My goal, which is more of a lifetime goal than a short term goal, is to visit all 58 U.S. National Parks, and photograph them. Because I am generally travelling on a tight budget, (working for an airline takes care of the transportation costs) I generally go on trips of one day to two days. In July 2012, in order to maximize the opportunity of travelling to Colorado, I decided to make a four day trip of it, my longest for the sole purpose of photographing national parks. I visited Rocky Mountain, Arches and Canyonlands. Initially my plan was to fly to Alaska, visit Denali, fly to Salt Lake City, via Long Beach, CA, and visit Arches, Canyonlands, and Capital Reef, then return home to New York City. Logistics (unable to get a seat on the outbound flight to LGB to make the ANC connection) forced me to re-plan, and do Colorado/Utah. I had hoped to hit Capital Reef in Utah, but the distance and time required made that impractical as my trip began and ended at DEN. Additionally, I had then hoped to visit Black Canyon of the Gunnison and Great Sand Dunes, but that too required more time than I had and considerable cost increases in fuel, lodgings, and a car rental extension.

Interspersed with the fulfillment of this goal is to return to many of the parks I have previously visited. This year, I revisited Death Valley, Sequoia, King's Canyon, and Yosemite, in addition to the first-visits to Rocky Mountains, Canyonlands and Arches. Because my first-visits are brief, relative to the time really needed to fully maximize visits to each of these places, I would like to return to many of the parks to apply what I learned during my first visits, and to visit areas of the park, and do certain activities that I had been unable to do the first time around (visiting Racetrack at DV, interior at Everglades, boat rental to fully appreciate Biscayne and doing some hiking and fly fishing at Yosemite for instance).

This autumn, I plan to visit Great Smoky Mountains, and Shenandoah on weekends (as I've relocated to Greensboro, NC), and perhaps make a jump over to Hot Springs and/or Mammoth Cave (Arkansas and Kentucky, resp.) on a long weekend, which would leave Acadia as the last eastern park I have yet visited.

I have a backlog of photos that I still need to process, and hope to squeeze a few in, now and then, over the next several months. Most of these are from trips taken over the past two years, aside from the small handful I've initially processed and posted on Flickr.

My parks visited list:

Yosemite, King's Canyon; Sequoia; Death Valley; Grand Canyon; Petrified Forest; Saguaro; Bryce Canyon; Zion; Arches; Canyonlands; Yellowstone; Rocky Mountains; Mesa Verde; Cuyahoga Valley; Everglades; Dry Tortugas; Biscayne; Congaree.

Immediate Future:

Shenandoah,; Great Smoky Mountains; Hot Springs; Mammoth Cave.

Near Future (6 mo. to 2.5 years): Acadia; Virgin Islands; Joshua Tree; Channel Islands; Lassen Volcanic; Redwoods; Crater Lake; Olympic; Mt. Rainier; North Cascades; Denali; Great Basin.

Longer Term (2.5 to 5 years): Glacier; Black Canyon of the Gunnison; Capital Reef; Wind Cave; Great Sand Dunes; Guadaloupe Mountains; Big Bend; Carlsbad Cavern; Voyageurs; Isle Royale; Roosevelt; Badlands; Hawaiian parks.

Very long term: American Samoa; 7 remaining Alaska parks