Sand dunes are like giant sandboxes for big kids to play in and hike on, so we came up with a list of our favorites from across the National Park Service (NPS) System. Unlike most NPS backcountry trails, dogs are allowed on many of these dunes if they are leashed and picked up after.
The only thing that is nearly as fun as visiting National Parks is reading about them. Here is a list of our 10 favorite non-fiction books that cover multiple units of the National Park Service (NPS) System. Our previous list was limited to those set in a single park.
10. Hey Ranger! True Tales of Humor and Misadventure from America’s National Parks by Jim Burnett (2012) Like the historic Oh, Ranger! books, this one covers the lighter side of interactions between NPS employees and tourists.
9. Before They’re Gone: A Family’s Year-Long Quest to Explore America’s Most Endangered National Parks by Michael Lanza (2012) The writer travels to some of the most imperiled National Parks with his family to experience them before they are permanently altered by climate change.
8. Lassoing the Sun: A Year in America’s National Parks by Mark Woods (2016) This Florida journalist received a grant to explore National Parks across the United States of America and brings an interesting perspective on them.
7. The Good Rain: Across Time and Terrain in the Pacific Northwest by Timothy Egan (1990) The author visits many National Park Service sites in this good introduction for outsiders to the landscapes and people of Washington and Oregon.
6. Travels in the Greater Yellowstone by Jack Turner (2008) The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem also includes Grand Teton National Park and John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Memorial Parkway, and this is an interesting journey across its many corners by an always opinionated and interesting writer.
5. Desert Time: A Journey through the American Southwest by Diana Kappel-Smith (1992) The author’s pencil illustrations add a wonderful layer to her vivid descriptions of American deserts from Idaho to Texas, including numerous National Park Service units.
4. House of Rain: Tracking a Vanished Civilization across the American Southwest by Craig Childs (2007) Craig Childs has written several great non-fiction books set in the Southwest U.S. This one describes the world of the Ancestral Puebloan (formerly called Anasazi) people at multiple sites including Chaco Culture National Historical Park, Aztec Ruins National Monument, and Mesa Verde National Park.
3. The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons by John Wesley Powell (1874) The author, a one-armed Civil War veteran, led the first expedition down the unmapped and untamed Green and Colorado Rivers through the Grand Canyon in 1869.
2. Leave Only Footprints: My Acadia-to-Zion Journey through Every National Park
by Conor Knighton (2020)
During the NPS centennial year in 2016, this TV reporter visited all 59 National Parks (now there are 63).
…and finally our #1 non-fiction book set in multiple National Parks:
1. Our National Parks by John Muir (1901) Famous preservationist John Muir wrote many colorful descriptions of America’s wonderlands in his books (especially his beloved Yosemite), but none covers as wide a range as Our National Parks.
Honorable Mentions Travels with Charlie in Search of America by John Steinbeck (1962) Perhaps a bit dated now, but this is a cherished travelogue from a national treasure.
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed (2012) The Pacific Crest Trail crosses many parks in the National Park Service System and is considered an affiliated unit. This sometimes painful-to-read autobiography contains beautiful descriptions of the natural landscape.
My Wild Life: A Memoir of Adventures within America’s National Parks by Roland H. Wauer (2014) The first half of this autobiography of a National Park Ranger is an interesting look at research in Big Bend, Death Valley, and other National Parks before devolving into his life list of international bird species.
We have not stayed at many campgrounds in National Parks, but enough to have had bad experiences in noisy Zion and Yosemite. This is our ranking of the top 10 National Park campgrounds with running water (as opposed to those with vault toilets that we ranked separately).
The spots are close together, but it has a great location at the trailhead for Guadalupe Peak and not far from Carlsbad Caverns National Park (without a campground) across the border in New Mexico.
There is nothing like a great novel, especially one set in a National Park. Here is a list of our 10 favorite fiction books set in a unit of the National Park Service System. Our previous list covered non-fiction books.
