Editorial standards
American Parks is an independent website about the 62 national parks of the United States. These standards state what we publish, where our information comes from and how we work. They bind the whole editorial team.
What we publish
Practical guides for every park (getting there, best time to visit, weather, hiking, lodging, wildlife, camping), road trip itineraries, trip-planning pages and a blog.
The blog carries park news (closures, conditions, alerts, reopenings), sections with advice for traveling to the USA and deals, and a magazine. Only park news stories are news articles in the strict sense: they are timestamped and tied to an official source.
Our sources
Facts about the parks come first from the National Park Service, the federal agency that manages them: press releases, alerts, official maps, visitation figures, fees. Every news story cites its source at the bottom of the article, with a link to the original document.
Weather data comes from Open-Meteo, airport data from OurAirports, mapping from OpenStreetMap and CARTO. Full credits are in the legal notice.
We do not copy press releases: we read them, keep what changes something for a visitor, and write it in our own words, in the language of the page.
How a news story is written
A story answers one question: does this change what a traveler needs to plan? If the answer is no, it is not published.
Every story has its own headline, a publication date and time with time zone, a byline, the park or parks concerned, the official source, and links to the guide pages that help with planning. One language per page: a story published in French, English, Spanish and German exists as four separate pages, linked to each other.
When a situation evolves, the story is updated at the same address with a dated note, rather than republished elsewhere.
Bylines and responsibility
Guides, itineraries and stories are signed. The authors and their beats are presented on the team page. The publication director is Jocelyn Pion, named in the legal notice.
Practical information (fees, hours, closures, permits) changes with National Park Service decisions; we date it and point to nps.gov for verification before departure.
Independence
American Parks is neither an official National Park Service website nor affiliated with it. The site sells posters in a separate shop; editorial pages are not written to sell those posters and do not depend on them.
Outbound links are chosen by the editorial team because they are useful to the reader. The blog can host outside contributions: they are reviewed, signed and held to the same rules as the rest of the site.
Errors and corrections
A reported error is checked at the source, then corrected in the text with a dated note at the bottom of the article. We do not quietly delete. The full procedure is on the Corrections page. To report an error: [email protected].