Since we’ve had a considerable amount of snow here in New England over the past two weeks, we’ve been thinking about our next outdoor adventure – and for us that means heading to a National Park if possible since they contain so many beautiful sights to see.
 
Coincidentally, this week we were contacted by Liam, from loveholidays.com, a travel agency in the UK, about a detailed article he had written titled “An Essential Guide to Enjoying US National Parks Responsibly”.
 
Since we were relaxing inside (after shoveling all that snow) we read Liam’s article. That got us even more motivated to think about planning a trip, so we decided to take a look at where all the US National Parks are located and compare that to the list of those that we have already visited. As always, the internet is a wonderful source of information.
 
So here’s what our research found. There are actually 424 locations that fall under the National Park Service; 63 National Parks, 85 National Monuments, 76 National Historic sites, 58 National Historic Parks and 142 other locations categorized in a variety of different ways.

Here’s a good map of where the 63 US National Parks are located (from morethanjustparks.com) and another showing all 424 locations under the National Park Service (from nationalparkobsessed.com) – which is marvelously interactive on their website:

​Part of our problem is that we’ve been so many places (admittedly a good problem to have), and the vast majority of the US National Parks are located West of the Mississippi (although there are lots of other NPS sites in the East) – so we have to travel a good distance to get there. Here’s our list of what we’ve visited so far looks like. So I guess that we really need to head back to the Northwest US next.

​So, back to the article that started all of our research. Liam’s article is quite extensive, covering the value of spending time outdoors in US National Parks (including a look at why we feel so good outside), why US National Parks are some of the most amazing outdoor spaces and how to enjoy them safely. 

Since there’s so much information included in the article it’s been structured into four main sections, each with a wide variety of facts, details and links to other online sources.

• The value of spending time outdoors
• Insights into popular US National Parks
• Spending your time responsibly
• Useful links and resources

Some of the detailed information in Liam’s article that we appreciated was:

• The many physical and mental health benefits of spending time in nature, such as reducing stress and anxiety, which can be helpful after enduring months of lockdowns and travel restrictions.
• The interactive map showing highlights and useful insights into the top National Parks.
• A listing of the most visited National Parks.
• Commentary on conservation and how to act while visiting delicate locations.
• How to enjoy the great outdoors more responsibly by practicing the “The Seven Principles of Leave No Trace” (a topic that we’ve written about several times), camping and wildlife safety and fire prevention awareness.
• Plenty of useful tips, practical advice and other resources to help you stay safe in the parks while enjoying them

As an aside, Liam’s article cites the statistic that the average American spends 87% of their time indoors, 6% of it in a car and just 7% of their life outdoors. Thankfully we are nowhere close to that……...
 
Because Liam’s article has some great information, we thought that we would pass it on to all of you. Hopefully you enjoy it, and find its content as useful as we did. Here's the link again:

https://www.loveholidays.com/holidays/enjoying-us-national-parks-responsibly/

Like most websites, ever since we launched our Hiking, Camping and Shooting (HCS) website we’ve tracked the statistics to see who our readers are, where they’re located and what they read. Since 2021 recently finished we thought that we would share some of our latest statistics from the year with all of you.
 
In 2021 our readership increased by 32% and came from 112 different Countries from around the world. We had an increase of 10% of our readers coming from countries outside of the US, but 77% or our readers still came from the United States. The largest concentrations outside the US were from the following 20 Countries:

We have readers from all 50 of the United States - with the largest concentrations being in the following 20 States:

​The 35 pages and blog posts that people read the most during 2021 were:

Like 2020, in 2021 we had more page views on our "Shooting" pages than either our "Hiking" or "Camping" pages. Probably because of the craziness of 2021, and the fact that approximately 38.9 million new firearms were sold in the United States during the year.

The majority of our users look at our website between the hours of 10:00 AM and 1:00 AM.

​Most of our readers find us either by searching on Google (82%) or by previously having been to our website and coming directly to us (13%). A much smaller percentage (5%), find us through other sources to include our Hiking, Camping and Shooting Facebook page.

​The majority of our users view our website from either their mobile device (55%) or their desktop computer (43%) using either Chrome (51%) or Safari (37%) browsers.

​Since we launched our website back in April 2016 we've had people from 143 different countries stop by with 79% coming from the US and the other 21% from all over the World. The top 25 international countries and the top 25 US States are:

​Hopefully this data shows you that  in 2021 you were in good company as you read through our Hiking, Camping and Shooting gear write-ups and blog posts. We hope that they gave you some information that made all of your adventures a little more fun. Wherever you’re from, we’re glad that you stopped by to look over our HCS website and look forward to seeing you again in 2022.