- 11 months ago
Nick McIlwain interviews author, Joe Yogerst about his book "50 States, 500 Campgrounds: Where to Go, When to Go, What to See, What to Do"
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00:00It's 93.3 WMMR in Philadelphia. It's Nick McElwain from The Preston and Steve Show, and I am here with author Joe Yogurst, and Joe has written a really interesting book about a lot of different places and campgrounds specifically to visit in this Greek country of ours. Joe, welcome to MMR.
00:14Thanks for having me.
00:16So, let's just get right into it. Tell us about the book, what inspired you to write it, and tell us about some of your travels, and where are some of your favorite places to visit?
00:25Well, COVID inspired me to write it.
00:30I was writing a book for National Geographic on global cities, and then this thing called COVID came along. Maybe you've heard of it? I don't know.
00:41I have, yes, yes, unfortunately.
00:43And they basically said, stop what you're doing, stop everything. So, they kind of furloughed me from writing for five weeks, and then they came back and said, we think everyone's going to be traveling domestically this year, as long as this thing is around.
00:57So, we want you to do a book on camping and cabins and glamping, and various iterations of that. So, it was really their idea.
01:07And so, I stopped what I was doing on the city's book and started researching campgrounds in all 50 states and Canada and Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and then went out and started visiting as many as I could.
01:19So, camping actually, and this book actually got me out of lockdown, got me out of my cabin fever mode, because I had to go on the road again.
01:29And it was camping, which made it easy, because it's kind of a, most of the time, you can be a self-contained unit.
01:37So, I started really small going to a local state park with my family, with just the old Dodge Durango, with the tent and the air mattresses and the Coleman stove and stuff.
01:49And, you know, that worked out fine. There were only two other families camped in the whole park at that point in the spring of 2020.
01:58And after that, kind of gradually picked it up from there.
02:03The next trip after that was picking up a rental RV in Utah and going to five national parks and five state parks and camping out in the RV, which was my first time for doing that.
02:15That was an interesting experience. And by then, there were a lot of people out in the parks.
02:21Places like Zion and Arches National Parks were absolutely packed, and lesser-known parks like Canyonlands and Capitol Reef were refreshingly empty still.
02:33And, yeah, I remember standing in Bryce Canyon. I remember being up on the rim of Bryce Canyon, and there were just hundreds of people looking down into the canyon.
02:41And it was even more crowded than, I think, before COVID.
02:45So, that was kind of the whole genesis of the book, was the fact that COVID came along, and my editors at National Geographic basically decided that it was better to do something on domestic.
02:58And they thought a lot of people are going to camp. It's the safest way to travel in COVID.
03:02And that's how this came about.
03:04Yeah, they were right, and you were right, and it really is an interesting phenomenon to see.
03:10Obviously, the national parks were really popular in this country and popular around the world before the pandemic, and then people needed something to do.
03:19They needed to commune with nature. They needed to get outside. They needed activities.
03:22And the national park system that we have in this country, it's a jewel, right?
03:27It's, you know, people come from around the world to see it, to see there are 62, 63 parks in the national park system, you know, the national parks themselves.
03:37That's a goal of mine, to make it to all of those at some point in my life.
03:41I've been to 44 states thus far.
03:44I want to make it to all 50, and I'd love to get to as many of the national parks as humanly possible.
03:48So, I'd like to start there in this portion of the conversation, because it's such a wonderful feature that we have in this country, being able to explore these.
04:00But you need to maintain the number of people who come in.
04:05You need to, you know, the parks themselves need to have daily maintenance.
04:09And so, it's an interesting problem to have.
04:11The problem of maybe overpopulation might not be the right way to put it, but overcrowding.
04:16So, what have you experienced, yeah, over the last couple of years, you know, seeing that type of thing?
04:21Too much popularity.
04:23Yes, yeah.
04:27What I have seen, it varies so much from park to park, and really what time of year you're going.
04:34Even before COVID, some of the parks were getting really, really crowded.
04:37And having to introduce reservation systems just to get inside the park.
04:43And I think Yosemite was one of the first to do that, to get into Yosemite Valley.
04:47It was becoming so crowded, they had to have a reservation system just to drive into the valley.
04:52But a couple of other parks, like Zion National Park in Utah, have introduced systems like that since then.
05:00Because there's just too many people.
05:01There's not enough parking.
05:02There's too many cars.
05:04And it spoils the reason why you go to the park.
05:08If you're in bumper-to-bumper traffic in the wilderness, it's the same thing as being in bumper-to-bumper traffic on a freeway back home, right?
