{"id":4096,"date":"2018-08-07T03:16:30","date_gmt":"2018-08-07T10:16:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/?p=4096"},"modified":"2018-08-17T03:58:35","modified_gmt":"2018-08-17T10:58:35","slug":"find-the-closest-national-park-with-these-3-free-resources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/2018\/08\/07\/find-the-closest-national-park-with-these-3-free-resources\/","title":{"rendered":"Find the Closest National Park with these 3 FREE Resources"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Labor Day Weekend is coming up and it&#8217;s a perfect time to plan your next road trip to one of our country&#8217;s National Parks! But with 60 National Parks and 417 National Park units in total, how can you find the closest one? Here are 3 great FREE resources to help you find your next National Park adventure!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/mini_divider.jpg\" alt=\"mini_divider\" width=\"216\" height=\"42\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2908\" \/><\/p>\n<h2>Voronoi Map Showing the Closest National Park<\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"960\" height=\"752\" src=\"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/voronoimap_nationalparks_Small.jpg\" style='width:100%;' class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-4099\" srcset=\"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/voronoimap_nationalparks_Small.jpg 960w, https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/voronoimap_nationalparks_Small-300x235.jpg 300w, https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/voronoimap_nationalparks_Small-768x602.jpg 768w, https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/voronoimap_nationalparks_Small-830x650.jpg 830w, https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/voronoimap_nationalparks_Small-230x180.jpg 230w, https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/voronoimap_nationalparks_Small-350x274.jpg 350w, https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/voronoimap_nationalparks_Small-480x376.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A Voronoi diagram &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Voronoi_diagram\">is a partitioning of a plane into regions based on distance to points in a specific subset of the plane.<\/a>&#8221; In other words, a cool diagram showing you the closest National Park to where you are. So for our family, who lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, the closest National Park to us based on this diagram is Congaree National Park. While this may just be a mathematical plotting of distances with little regard to actual driving time, it is still a pretty cool map to see and quickly get a layout of how National parks are dispersed across the country. <\/p>\n<h4>Find <em>your<\/em> park here: <a href=\"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/voronoimap_nationalparks_large.jpg\">Voronoi Diagram of National Parks<\/a>!<\/h4>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/mini_divider.jpg\" alt=\"mini_divider\" width=\"216\" height=\"42\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2908\" \/><\/p>\n<h2>The Explore Parks Map from the National Park Foundation<\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"680\" src=\"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Map_59_NationalParks-1.jpg\" alt=\"Map_59_NationalParks\" style='width:100%;' class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-3384\" srcset=\"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Map_59_NationalParks-1.jpg 600w, https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Map_59_NationalParks-1-265x300.jpg 265w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>There are over 400 units of the National Park Service but only 60 of them are considered National Parks. <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/List_of_the_United_States_National_Park_System_official_units\">For a full list of the many different types of Official National Park units visit this page<\/a>. When planning our family&#8217;s next adventure I typically center my planning around visiting a specific National Park from the list of 60. The best way to do that is to use <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalparks.org\/explore-parks\/all-parks\">this map and feature on the National Park Foundation website<\/a>. You can search by park name, a region of the country, or state.<\/p>\n<h4>Find <em>your<\/em> park here: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalparks.org\/explore-parks\/all-parks\">https:\/\/www.nationalparks.org\/explore-parks\/all-parks<\/a>!<\/h4>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/mini_divider.jpg\" alt=\"mini_divider\" width=\"216\" height=\"42\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2908\" \/><\/p>\n<h2>The National Park Service Find Your Park Page<\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"604\" src=\"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/National_Park_Service_Website_FindAPark.jpg\" alt=\"National_Park_Service_Website_FindAPark\" style='width:100%;'  class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-3364\" srcset=\"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/National_Park_Service_Website_FindAPark.jpg 800w, https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/National_Park_Service_Website_FindAPark-300x227.jpg 300w, https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/National_Park_Service_Website_FindAPark-768x580.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Once I have identified the National Park we want to visit, I start familiarizing myself with the other National Park units that are nearby. The National Park Service offers a very nice page on their website that allows you to quickly and easily search National Park units by state. There are over 400 National Park units in the country and the odds are there is one near the National Park you are visiting.<\/p>\n<p>When we visited the <a href=\"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/2015\/07\/31\/prepping-for-the-great-smoky-mountains-our-next-national-park-trip\/\">Great Smoky Mountains National Park last year<\/a> we discovered the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nps.gov\/anjo\/index.htm\">Andrew Johnson National Historic Site<\/a> was less than an hour away! And earlier the year we <a href=\"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/2016\/03\/31\/5-memorable-things-from-our-trip-to-everglades-national-park\/\">visited Everglades National Park<\/a> we discovered we would be driving right past <a href=\"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/2016\/04\/14\/our-visit-to-seminole-rest-historic-site-at-canaveral-national-seashore\/\">Canaveral National Seashore<\/a> on the way home.<\/p>\n<h4>Find <em>your<\/em> park here: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nps.gov\/findapark\/index.htm\">https:\/\/www.nps.gov\/findapark\/index.htm<\/a>!<\/h4>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/mini_divider.jpg\" alt=\"mini_divider\" width=\"216\" height=\"42\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2908\" \/><br \/>\nThanks for following our family\u2019s adventures!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Labor Day Weekend is coming up and it&#8217;s a perfect time to plan your next road trip to one of our country&#8217;s National Parks! But with 60 National Parks and 417 National Park units in total, how can you find the closest one? Here are 3 great FREE resources to help you find your next [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4099,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4096"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4096"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4107,"href":"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4096\/revisions\/4107"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/followgreg.com\/gregoryng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}