meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
Dear Bob and Sue: A National Parks Podcast

Bonus Episode: How much it costs to visit all 62 national parks

Dear Bob and Sue: A National Parks Podcast

Matt and Karen Smith

Society & Culture, Nature, Personal Journals, Places & Travel, Science

5.0 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 13 August 2020

⏱️ 54 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It is by far the most frequent question we get from readers and listeners: How much did it cost you to visit all 62 national parks? This bonus episode is essentially a detailed mail bag response to this very question. While we know everyone’s expenses will be different based on where they live, where they stay in and around the parks, how they get there, and how long they spend in each park, in this episode we discuss what it cost us to visit them. We also provide some tips on how to plan a journey to all the national parks and a few ways to save money along the way. Some topics we discuss include: Brief overview on the categories of costs incurred when visiting the parks How we planned our journey to all the parks How much it cost us to visit all of them A discussion of another couple’s accounting of their costs when visiting all of the parks (see link below) Some ideas about how to group parks together into a single trip to save on travel costs How we find lodging, hikes, and hidden gems along the way And more! Links to more information: Map showing the order in which we visited the 59 national parks (We completed our tour in 2012 when there were 59 parks; today there are 62.) NPS map of all the National Park units Link to the NPS map site with further links to many of the NPS publications Blog post where Lauren and Steven provide details of how much it cost them to visit all 62 national parks in 2019 Where to learn more about our books and travels Join the conversation on Facebook - we want to hear from you! Check out our Instagram account Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

A woman wrote into us and she said she wanted to go to all the parks and what's the secret?

0:05.9

I guess she meant the secret to having somebody else pay for it.

0:09.8

So there was no secret.

0:11.9

We don't have a secret if anyone has a secret out there please let us know. This is the Dear Bob and Sioux Podcast, are stories of adventures and misadventures

0:34.6

as we traveled to all of the US National Parks

0:37.5

and other public lands.

0:39.0

I'm Karen Smith.

0:40.4

And I'm Matt Smith.

0:41.8

We're the authors of the Dear Bob and Sioux series of books.

0:45.0

We're taking a little break now to do a few of our favorite summer hikes, camping, and wilderness

0:49.6

backpacking. But we'll be back with new full-length episodes in September.

0:54.0

In the meantime, though, we wanted to record this bonus episode to answer some of the most frequently

0:59.2

asked questions we get from readers and listeners about how much it costs to visit all of the

1:05.2

national parks and how best to plan a trip to see them all.

1:08.8

We hope you enjoy this summer extra. So Matt, you realize that this bonus episode is kind of like one big giant mailbag.

1:22.0

I know you like the mail bag. I love the mail bag.

1:25.7

We can just change the name of the podcast to Carrie's mailbag. Can we do that?

1:31.9

Carrie?

1:33.0

I think we could.

1:34.0

K-Gold.

1:35.0

We should start another podcast.

1:37.0

We should.

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Matt and Karen Smith, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Matt and Karen Smith and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.