05:15And so they have these, you know, it's unfortunate, and I don't think the park service or the rangers like it, but there's a certain number of parks now, and it seems to increase every summer, that you have to go into a lottery and get a reservation, and hopefully you get one.
05:32But campgrounds and national parks were getting crowded before COVID, and you had to, at a lot of them, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite, et cetera, you had to plan a year ahead if you wanted to camp in the park and get a reservation.
05:45And, but there's, you know, what I tell people, because I get asked this question all the time, is there's different ways you can visit the parks where you don't have to stay in the park itself.
05:59They're surrounded a lot of times by very interesting, very cool state parks, national forests with campgrounds or dispersed camping, and cool little, you know, wilderness towns that have hotels, motels, lodges, cabins, private campgrounds, things like that.
06:14And if you have a park pass, you can go in and out as much as you want, and I've done that with the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and some of the other, and Yellowstone, I've done it all.
06:24And to me, it's just as good as staying in the park itself, because you get to get some of the local flavor, meet some of the local people, and actually see a greater area of where you're going than just the park itself.
06:35The other thing I tell people is try not to go in the high season.
06:40You know, some people have to go during school holidays, they don't have a choice of taking the kids, but if you can at all get around it, go in the shoulder seasons as far out as possible.
06:50You know, like April and October, or even go in the winter.
06:55Some of these parks are even more beautiful in snow than they are in the summer.
07:00And I would encourage people to experience some of them in the winter, even if you're not a cross-country skier or a snowshoer, just to camp out or stay in a cabin and take hikes through the snow and things like that.
07:14It's a really amazing experience, and it's a whole different aspect of a park and a landscape.
07:20There are parks that everybody knows, like Yellowstone and Yosemite and Grand Canyon, and even Rocky Mountain National Park, which isn't too far from Denver, that are enormously popular, and Great Smokies in the East and Shenandoah.
07:32Let's list some of the less popular ones that might be hidden gems that you've experienced.
07:38And so, you know, I think that's a great suggestion to do it in an off-season, if and when you can, but to do a park that people don't know about as much, I think, is also a good suggestion.
07:48Well, just about any national park in Alaska, and I think there are eight of them all together.
07:54Some of them so remote, you have to fly in or boat in to get there.
07:58But even the most popular ones, like Denali, are not that crowded compared to the parks in the lower 48, you know, down south, down in the lower 48.
08:10The newest national park is close to you guys, New River National Park in West Virginia, which you can explore a number of different ways.
08:19You know, it's famous for whitewater rafting and kayaking, but it's got great hiking trails, it's got rock climbing, it's got camping, of course, other outdoor adventure sports.
08:29That's close by, and I don't think it's known to a lot of people outside the region yet, you know, the Allegheny Plateau region or West Virginia.
08:40Another new park is Indiana Dunes National Park, which is on Lake Michigan in Indiana.
08:45Some of the lesser known ones that people may have heard of, Voyageurs National Park in northern Minnesota, huge area along the Minnesota-Ontario border, a lot of lakes and rivers, a lot of canoeing and kayaking, a lot of camping.
09:02A great place to go canoe and kayak camping, but there's also drive-up campgrounds along the shore, the mainland.
09:08Some of the other ones that I really like, Olympic National Park in Washington State, which is another huge area, one of the older national parks, because it's kind of out of the way, it doesn't get as many visitors as a lot of the older parks, and it has a lot of different aspects to it.
09:29And campgrounds, you can camp in the temperate rainforest, or up on a lake on the north side, some very secluded valleys over on the east side by the Puget Sound in Seattle and Tacoma.
09:41So those are some of the ones, and then there's the kind of out-of-the-way parks that have been there forever.
09:46Lassen Volcano in northern California, which is a really cool park, way up high, 8,000 feet in the northern Sierra, Southern Cascades, Great Basin in Nevada.
09:59It's another one that not a lot of people go to because it's out in the middle of nowhere.
10:04Big Bend National Park, which I had never been to before until I did this book, and southern Texas, which I think is really, I would call it, one of my top five favorite parks now.
10:16Very cool.
10:17It's a big park.
10:18It's been there for a long time.
10:20It's far away from any city and any interstate, so it doesn't get any casual pass-through traffic.
10:26You have to want to go there, and I did a canoe camping trip there on the Rio Grande with a guide and my youngest daughter that was really amazing.
10:36That's incredible.
10:37Yeah, I was lucky enough last summer to do the three in the Pacific Northwest.
10:41I did Rainier, which I've been to before, and Olympic, which is unbelievably beautiful, and then my girlfriend and I visited North Cascades National Park as well, and I would love to get back and explore them a little bit more.
