miles from the entrance to the Everglades National Park on the gulf side. We had a little of everything.

If you do something for Florida, be sure it include the different types of palm trees. We didn't have any that had coconuts where I grew up. :)

I love this idea! We're big NP people too- and it's so true that they are all very similar & different depending on the regions! Monuments would be great for Mt Rushmore, Devils Tower, Statue of Liberty (or any statues?) etc etc

I love this!! I agree with what everyone has said so far. I'm so excited to see what these kits turn out like.
The top 3 for me would be Grand Canyon Nat'l Park, Jasper National Park & Yellowstone. Yay for National park theme kits.......
definitely following this thread.
I agree that not all parks are in the US, my two favorite parks hands down are in Alberta Canada. I love the idea of the kit featuring elements related to the nature of the park like waterfalls, glaciers, the native flora & fauna that reside there etc.
Kristin I think this is right up your alley!

Me too! Banfff & Waterton Lakes right? ;) ;)

Could you please add a word sticker for Bark ranger or something along that line… if not copyright… my moms service dog has gotten his Bark badge along with Jake’s Junior ranger at select national parks. :)

And please add Passport and stamps if it’s not copyrighted, I always collect stamps on my Passport whenever we visit national parks!

LOVE this idea!!! As far as copyright names, you could just include generic signs using the shape of the National park signs, or leave the signs blank for people to add in their own name of the park.

I would start with ones from different "zones" to give more variety. Maybe Grand Canyon (desert, dry, cacti, red rocks). Smoky Mountains, our favorite (bears, greenery, waterfalls, hiking, history). Then one more West Coast (mountains, lakes, elk, deer, moose, wolves, more greys, browns and greens or ocean). That way it gives a starting point of different looks to the parks. Then moving forward you can add others after seeing how well they sell!

Would you be able to include word tabs of the names without the National Park part of the name? Smoky Mountains, Yosemite, Yellowstone? Or are those themselves copyright also?

Can't wait to see what you come up with!!!

LOL, since I live in the desert, I love the first one. :D