A woman got proposed to in the hospital after she was gored by a bison at Yellowstone National Park

Already valued at an estimated $185 billion, the worldwide ecotourism segment is expected to exceed $374 billion in global impact within the decade.

In the century-plus since its inception in 1910, Glacier National Park in northwest Montana — the Crown of the Continent — has seen drastic changes. 

America’s coastal areas don’t have a monopoly on great beaches . . . or groovy beach towns.

The chance to spot a bear, bison, or bald eagle in the wild is one of the major reasons travelers visit the United States’ 63 national parks. You might assume that a megafauna mecca like Yellowstone National Park would offer the best odds of seeing multiple animals. 

When the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) proposed drastic hikes to admission fees last fall, the reaction was swift and negative. It seems the NPS heard what people will saying.

Soon after the turn of the 20th century, rumors began making their way west that man-eating lizards, 10 feet long and weighing up to 350 pounds, with fearsome talons, chain mail scales, and serrated teeth dripping with venom, had been found living on a remote Indonesian island. The source of the reports was Lieutenant Jacques Karel Henri van Steyn van Hensbroek, a Dutch colonial officer, who revealed the existence of Varanus komodoensis, the world's largest extant reptile, in 1910. But it was a 1926 American Museum of Natural History expedition to capture live specimens, led by a flamboyant Vanderbilt scion named William Douglas Burden, that caused interest in the creature to explode in popular culture. Burden's gripping account, Dragon Lizards of Komodo, inspired his friend Merian C. Cooper to dream up the primordial Skull Island for his classic 1933 film, King Kong. Civilization was steaming forward, and yet, in that era, the map still seemed to hold places that hid ancient secrets.

Glacier National Park is one of the most gorgeous parks in the national park system. The sprawling park is in northern Montana and is home to some of the oldest glaciers in the US — not to mention wildlife like grizzly and brown bears, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, pumas, wolves, elk, moose, and more. The park has gorgeous day hikes running between half a mile or 20 miles, and some of the best backcountry backpacking in the US. You can even hike from the US into Waterton Lakes National Park, the attached national park just on the other side of the US-Canada border.

Winter is a magical time to visit Tetonia and Driggs, Idaho, when the region transforms into a snowy wonderland with endless opportunities for outdoor winter activities. On a recent trip, we stayed at the Teton Peaks Resort in Tetonia, which served as the perfect homebase for all our cool (pun intended) adventures.

Tsingy National Park (full name: The Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park) is a national park in Madagascar. The name “tsingy” comes from a Malagasy word meaning “walking on tiptoes,” which is an apt description of the landscape of the park. It is known for its unique karst formations, formed by rain that dissolved the soft limestone over time, creating sharp, rocky spires.

Airbnb’s list of the most-wishlisted stays in every state will have you dreaming of a vacation away from home. To enjoy several of these Airbnb properties without having to travel cross-country, we’ve compiled the most wishlisted, coolest Airbnbs in the Pacific Northwest and routed them for you in this handy road trip guide. Pack up and be ready to be awed because these stays are as unique as their views are picturesque. (And if you’d rather spend some time in the Midwest, we’ve got you covered there, too)

Winter may not seem like the ideal time to visit the wilds of a national park, but really there’s no bad time to enjoy the beauty of America’s public lands. Some national parks in temperate or even tropical climates are better to visit in winter when they’re free from the scalding heat of summer. If you don’t mind the potential for a bit of snow, you’ll enjoy relative quiet in some of the larger parks visited en masse during warmer months.

For most travelers, there are a few trips considered bucket list must-dos: seeing the northern lights, sleeping in a tropical over-water bungalow, and walking through Times Square in New York City are just a few. And for many, one of those dream trips is also taking an African safari.