10:54One place I've been dying to camp, and I haven't done so yet, and I'm curious as to whether or not you've been there or if you have any insight, is Dry Tortugas National Park, which is west of Key West.
11:06I have been there, but I have not camped, and I have been in the campground, and I have laid my towel out and had lunch in the campground, but I didn't stay overnight.
11:17I did a day trip by seaplane from Key West.
11:21I'd love to go camping there.
11:23It is primitive camping because there are no facilities other than a restroom, and there's no place to ā well, there's a tiny little shop inside the fort, you know, the big Civil War era fort that's there right next to the campground.
11:37It's an incredible place.
11:40It's like nothing else in the United States.
11:43It really is the Caribbean, far more than Key West or the Florida Keys.
11:49You know, you have to take a ferry out there or take the seaplane and haul everything with you and be totally self-sufficient.
11:56You can haul your kayak out there, too, and go paddling to the other islands for the day.
12:00I just think it's an amazing place, and it really is the literal end of the road in Florida.
12:08People think that the Florida Keys stop in Key West, but they actually extend twice as far out to the Dry Tortugas, and it's the third longest barrier reef in the world after Australia and Belize.
12:23It's the whole Florida Keys system ending in Dry Tortuga, so incredible place if you're into tropical weather, snorkeling, scuba, kayaking, or camping on a faraway beach.
12:35Any of these places that require a little bit more effort to get to, you're going to find smaller crowds and, you know, maybe worth ā not maybe, definitely worth the trip.
12:45One that I'm trying to get to this spring is called Channel Islands National Park.
12:49That's off the coast of California.
12:51You mentioned Alaska before.
12:53There are eight or nine in Alaska.
12:54I believe there are eight or nine in California as well.
12:56Have you been to Channel Islands before?
12:58I have been there twice.
13:00I did a sea kayaking trip with my older daughter and another guide, and I went out on my own one time to a different island to see the only other stand of Torrey Pines in the world other than the one that I live next to down between San Diego and L.A.
13:17That's one of my favorites in California, too, because, again, especially if you spend the night, you can get out there to a campground like Scorpion Bay on Santa Cruz Island, and you're basically alone.
13:32And you can look across the Channel and see the twinkling lights of Santa Barbara and Ventura and L.A. in the far distance.
13:38And you're basically doing something that people have done on those islands for 10,000 years, is sleeping out under the stars on the Channel Islands.
13:49It's a great place, really magical.
13:50So I'm very excited about it.
13:51Yeah, I'm going to do the drive from Big Sur down from San Francisco through Big Sur and then get to L.A.
13:59I know we only have a limited amount of time.
14:02Are there any other campgrounds that you'd like to highlight, especially in and around the Pennsylvania area, New Jersey, Delaware, for the people who are watching from Vail?
14:11Sure. Well, it depends on, you know, what you what you're into.
14:14The Allegheny Highlands of central north central Pennsylvania have some great state parks camping, Cherry Springs and Cook Forest.
14:23Dark Skies and Cherry Springs, by the way, one of the best places for stargazing in the east.
14:29That's right. And that's what it's basically that's what it's all about is it's it was the second ever international dark sky preserve on planet Earth.
14:37So it has a very special place for astronomers, you know, Ohio Pile down in, you know, near Pittsburgh in the southwest corner.
14:45Great place, you know, waterfalls, river trips, you know, that kind of stuff.
14:49And that the little town with the with the diners in it and everything.
14:53If you're into something more with more bells and whistles, you know, Hershey Park camping resort.
14:59You know, my my kids loved it, you know, when they were small, you know, you get to camp out and you get to go to a theme park at the same time.
15:07And for me, because I like history, you know, Gettysburg, Artillery Ridge Campground, which is the closest one to the middle of Gettysburg town.
15:16And it's surrounded on three sides by the National Military Park.
15:19So there's a lot of variety. You know, there's a couple of great places up in the Poconos, too, like Keene Lake Camping Cottage Resort.
15:27So, you know, Pennsylvania has a lot of great places to camp. And what I like about it is the variety.
15:35Just very quickly, another place that, you know, you don't think of it naturally for camping is Sarah's Campground, which is up in Erie, right on Lake Erie.
15:44So you can it has a beach next to the campground so you can go beach camping in Pennsylvania.
15:48Very cool. Well, that's this is terrific information. The name of the book is 50 States, 500 Campgrounds, where to go, when to go, what to see, what to do.
15:57The author is Joe Yogers. Joe, thank you so much for spending some time with us here on MMR.
16:02Sure. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Take care.
16:05Take care. Bye bye.
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