Hiaasen sets all of his funny novels in South Florida (including the wonderful children’s book Hoot). We have read several, but this is our favorite with swamps, subtropical islands, alligators, and a dive from a cruise boat.
Island of the Blue Dolphins
by Scott O’Dell (1960)
Channel Islands National Park
A Newbery Medal Winner that tells the story of a girl marooned for 18 years in the Channel Islands off California in the 1800s. Based loosely on a true story.
Winter Study
by Nevada Barr (2008)
Isle Royale National Park
Ranger Anna Pigeon mysteries are a staple in most National Park bookstores. They are entertaining and we always learn about something new, like wolf research and hypothermia prevention in this one.
Long before it became a National Park, cave tours were led by slaves in Kentucky. This children’s book also deals with the cave’s brief history as an infirmary for tuberculosis patients.
Misty of Chincoteague
by Marguerite Henry (1947)
Assateague Island National Seashore
A classic about a wild pony that grows up on Assateague and Chincoteague Islands on the Atlantic border of Maryland and Virginia. She also wrote the excellent Brighty of the Grand Canyon.
Humans are not main characters in this imaginative novel that details the happenings in the lives of the many animals inhabiting this California forest.
Historical fiction follows the decades of changes experienced by a woman who is exiled to the leper colony on the isolated Kalaupapa Peninsula of Moloka’i Island in Hawai’i. Alan Brennert’s Moloka’i is a similar book.
This novel is set in the years prior to the creation of the park when ruthless logging companies rushed to maximize their profits. Also a feature film starring Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper.
The greatest Western novelist ever turned his attention to a wildlife manager on the North Rim of the canyon in the wake of World War I. Another of his works set in a National Park is Boulder Dam (Lake Mead National Recreation Area).
…and finally our #1 novel set in a National Park!
The Killer Angels
by Michael Shaara (1974)
Gettysburg National Military Park
Narratives of the momentous events at Gettysburg in July 1863 told from the point-of-view of some of its most prominent players. Arguably the best work of historical fiction ever written.
Tom Robbins is hilarious. His books are character driven (like the unforgettable Sissy Hankshaw with her oversized thumbs) but the South Dakota setting is also important to this book.
The only thing that is nearly as fun as being in a National Park is reading about one. Here is a list of our 10 favorite non-fiction books set specifically in one unit of the National Park Service system. Our next list will include those that cover multiple parks.
There are many great books written about this oldest of all National Parks (including the bestselling Death in Yellowstone), but none is as funny as the one written by this globetrotting travel writer.
Wildlife biologist Adolph Murie was invited to Alaska by the National Park Service in 1939-40 to study the diverse species inhabiting Mt. McKinley National Park (as it was known at the time).
Also on our Top 10 Non-Fiction Books on Wildlife, this is one of the best books about bears ever written, it dispels myths based on a lifetime of close observation in Alaska.
Whoever said scientists can’t have any fun conducting research needs to read this exciting book about the ecologists that climb 300 feet up redwood trees in California.
Many National Park Rangers have written memoirs, but this is by far the best one. Written about a time before the red rock wonderland around Moab, Utah became the zoo it is today.
The journal of Richard Proenneke who homesteaded a remote part of the Alaska Peninsula before Lake Clark National Park and Preserve was created around it in 1980. There is also an excellent documentary of the same title.
An epic combination of history and biography about the men and women who run the Colorado River through Arizona’s Grand Canyon (which was the setting for the author’s 2024 work A Walk in the Park)
…and finally our number one Non-Fiction Book Set in a National Park:
The last frontier may well be beneath our feet. This true adventure of cave exploration is written in a very matter-of-fact way, yet is still a page turner.
The Appalachian Trail is counted as one of the 430+ units in the National Park Service System, and this is the funniest book ever written about backpacking it (or part of it).
Start your U.S. National Forests, National Parks, and National Monuments adventure here!
Raven About The Parks 