Theodore Roosevelt travel tips

Seeing wildlife is one of the best parts of exploring a national park, but officials are warning travelers it’s important to always keep a safe distance.

Jun 17, 2024 • 9 min read

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THIS ARTICLE IS ADAPTED FROM THE FEBRUARY 17, 2024, EDITION OF GASTRO OBSCURA’S FAVORITE THINGS NEWSLETTER. YOU CAN SIGN UP HERE .

“My favorite state has not yet been invented. It will be called Montana, and it will be perfect.” Abraham Lincoln said this shortly after Montana became a United States territory, but about 25 years before it became a state. It is also one of the things that stayed with Senior Video Producer Matt Paco well after his weeklong trip to Montana to film the video for this year’s Best in Travel. 

In earlier eras, notables such as Theodore Roosevelt, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Thoreau, Emerson, Sinclair Lewis held court on the grounds of Troutbeck, a private estate since the 1700s in the eastern stretch of the Hudson Valley. These days, since reopening as a resort in 2017, the property is still a cultural gathering place on its 250 acre, Lower Berkshires spread but now the guests are mostly serenity seeking New Yorkers up from the city a two hour drive or train ride away. (Out of staters also fly into Stewart International Airport an hour away). And there are new additions and others in the works to attract them all.

The National Park Service warned travelers this week to stay away from bull elk in Yellowstone National Park as they enter their fall mating season.

Google is among the platforms that have informed the European Union that it meets the definition of being a “gatekeeper,” and Booking.com stated this week that it expects to meet that criteria “at the end of 2023.”

You pass so close to towering red rock canyons in southern Utah that you expect to hear scraping or see sparks as you glide by. They loom so dramatically over you that you stare without blinking. And if you’re on board the train Rocky Mountaineer, you have glass domed and sided coaches to take it all in, all of the majestic landscape on the Rockies to Red Rocks journey between Moab, Utah and Denver.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park has closed a park road due to bear activity during a time when the animals are foraging for food.

The National Park Service (NPS) is advising visitors to proceed with extra caution as two people were recently injured after interactions with wild bison at both Yellowstone National Park, and Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  On Monday, a woman from Arizona was charged and gored by a bison at Yellowstone National Park.